A BUS company has rebuffed pleas to change its timetable so that pensioners can use their bus passes for early morning journeys.
Driffield Town Council had asked EYMS to consider altering the timings of the Driffield to Bridlington morning bus following pleas from constituents to Coun Georgina Lucas.
Coun Lucas said current regulations mean that bus pass holders were unable to use their passes before 9.30am.
Therefore, they wanted to see the 9.23am bus re-timed by just seven minutes to leave the town at 9.30am so that their free bus passes would be accepted.
Peter Shipp, chairman of EYMS Group Limited, said he appreciated the difficulties but said that it was not possible to comply with the request.
“I appreciate that a journey timed at 9.23am does make it difficult for concessionary pass holders now that the “early bird” has been dropped, but I am afraid that it is just not possible to re-time this journey to leave Driffield at 9.30am or later.
“To do so would disrupt the route 121 timetable for the whole of the day, since journeys are quite tightly timed, and to arrive at the terminus in Scarborough seven minutes later would mean re-timing all subsequent journeys operated by that bus during the rest of the day.
“That in turn would mean re-timing all the other journeys so as to keep an even timetable.”
Mr Shipp told the Town Council: “It is legally possible for a passenger with a concessionary pass to board a bus before 9.30am – where the start time applies – and pay the normal adult fair to the first stage point which the bus will reach after 9.30am, but they must then return to the driver at that stage point and show their pass so that their concessionary journey for the rest of the route is properly recorded. As you can imagine, this is not ideal since, if a large number of passengers did this on one particular journey, it would seriously disrupt the service and it may not be easy for some passengers to walk to and from the driver’s cab area again anyway.
“However, this might be an option for those who really need to use that timed bus and cannot wait for the next one, when they would be able to use their pass for the whole journey.”