Wednesday 2 March 2016

North Lincolnshire Concessionary Fare Scheme Update

A report to the North Lincolnshire Council Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods offers an alternative option to the new concessionary fare reimbursement scheme approved in January. The new scheme, based on a Department for Transport (DfT) model, would mean a lower reimbursement rate for operators, which Stagecoach and Hornsby indicated could cause tendered services to be handed back, and commercial services to be cut.

The alternative option is to defer the proposed to changes for one year. A "review of the use of concessionary services by eligible customers" would still result in savings of £115,000, while a year's delay would allow further consideration of bus operators concerns, and allow for the Call Connect network across North Lincolnshire to be established during this year. Bus operators provided assurances that retaining the current reimbursement scheme would seem them "continue with the existing transport routes", albeit before the savings of £115,000 were found.

The issue caused by the alternative option is that the savings are less than the £200,000 expected with the DfT model, and less than the £250,000 savings target in the council's budget. Therefore savings in other budgets will be needed regardless of the reimbursement scheme chosen, but these will be £85,000 higher if the DfT model is not introduced.


5 comments:

Vic Green said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Joe said...

Big News today.
At the 'Try a Bus Day' event in soaking wet Grimsby (where I got a Simplibus Bag, Simplibus Pen, Simlibus Cardholder etc) a new Grimsby Timetable is out!

Services on the 1,2, & 20 are to change from April 2nd. They will all run Monday to Friday service on Saturdays! The 2 doesn't even run on Saturdays now.

Also the Humber Flyer diversion due to roadworks on a bridge near Humberside Airport will end on the 14th of March after seamingly decades of disruption. So normal route (with the Barnetby not being served due to other roadworks bit excluded). But now a 1910 Hull to Grimsby bus has been added!!

Also the new Simplibus timetable shows a 9s service on schooldays now which looks to be new also.

Humber Transport said...

Good news about the 1/2/20. I will cover the Humber Flyer in a new post later this week

Sam Boothby said...

Re your post Joe, the 'new' 9/9S timetable has been in operation since the last timetable change back in November however it was not changed in the initial guides that were released. Version 2 guides have since been released (which also include a revision to the info about concessionary scheme) which show the correct times for the route 9. The changes that occurred back in November saw the 9/10 Waltham-North Sea Lane run two minutes earlier from Riverhead Exchange onwards (changed from departing on the 02/17/32/47 to the 00/15/30/45), I have had dealings with Stagecoach over the incorrect timetable being released for the 9/10!
The 9S does North Sea Lane-Scartho as normal, then runs down to Toll Bar School then round to Waltham village, missing out the Springfield estate in the process.

Joe said...

Thanks Sam.