Travel to Work - New Concessionary Bus Passes in England

[Jim Morey]

Hello,

Here is an anomaly which may affect those who currently use concessionary travel passes when commuting to work:

Many visually-impaired people are eligible for some form of concessionary bus travel within the district in which they live. From April this year, new legislation will come into effect in England which will enable all residents over 60 and people who are registered disabled to travel free of charge on any off-peak bus service within England (separate schemes already exist for residents of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland).

However, in many parts of England regional schemes currently exist which permit Blind people to travel free all day. These will be superseded by the new scheme in April. Blind people who currently enjoy free travel to work in the peak hours will no longer be able to travel free before 9:30am on a weekday. This could have implications for working Visually-Impaired persons for whom free / discounted travel is a strong economic factor in determining the location and type of work they can do.

Obviously, the introduction of free travel across England will be a boon to many. Also, the current system is not consistent. However, personally-speaking, I shall be inconvenienced by the time restrictions that will be part of the new scheme. However, I am keen to find out if many others will also be adversely affected by the change.

Best regards,

Jim

[Jim Morey]

Hello,

I posted this topic on the forum about 4 months ago. I have also emailed my concerns to the local council and to various organisations which deal with VI issues. In addition, Paul has kindly put some words about the subject in the recent edition of ‘Focus’.

There has been very little response from individuals or organisations about the new concessionary travel scheme. Does this mean that the recent changes to the scheme (now in operation for nearly two months) have adversely affected only a relatively small number of people?

Perhaps it could be deduced from this that few people with serious visual impairments use a concessionary pass to travel to work by bus during peak periods.

Also, I know that there still exists in some regions of England, local schemes which allow unrestricted travel for VI users, including outside the jurisdiction of their immediate local authority area (which is my own problem). There are also some places which never had much of a concession n the first place, so the current national scheme is an improvement.

Maybe this just means that a relatively low proportion of people with serious visual impairments actually have full time jobs!

Jim

[Sofie]

Where I live, blind people can still travel free before 9.30am. They've now changed it so that partially sighted people have to pay before 9.30am, which I'm not too happy about.

[Helen]

I live in Notts and it's always been the case that people eligible for a disabled persons pass could travel before 9.30 half price and free after that and anytime at the weekends. Before 2006 however, people registered partially sighted or blind (and folks with other disabilities presumably) who were in reciept of mobility allowance were ineligible for this authority's bus pass. This doesn't apply under the new scheme thankfully.

I guess they think going by bus/train to work is cheaper than car anyway, so maybe that's part of the reason, or maybe people have mobility allowance for travel, but of course some of us need to travel for all kinds of reasons other than going to work (I don't work myself).

I guess it's a congestion issue too. I try to avoid public transport before 9.30 as it's so crowded and often people ignore my white stick so I get bounced around the other folks having to stand as my balance is useless. The other day, a young man stood up, a young woman thanked him and sat down. He said he'd stood up for me. She just shrugged her shoulders!