Guidance

Concessionary travel statistics, quality report: 2024

Updated 27 November 2024

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

This document supports the release of Concessionary travel statistics: year ending March 2024.

Introduction

The concessionary travel statistics publication presents figures relating to free bus travel for older and disabled people. The release also includes information on concessions on other transport modes and concessions for other groups, including young people.

This document provides explanatory information relating to concessionary travel policy in England, the data collection and analysis methodologies and notes relating to the sources and robustness of specific data tables in the release.

Concessionary travel survey

The Concessionary Travel Survey is an annual data collection ran by the Department for Transport (DfT) to gather information from Travel Concession Authorities (TCAs). The survey asks questions relating to:

• pass numbers
• concessionary journeys
• expenditure
• reimbursement
• discretionary concessions

The survey is sent to all TCAs outside London and to London Councils. The 2024 survey ran from 17 June to 10 July 2024, collecting data relating to the year ending March 2024.

Definitions

Concessionary travel schemes are administered by Travel Concession Authorities (TCAs). They typically correspond to upper-tier local authorities, so county councils, unitary authorities, the six metropolitan areas, Passenger Transport Executives (PTEs) or Integrated Transport Authorities (ITAs).

Table 1: Key events in Concessionary Travel, England

Date	Key event
Pre-1985	Ad-hoc arrangements for concessionary travel available at local authority discretion in England.
1985	Buses de-regulated outside London. Under the Transport Act 1985 Travel Concession Authorities are able to make concessions available on operator-run services.
1999	Greater London Authority Act 1999 guarantees concessionary travel in London.
2000	Statutory local half-fare minimum concession on buses for eligible older and disabled people through the Transport Act 2000 (effective 2001).
2002	Age equalisation. Pass eligibility extended to men aged 60 to 64, harmonising age threshold with women.
1 April 2006	Statutory minimum travel concession increased to free local off-peak bus travel.
1 April 2008	Statutory minimum increased to free national off-peak travel on local buses in England. This is referred to as the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme (ENCTS).
1 April 2009	Secondary legislation clarifies services eligible for the statutory concession.
6 April 2010	Start of gradual realignment of the statutory concession to pensionable age.
1 April 2011	Travel Concession Authorities moved to upper tier to manage statutory and discretionary concessions to bring about economies of scale.

Statutory concessions

In England, there is a statutory concession called the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme (ENCTS).

TCAs are required by law to reimburse bus operators for concessionary journeys made under the ENCTS which start within their boundaries, regardless of whether the concessionary passenger making the journey is resident in their area.

In London, there is a statutory concession called the Freedom Pass, which covers the whole London Local Transport Network.

Since April 2010, the eligibility age for older concessionary passes has been tied to the State Pension age for women. The pensionable age for women reached 65 in 2018 and increased to 66 for both men and women from 2020.

Disabled people of any age are eligible for a disabled concessionary pass if they meet the eligibility criteria.

Discretionary concessions

Some TCAs offer residents discretionary concessions over and above the statutory scheme. These can include reduced (or free) fares:

• outside the statutory time period
• on other transport modes, such as trams or light rail
• for young people or other targeted groups

In London, the statutory concession already covers off-peak travel on the whole London Local Transport Network for eligible residents, as well as free bus travel in England. As a discretionary concession, London residents aged 60 plus can obtain a 60 plus Oyster card, which allows free travel on bus, Tube, tram, DLR, London Overground, TfL Rail and most National Rail services.

Financial figures

Net current expenditure is the amount of money spent by TCAs on running the concessionary travel scheme in their area. This covers both the statutory and discretionary elements (if offered by the TCA), including reimbursement to bus operators, administration, pass production costs and employee costs.

Reimbursement must be calculated by TCAs and is not straightforward. The underlying principle is set out in domestic regulations, which state that operators should be left ‘no better and no worse off’ as a result of the existence of concessionary travel schemes. Therefore, the calculation includes:

• concessionary passenger journeys
• revenue forgone - an estimate of the revenue that would have been made in the absence of a scheme
• total generated journeys - additional journeys taken because of the scheme’s existence
• additional costs incurred by administering the scheme

In March 2021, 2022, and 2023, temporary statutory instruments (SI) were laid to remove the requirement that a bus operator be ‘no better off’ as a result of providing a concession. This allowed TCAs to continue to reimburse at pre-pandemic levels, should they wish. The current SI will expire in April 2024 and the underlying principle of ‘no better and no worse off’ reimbursement will be reinstated to reimburse in line with actuals.

