Why is Nothing Ever Simple?

What could be simpler than giving away free bus travel? Surely, once you've qualified for a pass you just take it with you, get on the bus and go?  The pass has to be checked, to make sure it's valid and that it belongs to the person presenting it, but that can't be too difficult can it?

Well, so far in my experience of travelling around the country to and from wherever I've happened to leave Starcross I've come across twelve different ways of using my pass, which is supposedly part of a National Concessionary Travel Scheme and I've been expected to be familiar with all of them.

One of the barriers to bus travel, at least for occasional users, is knowing the fare, having the right money and generally interacting with drivers who are so used to regular passengers that they expect everyone to know the rules. The Concessionary Bus Pass should take away all these problems: instead it adds to them!

The rest of this post was originally written for my other blog: The Man on the Lancaster Omnibus.

You can read it here.