(14 Jun 2016, 10:24 pm)Deleted wrote 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.

I must admit that recently when travelling on buses at (pm) school times, kids haven't been as bad as in the past - but I put that down to where I live. I can't agree with the "rubbish" (ie. Metro newspapers) as this seems to depend more on the weather than anything - with soggy papers strewn everywhere by 0900 on a wet day, but still in the rack on dry days. Tickets strewn across the floor is very rare nowadays. As regards OAPs giving up their "entiltlement", you forget that many are travelling to/from medical appointments which dictate the times the travel. Also, justified or not, most feel they should be home before the kids come out of school at 1430, not just due to their perceived behaviour but because of the increase in traffic.
As with the Metro (Light rail not free paper) situation I raised earlier, I also suspect there are different Educational policies and budget responsibilities in different areas. In GM, school services are paid for out of the TFGM budget, alongside mainstream subsidised services, and in fact cost almost as much as the latter. The Local Education Authorities don't contribute in any way shape or form. Indeed, going back to the misbehaviour argument - the LEA's motto is "Nowt to do with us, once they are outside the school gates".