In praise of the bus pass -- for oldies

I must declare an interest on this one. When I am actually 60 in a few months time, the thing I am looking forward to is going down to the station to get my Senior Rail Card (I had rather hoped one would come as a present, but apparently you cant actually get one until you have passed the big day -- no getting them ready in advance.) On the completely practical side, it allows you to get cheap fares on the 9.15 to London, when with the Network Railcard you have wait till 10.15. How good is that?

Anyway, yesterday morning as we lay in bed, listening to the news about the likely demise of the senior bus pass, the husband said that there was something more to this, than just giving free travel to pensioners who could afford it anyway. Wasn't it actually subsidising the bus companies to run routes that they woud otherwise say were uneconomical? So wasn't it good for us all (even on a selfish definition)?

I have to confess I pinched the thought and tweeted this "truth" (as it seemed to me), partly to check out that this really was the case -- which it does seem to be, at least according to the Twittersphere. I think that the bus company gets a payment for every journey taken on a pass. And this indeed is one important support for keeping "uneconomical" routes working.

But I fell to thinking too about all the other simply economic benefits of the pass that get forgotten.

As some tweeters pointed out, you had to add into the equation the benefit of keeping some of the very old out of their cars (in which some -- lets be honest -- are dangerous). If the ninety year old pluses can just hop on a bus into town, doesn't that both help the planet and prevent a few likely accidents.

Then again, what about the benefit to the care bill (and the economy more generally) of encouraging the elderly out and about to visit friends and relatives, pubs and tea-shops? One half of government agencies are waxing lyrical about the virtues of keeping the old active (there's no surer way of being on the path to needing "care" than sitting at home all day) --  when the other half is busy taking the bus pass away.

OK you might say, why give a bus pass to those who could afford the fare anyway, or afford to buy one, like the railcard? Well, there are several answers to that. First is the expense of means testing the damn thing. Second is the positive encouragement that having a pass gives to people who probably wouldnt otherwise hop on the local bus (feedback loop into the other advantages I just mentioned).

I have no idea how you begin to really price the bus pass, taking account eg  of the potential savings to the care bill, ambulance and traffic costs etc. But I am damned sure that there is not much attempt to go beyond the headline book-keeping costs of the thing, under one budgetary heading only.

Which is typically unjoined up. It's rather like "saving" on home care costs -- which trims the budget to Social Services, while having people stay in vastly more expensive acute hospital care for days and days (because they cant be sent home, because there's no home care, etc etc).

It's just not thinking things through.