Is it time to scrap ENTCS completely?

yorksrob said:

Indeed. Every year, me and the family get the bus from Penzance to Moushole. Two of us on bus passes, two (or three) paying full fare to get to one of the most picturesque villages in the country. On it's way, the same bus provides a vital link to residential areas on the outskirts of Penzance.

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Excellent point. If my mother and father didn't have bus passes, on the occasions I travel on a bus with them we just wouldn't use the bus. We'd drive or get a taxi, so the bus wouldn't get my fare and there'd be another unnecessary car journey.

mmh said:

Excellent point. If my mother and father didn't have bus passes, on the occasions I travel on a bus with them we just wouldn't use the bus. We'd drive or get a taxi, so the bus wouldn't get my fare and there'd be another unnecessary car journey.

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Absolutely. The bus pass actively supports the local economy.

mmh said:

I'll freely admit I don't know the ins and outs of how bus passes are funded, but I also know my sympathy for the idea that high fares aren't the fault of bus companies but pensioners using buses is very limited by my own experience.

In my local area, we have two operators. Arriva Buses Wales, a subsidiary of a massive multi-national conglomerate, and Llew Jones, a small coach business from Llanrwst. Arriva's record is to whack up fares, remove return fares, buy out competition to get rid of them and announce routes are unprofitable and bin them with no notice. Llew Jones on the other hand can somehow run buses with fares half the price of Arriva. On the parts of their routes where they parallel Arriva routes people actively go out of the way to use them rather than Arriva.

My heart isn't bleeding very much for these poor hard done by big bus company monopolies.

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You mean like Pennine Motor Services who closed partly because of a 20% cut in ENCTS reimbursement (as well as competition)? Or the complaints of Peter Shipp of then family owned EYMS?

Still, you could have Padarn Bus or KMP who survived because they fiddled concessionary passes...?

A good summary of how ENCTS was funded and how it changed is this from TAS

It costs approximately £1.3 billion per annum to provide the statutory free local bus travel concession in England. This is a significant increase since the concession was introduced. Over the years there has been a lot of debate about the adequacy of the funding for first the discretionary and then, after 2001, the statutory, bus concession schemes. This became particularly acute after changes in 2009 to the mechanism for calculating the allocations to local authorities.

The most recent change followed the decision to wrap up funding for the statutory concessionary bus pass with the Formula Grant from April 2011. Towards the end of 2010 the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) consulted on how the transfer of responsibility for concessionary travel would be taken into account in authorities' funding allocations from 2011/12.

Between 2008 and 2011 the Department for Transport provided a special grant, totalling just over £650 million, to local authorities to pay for the statutory concession. However, the majority of funding was provided by CLG through Formula Grant. Since 1 April 2011, all funding has been through the Formula Grant.

So the funding was insufficient at the start.

When it was then rolled into the formula grant, it comes out of the single pot of money given to local authorities so hence why other services have been cut to support the statutory ENCTS funding. And the Formula Grant has subsequently been reduced as well!

yorksrob said:

And how do you know that your notional Hartlepool tourists haven't paid ? They might have fewer paying tourists than Cornwall, but they will also have fewer bus pass tourists than Cornwall.

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Really? Pass holders voluntarily keeping their pass in their pocket..... I find that hard to believe.

yorksrob said:

I'm sorry, but if the single fare is hefty, as in the Cumbrian case, then the reimbursement will be proportionately large.

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Clearly you missed this that another poster has provided...

"I worked for an operator in Cumbria, and now work for an operator who claims commercially from 2 other authorities. The reimbursement rate in Cumbria IS 58% of the adult single fare for the journey taken. If the operator sells return tickets in addition to single tickets then the reimbursement received is discounted by 10%, and if the operator sells day tickets it is discounted by 20%. There is no discount for weekly/monthly/termly/annual passes. No averages of fares sold to calculate a rate per concession, no DfT reimbursement calculator, it is as simple as that, 58% of the shadow fare for the journey taken. If the concession passenger is travelling from Dalston to Carlisle as an example, which I believe was £6 single during 2019, the operator received £3.48 from Cumbria CC for that passenger trip.

As a result some operators do have very expensive single fares, meaning quite a handsome return from the council and buses that are largely concessionary passengers only. This is where the high average concession reimbursement comes from compared to other areas who take an average of cash tickets sold across single, return (return price divided by 2), day (day price divided by 4) and week (weekly price divided by 12) to work out an average ticket price then discount that by 58% (as an example) to get a rate per concession. The RPC often gets multiplied by an expected number of concessions based on previous years data to give an operator a "reimbursement offer" for the year, paid to the operator in 12 equal amounts throughout the year."

ENCTS has pushed the single fare up because of the way in which reimbursement is worked out.

The idea was that you would have more ENCTS passengers and that they would use empty capacity and so it would be of virtually no cost to the operators - the reimbursement being for revenue foregone.

As TAS provided to the House of Commons:

"The subsidy for concessionary fares lies with the user (passholder) and not with the service provider (operator). Operators are not subsidised by concessionary fare schemes. Legally, any bus operator accepting an ENCTS pass for travel should be left ‘no better off and no worse off’ as a result of accepting the pass for travel. As such, the operators are reimbursed by the local authority for revenue forgone and additional costs incurred such as extra resources to meet increased demand from passholders and administrative costs.

Under ENCTS it is left to each TCA to calculate and advertise its own reimbursement factor, that is, the percentage of the full fare which the operator receives. This is the opposite of the situation in Scotland and Wales where a nationwide reimbursement factor applies. The percentage reimbursement differs widely across England and is the subject of much debate. It is, however, notable that as local authority budgets have been stretched, the reimbursement factors have fallen."

The reality is that has changed. Reimbursement no longer covered costs and so services were either cut and/or single fares increased to get the reimbursement up, thus disadvantaging less-regular bus users.

