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England National Concessionary Travel Scheme (ENCTS)

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Busaholic

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Is that cornwall residents only?
No, it is not, probably so to avoid drivers getting into arguments. When buses were free 24 hours per day for pensioners in London, anyone with the ENCTS pass was granted the same concession.
 
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Robertj21a

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I thought the councils in the popular holiday areas offset the extra ENCTS costs against the increased spend by those same tourists while on holiday?
 

markymark2000

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For me, the pass system isn't working because of the low reimbursement which 90% of the time means that pass heavy routes aren't viable and on other routes, operators are playing a game against the reimbursement algorithm which while it works off 'no better or worse off', it translates to, charge more for fares, get more reimbursement. Higher fares discourage normal passengers but it has to be done because the Conc reimbursement is so poor.

It's also because of the poor reimbursement why so many estates are unserved.


Something needs to change else it will keep killing off buses. Either govt needs to massively increase the funding or pass holders need to contribute something towards the scheme (whether that be pay per use or annual fee)
 

Simon75

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How much roughly do bus companies get per journey (in simple terms, I've tried looking it up, but it seems complicated). I know each council is different
 

Ken H

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Are you sure about this? I recently travelled on my pass from Oxenholme to Sedbergh, Sedbergh to Dent and back to Oxenholme station on a Woof's bus advertised as Western Dales Bus.
Try it on a Sunday on the longer distance Dalesbuses further east.
 
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Tetchytyke

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How much roughly do bus companies get per journey (in simple terms, I've tried looking it up, but it seems complicated). I know each council is different

Outside London, the average is £1.02 in PTE areas and £1.18 elsewhere.
 

Eyersey468

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I will be 66 in 9 months time, reaching the current state pension age, and will therefore be eligible for an ENCTS pass in England. When I took early retirement with a work pension back in 2014, it was something that I never expected to get in its current form. In these forums there were numerous comments that it was unaffordable. I fully expected that by the time I reached state pension age it would be cut back to something like half price travel or just valid in your own local authority. Does anyone here have any views about whether it will be likely to remain in its current form for the foreseeable future.

If I am correct, in England, the ENCTS pass was always linked to the female retirement age, which pre 2010 was 60. Since then it has slowly risen and is now currently 66 and will soon rise to 67. Retirement age for men and women is now the same. Therefore before 2010, men who didn’t retire until they were 65 were entitled to a pass at 60 even though they could be working full time for at least another 5 years.

Since I retired 7 years ago, whenever I have been going away on holiday in other areas of England, I have researched the availability of bus day and weekly tickets and especially multi operator tickets. I’ve got quite used to paying for weekly bus tickets when I’m on holiday and it’s taking quite a bit of getting into my head that from October I will actually have the equivalent of a free multi operator ticket for the whole of England.
I can't see the scheme being done away with or substantially changed, it would be political suicide. Far easier to squeeze the bus companies then blame them when services get withdrawn as they aren't viable
 

geoffk

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Outside London, the average is £1.02 in PTE areas and £1.18 elsewhere.
Reimbursement is often expressed as a percentage of the commercial fare, and from what I've read this has varied from 28 to 75%! This range is far more than would be explained by variations in travel generation between urban and rural areas. Determination of reimbursement rates remains a local function for each Travel Concession Authority and a variety of methods is used to assess the level of generated travel. More recently DfT has issued more prescriptive guidance which has had the effect of reducing reimbursement payments. We know that some operators have ceased trading and have cited inadequate reimbursement for ENCTS as a prime reason, e.g. Pennine Motor Services of Skipton in 2014.
 

NorthernSpirit

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Outside London, the average is £1.02 in PTE areas and £1.18 elsewhere.
It'd probably make sense to have the PTE area day tickets priced at £8.50 per adult (as with non-PTE areas that do have day tickets such as Wiltshire) to try and make up some of the cost towards the English National Concessionary Travel Pass scheme going by the figures quoted.
 

52290

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How are bus companies reimbursed when, like one company here in Lancashire, the card readers are "out of order" 80% of the time?
 

Eyersey468

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How are bus companies reimbursed when, like one company here in Lancashire, the card readers are "out of order" 80% of the time?
There is usually a manual entry function on the ticket machines
 

Deerfold

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It'd probably make sense to have the PTE area day tickets priced at £8.50 per adult (as with non-PTE areas that do have day tickets such as Wiltshire) to try and make up some of the cost towards the English National Concessionary Travel Pass scheme going by the figures quoted.
I'm not sure how that would help. Very little of the income from PTE area tickets goes to the PTE - just some to help with marketing. It would also help put people off the multi-operator tickets.
 
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