June 15th 10, 09:05 PM
posted to uk.transport.buses,uk.transport.london
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: May 2008
Posts: 278
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Senior Pass acceptance
"Mizter T" wrote in message
...
On Jun 15, 6:10 pm, "Graham Harrison"
wrote:
[snip]
Whoa.....
If I (with a Somerset County Council pass) travel on a London bus using
that
pass, who pays? [...]
The underlying principle of ENCTS is that the local authority in which
the journey takes place (or at least starts in) pays.
The arrangements in London are a bit different to the rest of England,
as (pretty much all) local bus are regulated and operate under
contract to TfL. The London Boroughs collectively (all 32 of them,
plus the City of London Corporation) - pay TfL a sum for concessionary
travel, whilst this has always covered concessionary travel for
Londoners (under the London Freedom Pass scheme) my understanding is
that this payment now also covers concessionary travel for ENCTS pass
holders from outwith London, as per the principle I outlined above.
(This collective payment from the Boroughs to TfL is actually made
through "London Councils", which is the local government association
for London, who manage the concessionary travel scheme on behalf of
the Boroughs.)
Based on what happened to me when I did it the driver made
no attempt to determine where I was from and unless he was Superman I
doubt
very much if he was able to read the pass given that it was in the bit of
my
wallet with a little window which obscured the pass enough for him to see
it
was a pass and the date on it but not much more. Oh and I didn't go out
of
my way to shove it under his nose I just flashed and he seemed quite
happy
with that.
My understanding is that at present the amount of concessionary travel
that happens on London's bus network is actually assessed by surveys
done by TfL in association with London Councils, rather than as a
result of feedback from button presses on the bus ticket machine.
Indeed I don't think (though couldn't say for certain) there's a
specific button that gets pressed to register an ENCTS pass is
presented - I *think* it's just the generic 'TfL pass' button. (If
you're quick you might be able to see what is shown on the ticket
machine's LCD display - "LRT pass" is I think still the generic
description associated with this.)
As and when the smartcard readers on London's buses are upgraded to be
ITSO compatible (as at present they can only read 'Oyster-type'
cards), then TfL will be able to require ENCTS pass holders to 'touch-
in' just like Oyster card users, and with London Councils will be able
to analyse data for concessionary travel usage and patterns far more
precisely. But we're not there yet.
With regards to the contractual payments made to the actual bus
operator by TfL for running the service, then this won't have anything
to do with how many passengers were travelling using concessionary
passes. TfL pays bus operators on a broadly gross cost basis under a
scheme called "Quality Incentive Contracts", under which TfL takes the
full revenue risk and operators don't keep any of the farebox takings.
As you can see, this element is very different to the deregulated bus
world outside London.
Incidentally, if you wish to know more about how things operate in
London, then TfL produced this primer document entitled "London"s Bus
Contracting and Tendering Process" which outlines it all - see (PDF):
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/businessan...ing-feb-09.pdf
or via http://tinyurl.com/a7ar39
Thank you one and all.
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