New guidance and a concessionary calculator was published by DfT in 2023, in an effort to help authorities determine the appropriate rate of reimbursement. For authorities using the new DfT guidance and calculator it is anticipated that there will be an increase in reimbursement per journey (varying by area type). This will be offset by TCAs return to paying at actuals along with the lower levels in patronage (as compared to pre-covid). This change however is more likely to be materialise in the year ending March 2025 reported figures (in next year’s release) as more TCAs move towards this approach.

Guidance is provided to TCAs to assist with negotiating and calculating reimbursement.

Data analysis and imputation

Individual TCA figures were aggregated to produce figures at the national level and by area type (metropolitan or non-metropolitan areas).

Where figures were missing, due to question or survey non-response, they were imputed. Where needed, figures from an adjacent year have been used as a starting point for imputation and area-level (London, metropolitan or non-metropolitan) growth rates have been applied to get an estimate for the missing value.

If figures are missing for net current expenditure then these are imputed using finance figures collected by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) as part of the Revenue Outturn (RO2) and Revenue Account Budget (RA) data collections.

To apportion the total between statutory and discretionary expenditure, area-level assumptions based on the proportional split between statutory and discretionary spend were used, factoring in additional information of the discretions offered in the missing TCA if applicable.

Data quality

These figures are Official Statistics. Official Statistics are produced to the high professional standards set by the Code of Practice for Statistics. However, these statistics have not yet been assessed by the Office for Statistics Regulation.

Data collection is online through a secure website.

The validation process compares data to previous returns and following up with respondents to confirm or correct responses. This provides background on changing activities of TCAs, catches entry errors and provides an opportunity for clarification where there is ambiguity over how a specific policy relates to the given question.

Other dimensions of quality

Response rate

Responses were received by all TCAs in 2024 for pass numbers, journeys, reimbursement and total net current expenditure. However, not all TCAs were able to complete some of the more detailed questions, such as the split between statutory and discretionary expenditure.

The Concessionary Travel Survey is on the single data list as item DfT 121-00, which means that local government must submit a return.

Respondent burden

During follow up contact around the 2021 survey, respondents were asked to comment on the respondent burden of completing the survey. The burden of completing the survey varies between respondents.

Of those who provided a comment most needed less than a day of work to complete. The largest burden reported was approximately 28 hours, including time spent obtaining data from operators. The main factor contributing to heavier respondent burden was where respondents needed to obtain data from other departments or bus operators.

A further small exercise was undertaken with a few TCAs in 2023 to gathering information around responses that were queried on the quality of responses, lack of contact details and the time it took to complete the survey. The average estimated time taken to compile a response for the 2022 survey was 5 hours based on internal analysis with the longest time taken being between 12 and 14 hours.

Revisions to previous years

To reduce the burden on TCAs during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, data reporting for the year ending March 2020 was optional. This data has been included in this publication.

Figures for previous years are sometimes revised. Major revisions are marked as [r] in the published tables. Revisions take place for a number of reasons:

• improvements to the methodology for imputing missing data
• errors identified in previous survey responses that were corrected by local authorities
• improving earlier imputations with directly reported data for later years

In this year’s data collection TCAs were able to provide revised figures for certain questions in the survey. We have implemented revisions for the year ending 2023 where TCAs provided an updated figure that passed our validation processes and these have been referenced accordingly in the publication tables.

Revisions to data for previous years have typically resulted in minor changes to national totals.

For this year’s release DfT have worked with London Councils to improve the accuracy of the net current expenditure figures for London. After reviewing and updating the methodology for most years (excluding the year ending 2011 and the year ending 2012) this has led to revisions being made to the previously published figures in the accompanying tables. There is still some uncertainty with earliest years that have not been revised so caution should be taken when comparing across years.

For question 5a the following methodology has now been applied:

• estimated as total scheme cost minus the reissue cost. Hence is the total cost paid to transport operators
• the revenue is based on the average of the actual journeys made in the previous two years
• the figure uses the revenue paid in that year. Previously the original figure was taken from the previous year total settlement less the reissue cost

Essentially the new methodology for 5a relates to the same principals but the year now is the current year and not the previous year.

For the remaining questions the following methodology has been applied:

• question 5b = 5a – other concessionary (discretionary disabled + pre 9:30)
• question 5c = pre 9:30 on all modes
• question 5d = discretionary disabled passes

The lowest revenue figure was for year ending 2023 settlement when looking at the trend across all other years. This is due to the estimation based on the average of the observed journeys made in the year of July 2019 to June 2020 and July 2020 to June 2021.

During the year July 2019 to June 2020 had covid restrictions between March to June 2020 (so a quarter of that year had a 15% demand to pre-covid for the year ending 2019 and three quarters of that year had a normal demand, an overall of 73% demand). The July 2020 to June 2021 was on strict and light restrictions and the overall journey demand was around 43%. Hence the average of these two years used for the year ending 2023 settlement was 57% of the normal settlement for the year ending 2021.

