(14 Jun 2016, 8:27 pm)Tamesider wrote Children may not have their own income, but the parents will have. Also, "pensioners" are reducing in number overall as etirement Age gets closer to Life Expectancy. Further, Pensioners don't damage buses and initimidate other passengers........and unless suffering from serious disability, they solely use mainstream buses wheras many school chikdren use  heavily subsidised bespoke services. 

The trouble is quite a percentage of these children that are walking to school are just left to fend for themselves by the parents. Lots of children are brought up by parents that believe that any benifit they receive for the child is to be spent on alcohol, cigarettes or any other substance that they need to get-by. Thats why I believe that the schools should be responsible for the administration of child fare permits and they should be valid for free travel before and after school with the cost coming from the ENCTS budgets. 
 
You might be surprised to hear that in a recent industry survey 90% of drivers would rather have school children than pensioners onboard. The days of school children causing problems or damage to vehicles is also long gone. In the north east it's common knowledge that buses are reasonably tidy until just after 0930 then the rubbish starts to build up. Take a look at the used tickets disposed of on the floors, I guarantee you 95% will be ENCTS issued tickets.
It's not to much to ask for pensioners to give up two hours of there entitlement so the bus passengers of the future can have the benefit of free travel under what ever circumstances it is.