(23 Oct 2018, 8:44 pm)Tamesider wrote You've (inadvertantly) highlighted something else about travel patterns amongst ENCTS and non-commuters in general. In such as GM, Long distance and/or Express services barely exist. I would say the vast majority of Concessionaries travel between 1 and 5 miles - certainly in the eastern half of the county where few services are longer than about 8 miles (which I'm guessing is shorter than your erstwhile Scarborough Express) and average bus speeds are in single figures, even off-peak. OTOH, I rarely see these "one-stoppers" or anything like. Equally, I'm not sure many Concessionaries travel more than three round trips a week to make a £6 ticket worthwhile. Even with the removal of actual time restrictions, many elderly people still don't like encountering boisterous schoolchildren, so the "window of oppurtunity" isn't very big once low frequencies, slow journeys and times at destinations are factored in.

I think your observation points to another ENCTS flaw. ENCTS is fine on journeys such as say the 168 (TFGM) or 309 (NEXUS) where the route is A-B-C-D and a large bus is theoretically able to fill its capacity several times over en-route as passengers make intermediate journeys, perhaps ENCTS holders are even more likely to do so as they may be more inclined to make practical journeys to their nearest supermarket/post office/medical centre. The same theory applies to the other type of urban route, the local shuttle - 38 (TFGM, Ashton) or 53/54 (NEXUS), whereby buses are on short circuits, constantly generating new fares. 

Where ENCTS falls down is on the longer distance service, say the X61 Manchester - Blackpool or even Durham - Scarborough. Both could carry very good loads, but as the nature of the service means the the driver, the bus and its diesel are all occupied for vast amounts of time without any new fares (or ENCTS pass beeps) being collected. This is fine if passengers are all paying their way (hence the expansion of megabus and Snap), but a full bus can literally run at a loss if it's full of ENCTS who are effectively invisible under the 'no better or worse off' rule.