A few weeks ago I wrote about concessionary passes and the burden they place on Local Authorities. Ever since then I’ve been stewing on the injustice of these passes. Every weekday we pick up commuters destined for the rail station and the commute to London where they probably earn +/-GBP90,000 per annum but because they’ll only be working for another 5 years (and earning GBP450,000 in this time) they travel free of charge! On the same bus there can be unemployed school leavers who are travelling to a job interview but they’ve got to pay full fare. How can that be fair?

The route I normally drive from Winchester to Salisbury is one that no bus company would run as a commercial service because the cost of operation would outweigh passenger revenue, hence it is subsidised by the County Council. Today, on one trip, I had 26 passengers onboard and every single one was travelling on a concessionary pass! So the County Council are paying Stagecoach to run the service and then paying more for every passenger on the bus!! It would cost Council Tax payers less if the Council only paid the subsidy to Stagecoach and told them to run the bus run empty!!

I had a chuckle to myself yesterday when a concessionary pass holder boarded in Winchester and I told them that Winchester passes only allowed free travel after 09:00. “What choices do I have?” asked the intending passenger. “You can either pay the 80 pence fare for the journey from the rail station to the hospital or wait for a bus after 09:00”. “I’ll wait” was the response without any hint of a Scot’s accent :-)