BUS PASS RESTRICTIONS ARE BACK

The restriction whereby Concessionary Bus Passes cannot be used for free travel before 09.30 on Monday to Friday is coming back.  Use of the pass during the morning peak travel period has been allowed since March to allow passholders to make best use of the reduced bus services operating in the county.

However, with services now returning to normal, or nearly normal, and social-distancing rules reducing the number of passengers buses can carry by 75% bus operators are concerned that as more people begin travelling their services will be unable to cope.

Lancashire County Council has therefore issued the following notice to take effect from
Monday, 15th June

As lockdown is further reduced and non-essential retail starts to open from 15 June concern has been raised by operators that they may struggle to meet demand at peak times and have requested that the pre 0930 concession is now withdrawn. This is not only to create some capacity, on a socially distanced bus even one seat being used by a pass holder could prevent a worker being carried, but potentially more importantly on public health grounds. With demand increasing there is real concern that the current lifting of restrictions now risks those most vulnerable to Covid-19 being more exposed as the rush hours become busier and social distancing harder to maintain.

Following these requests Blackburn with Darwen Council, Blackpool Council and Lancashire County Council have considered this and have agreed to reinstate the 0930 concession restriction, and this should take effect from Monday 15th June 2020. Therefore from Monday 15th June 2020 ENCTS, NoWcard pass holders will be required to pay full fare for travel before 0930.

The Council notice also confirms that holders of Disabled Persons Passes will be able to travel before 09.30 on Monday to Friday on payment of a £1 fare.


The change will also apply in the North Yorkshire County Council area, where the restriction ends at 09.00. 

Cumbria County Council had previously announced that it would review the restriction at the end of July.

BUG Steps in to Keep Passengers Informed

The government's additional funding to keep bus services operating during the Covid pandemic comes with a few strings attached.  One of these is that bus operators should take steps to keep passengers informed of changes to services by all the usual means.
Our local operators have been good at keeping their websites up to date, although as most of the usual outlets for paper timetable leaflets are closed, we haven't seen any updated timetable booklets yet.

But the government's guidelines include keeping roadside timetable cases up to date and in Lancashire these fall under the remit of the county council who have been letting the side down, having diverted all the staff resources usually assigned to this task to other duties.

Ironically, now that Stagecoach has restored normal service to most of its routes from 1st June, many of the Council's timetable cases that were wrong have now become correct again - although some minor changes that have been made won't be shown. But in some cases, especially the 7, 49, 55, 80 and 81, the new timetables are completely different from before and the roadside displays are now more misleading than ever.

The BUG would love to help put matters right and in a small way we have been able to.  On the North Yorkshire section of service 80, between Bentham and Ingleton, neither the County Council nor Stagecoach were particularly interested in keeping displays updated, so the people at Dales Bus - who organise the summer Sunday services to the Dales (not running this year of course) -   have taken it upon themselves to maintain them. We offered to help and so, following changes to service 80 from Monday, we have been out and about making sure that residents of Bentham know when to expect a bus.

BUG Volunteers updating timetables in Bentham

Of course, the Lancashire section of service 80 also has a new timetable and the changes on the 81 between Lancaster and Kirkby Lonsdale are even greater, so the BUG just hopes that Lancashire County Council and/or Stagecoach will soon be able to fulfil their obligations to keep the travelling public fully informed of the services available to them.