Ticketing and Concessionary Travel on Public Transport - United ...

Transport Committee: Evidence Ev 111
For the Tamar Valley Line the last year of the Wessex franchise produced 111k passengers (single
passenger trips), of whom 15.8% were over 60 <strong>and</strong> yielded £213k in fares revenue. Concession eligible
passengers would include some groups other than pensioners <strong>and</strong> using 16% would yield 17,760 journeys,
rounding up to 18K should produce a conservative estimate. The average fare is £1.92, so reimbursement to
the TOC if those journeys were free would be £34.6k pa. (£14.4k of which falls on WDBC—see Appendix 7)
Grossing this to the 50 CRs should obviously not be done by multiplying the TVL cost by 50 as the CRs
vary in length (<strong>and</strong> therefore average fare) <strong>and</strong> use level. The train-miles operated on a CR will reflect
frequency of the trains, which should crudely reflect use level <strong>and</strong> the mileage element should reflect journey
length/average fare. It is assumed that the % of pensioners in the population across the 50 CRs is not too
dissimilar to that of TVL. The only other estimate of the cost of concession fares on CRs known to the
author is from TAITH for the Conwy Valley Line <strong>and</strong> the Welsh section of the Borderline. The CVL figure
was £57k.
The author deduced the train-miles for each CR at the time of publication of CRDS. To test the idea that
the cost of concession fares could be proportional to train-miles the value of CVL/TVL is 2.29 for trainmiles
<strong>and</strong> 1.65 for the cost of concession reimbursement. The figures will never be exactly equal as any two
CRs will have slightly diVerent % pensioners, diVerent alternative bus services, access to stations etc. but
both values being within 0.35 around a value of two lends some support to the hypothesis. Without better
data an alternative estimate is not possible but a range can be put on the estimate by using CVL <strong>and</strong> TVL
separately as well as combined. The 50,420 train-miles used are for one day from the Mon/Fri timetable at
the time of CRDS publication.
TVL Estimate £34.6k x (50420/240) % £7.2 million.
CVL Estimate £57.0k x (50420/550) % £5.2 million.
Combined Estimate £91.6k x (50420/790) % £5.9m
Hence, the central estimate would be taken as £5.9 million but the range should be borne in mind.
However, this central estimate is likely to be an over estimate of the total “new public money” needed, for
two reasons.
1. If concession fares are oVered on CRs there will be some transfer of concession use from bus to CR.
Appendix 5 shows that local rail fares are cheaper than bus in most cases. Thus the total reimbursement to
bus <strong>and</strong> CR operators should show a net reduction
2. About 20% of CRs are located in areas identified in Appendix 4 <strong>and</strong> already enjoy concession fares.
Expenditure here would not be “new public money”.
Quantifying the eVect of these two factors is not easy <strong>and</strong> the result should be viewed with caution. If the
use level of the 20% of CRs already having concession fares were that of the average CR, the “new money”
central estimate would be closer to £4.8 million. Appendix 5 shows that for Devon & Cornwall CRs the
average saving to the concession budgets for each pass holder switching from bus to CR is £1.75. Lack of
data makes an estimate of the likely level of bus to CR switching diYcult but a switch of one million journeys
pa from bus to the 50 CRs would reduce the “new money” bill to only just over £3 million. Paragraph 35
shows that transfer levels can be high (46%) when measured in the other direction.
Share of Costs
APPENDIX 7
SHARE OF TVL CONCESSION COST BETWEEN CARADON AND WDBC AND
GENERATION OF PASSENGERS
The total estimate (Appendix 6) of the cost of free concession fares on TVL of £34.6k pa is based on all
18k concession passengers. If all CRs are included in an UK wide local bus <strong>and</strong> local tracked mode scheme,
all 18k (plus uncompensated generated use) passengers would be eligible for concession travel. If this doesn’t
occur quickly <strong>and</strong> Caradon <strong>and</strong> WDBC can be persuaded to make a local ’add on’ of TVL, the share of the
cost between the two would be of interest.
Some of the 18k concession passengers are leisure travellers from Plymouth <strong>and</strong> beyond but the majority
are residents along TVL. A conservative estimate is made by assuming that all 18k concession passengers
are from the two council’s areas. The passenger split overall Caradon:WDBC is 55:45 <strong>and</strong> is assumed the
same for concession use. The oV-peak day return fare from Gunnislake <strong>and</strong> Calstock (in Caradon) are the
same at £4.00. Bere Alston <strong>and</strong> Bere Ferres (in WDBC) have the same oV-peak return at £3.50.
Caradon costs should exceed WDBC costs by a factor of (55/45)x(400/350)%1.4
Caradon cost £34.6k x (1.4/2.4)%£20.2k
WDBC cost £34.6k x (1.0/2.4)%£14.4k