Free bus travel for children aged five to 15 arrives on participating local buses in England this August. That leaves the ticket machine with the rare administrative problem of having nothing to complain about. The Department for Transport announced the scheme on 10 July. The machine responded by placing its little metal feet on a deckchair.
From 1 to 31 August, eligible children can travel free on participating services. The department says child fares usually cost between £1 and £2. As a result, a family day out may now involve fewer coins and fewer fare calculations. It may also spare one adult from pretending to understand the fare table.
The measure forms part of the government’s Great British Summer Savings scheme. It sits alongside offers covering children’s meals, cultural venues and attractions. However, Great British Summer Savings sounds like a campaign invented by a committee trapped inside a gift shop.
Free bus travel gives the machine a break
The ticket machine is not convinced. For years, it has accepted coins, rejected coins and displayed messages that imply personal disappointment. It has also demanded instant decisions about zones nobody has heard of. Now, free bus travel asks it to do almost nothing for a whole month.
Colin Pargeter, a fictional machine maintenance supervisor, has filed a statement. He says the machine trained for complicated fare structures. It can distinguish between a child ticket, a return ticket and a ticket bought by someone who pressed the wrong button three times. Therefore, free travel leaves it with only the emergency task of making a noise when the bus is late.
That may be the most radical part of the announcement. Public services often add machinery to simple tasks. This policy temporarily removes one step. Families still need to check whether their bus operator is participating. Even so, nobody needs a calculator to work out whether a child saved £1.40 or £1.60 on the journey to the seaside.
The small print boards the bus
The scheme does not make every trip free for every passenger. It applies to children aged five to 15, runs during August and depends on participating local bus services. Those limits are less exciting than a national promise of universal everything. They do, however, have the useful advantage of being real.
By the end of the month, the ticket machine will return to duty. It will accept a coin, reject a coin and glare at a parent who asks about contactless payment. Until then, it is enjoying the first summer holiday awarded to a machine whose career has consisted of saying no. The only thing it has not cancelled is the fare table, waiting outside the deckchair with a clipboard and a grievance.
Source: GOV.UK.