TheGrandWazoo said:

This is exactly the point I've been making. If people think this doesn't happen, they're in denial.

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One Wednesday morning before the 930 was scrapped here, I worked the 0935, 87 service from Newquay. I was full to my capacity by the Barrowfield hotel (106 on a MMC, 83 on a trident inclusive of standees). I had my full capacity on many trips on the 1005 to Padstow last summer too.

Geordie driver said:

The negative ramifications are due to the way the system is currently implemented, the govt. could change this should they wish?

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Indeed ENCTS funding is rolled into the Formula Grant- subject to successive cuts by central Government- and so central Government could sort it. Realistically you'd need to treble funding.

This doesn't solve the issue of funding socially necessary journeys.

You'll see in the north east how the bus network has contracted. Arriva have pretty much pulled out of rural Northumberland, County Durham and North Yorkshire. Go aren't much better in County Durham. Stagecoach have pretty much binned all the estate buses in Newcastle.

Bletchleyite said:

It also encourages older people to give up their cars, which is a safety, environmental and congestion benefit for everyone.

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There is no evidence to suggest this is the case at all. What they may do is reduce their car usage slightly, where the buses go where they want to go when they want to go there.

Pensioners visiting Cornwall and the Lakes will have driven there and will drive whilst there, except for the usual tourist rides on the 599, etc. If ENCTS disappeared overnight they would still tourist there and still do the usual tourist rides on the 599.

My solution? You only get an ENCTS pass if you no longer own a driving licence.

I apologise if miss understood, but unless you have a tap in/out system how does it work for example Arriva Greenline 724 Harlow to Heathrow. How would it work out for someone travelling Harlow to Ware verses Harlow to Heathrow

yorksrob said:

Absolutely. The bus pass actively supports the local economy.

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Actually this is likely to be the opposite for this example. If the bus pass wasn't used and a taxi was the local economy would benefit more, even if a car was used the benefit would have to take into account if the car was fueled locally and if car parking was paid for. If the bus pass is used it costs the local council money whereas they may benefit from the car parking charge!

carlberry said:

Actually this is likely to be the opposite for this example. If the bus pass wasn't used and a taxi was the local economy would benefit more, even if a car was used the benefit would have to take into account if the car was fueled locally and if car parking was paid for. If the bus pass is used it costs the local council money whereas they may benefit from the car parking charge!

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But then you have to factor in the negative congestion effects of the taxi or the car, pollution, etc. There are far less damaging ways to stimulate the local economy, like providing free public transport.

carlberry said:

Actually this is likely to be the opposite for this example. If the bus pass wasn't used and a taxi was the local economy would benefit more, even if a car was used the benefit would have to take into account if the car was fueled locally and if car parking was paid for. If the bus pass is used it costs the local council money whereas they may benefit from the car parking charge!

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If the bus pass was not available, it is likely that many journeys would not be made at all; people would travel only out of absolute necessity, meaning fewer trips to shops in nearby towns, and in some cases, people would do more internet shopping, leading to even greater decline in town centre shopping areas.

Others might continue to drive cars, even if they had become medically unfit to drive. What is needed is for central government to fully fund the bus pass scheme - since they devised the scheme. Whilst they pass the buck to local authorities, the situation for bus operators is likely to continue to get worse.

Simon75 said:

I apologise if miss understood, but unless you have a tap in/out system how does it work for example Arriva Greenline 724 Harlow to Heathrow. How would it work out for someone travelling Harlow to Ware verses Harlow to Heathrow

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I believe some operators ask for a specific destination. In other cases, it might just be estimated based on past experience (perhaps 20% of Harlow passengers go to Ware, 15% to Watford, 15% to Heathrow, and so on).

mmh said:

I'll freely admit I don't know the ins and outs of how bus passes are funded, but I also know my sympathy for the idea that high fares aren't the fault of bus companies but pensioners using buses is very limited by my own experience.

In my local area, we have two operators. Arriva Buses Wales, a subsidiary of a massive multi-national conglomerate, and Llew Jones, a small coach business from Llanrwst. Arriva's record is to whack up fares, remove return fares, buy out competition to get rid of them and announce routes are unprofitable and bin them with no notice. Llew Jones on the other hand can somehow run buses with fares half the price of Arriva. On the parts of their routes where they parallel Arriva routes people actively go out of the way to use them rather than Arriva.

My heart isn't bleeding very much for these poor hard done by big bus company monopolies.

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I don't think what happens in Wales has anything to do with the way passes in England operate.

Deerfold said:

I don't think what happens in Wales has anything to do with the way passes in England operate.

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Knowing the incompetence of the Welsh assembly their scheme is probably even worse funded...

Samuel88 said:

Knowing the incompetence of the Welsh assembly their scheme is probably even worse funded...

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I don't know either way. Do you have any knowledge of their scheme?

TheGrandWazoo said:

Still, you could have Padarn Bus or KMP who survived because they fiddled concessionary passes...?

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I'm not sure I understand the relevance here; an operator committed fraud, was detected and no longer exists. Surely you're not suggesting that in order to undercut fares an operator must be fiddling?

mmh said:

I'm not sure I understand the relevance here; an operator committed fraud, was detected and no longer exists. Surely you're not suggesting that in order to undercut fares an operator must be fiddling?

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And, both being well into Wales, neither would be accepting ENTCS pases.

mmh said:

I'm not sure I understand the relevance here; an operator committed fraud, was detected and no longer exists. Surely you're not suggesting that in order to undercut fares an operator must be fiddling?

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No, not at all.

Merely redressing the balance about big nasty monopolistic groups vs. those plucky honest independents. Not all of the latter were as wholesome as suggested and if anywhere highlights that, it was the posters’ home area!!