Timeliness

The reporting period for these statistics is the year ending March 2024, with the policy tables covering year ending 2025. The survey results for this period were published 27 November 2024.

Financial data for local authorities are produced by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). However, only provisional data on revenue outturn has been published as of this statistical release. Due to this, estimates for net current expenditure using MHCLG data have not been produced. We plan to update the published tables in early 2025, once the second release of revenue outturn data has been published by MHCLG. Estimates from the Concessionary Travel survey are available in table BUS08d as they are collected directly from TCAs.

Population data are produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). However, the mid-2023 estimates had not published by the time of the production of the release. Due to this, the mid-2022 estimates were used to calculate older concessionary passes per hundred eligible older people for the year ending March 2024.

We plan to update the published tables at a later date, once the:

• revenue outturn data has been finalised by MHCLG
• revised mid-year estimates from the ONS can be applied to the back series

Accuracy

Returns are supplied by TCAs and validated against previous data. Where figures are missing these are imputed based on previous returns and the data for similar TCAs.

Strengths of these statistics

Consistency over time

The core questions in the survey, such as on expenditure and journeys, are consistently providing a long times series for key measures. Some questions, such as on further concessions offered have changed over time to better provide for the needs of users.

Coverage

The survey covers all Transport Concession Authorities (TCAs) in England. Two new TCAs have been included in this year’s reporting, Cumberland Council and Westmorland and Furness Council, which have replaced Cumbria from the year ending 2024 onwards.

Limitations of these statistics

Interpretation

The practical detail of the provision of concessions can lead to difficulty in assigning different activities to categories, such as additional concessions to those already eligible to ENCTS.

Respondents are provided with documentation to support the questionnaire. They are also encouraged to provide additional detail through free text responses, this helps with validation by providing explanations for changes or unusual results and can also clarify the exact nation of the TCAs activity and how it relates to the question.

Year-on-year changes in the number of concessionary passes should be treated with caution.

In some years, TCAs will perform an exercise to clean their records of people who have received duplicate passes, people who are deceased, or people who have moved out of the area.

Some local authorities have also switched from the auto-renewal of passes to only automatically renewing passes to people who had used them within a certain number of years (although anyone fulfilling the age or disability criteria would always be entitled to a pass).

Eligibility age

TCAs were asked to report the number of older and disabled concessionary passes in the authority. For most TCAs, passes are only available for older and disabled people meeting the statutory eligibility criteria, but a small number offer discretionary passes to other older and disabled people and these discretionary passes have been included in the totals reported here.

To calculate the “passes per hundred eligible older people” measures, we use the latest older population as reported by the Office for National Statistics, based on mid-year population estimates for the relevant years.

When the eligibility age is changing, it is not possible to get an exact match to the eligible population.

Table 2: Eligibility age used in these statistics for older person concessionary bus pass, England

Year ending March	Eligibility age
2010	60
2011	60.5
2012	61
2013	61.5
2014	62
2015	62.5
2016	63
2017	63.5
2018	64
2019	64.5
2020	65
2021	65.5
2022 onwards	66

As the pass numbers supplied by the TCAs were an average across the year ending March, the “eligible older population” is approximated to be the mid-point age in each of those years, for example, 63.75 at mid-2015 (for the year ending March 2018).

Other data sources for concessionary travel

National Travel Survey

The National Travel Survey (NTS) is the primary source of data on personal travel patterns, based on a sample of households in England. As part of the survey, individuals are asked whether they hold a concessionary travel pass.

Based on the latest data from the NTS, the pass take-up rate for older people in England was 65% of the eligible population in 2023.

In the Concessionary Travel (CT) Survey, TCAs reported that there were 7.8 million older passes in England in the year ending March 2024, corresponding to an apparent “take-up rate” of 75% (BUS08a) . This higher rate is largely due to the imputation of some CT Survey estimates, sampling error around NTS estimates and the imprecision of the population estimates in the calculation of CT Survey take-up rates.

A similar comparison for disabled passes is not possible, as only a very small number of these are recorded within the NTS sample.

Annual bus statistics

DfT collects and publishes a range of other bus statistics, largely based on the annual survey of Public Service Vehicle (PSV) operators. DfT collects data on the number of concessionary bus journeys from a sample of operators and scales up to give national level statistics. Available figures include passenger journeys and operator finance.

Data back to the year ending March 2008 of all concessionary bus journeys, including youth concessionary journeys, can be accessed from table BUS01.

At the national level, the journeys totals are broadly consistent. The discrepancies for metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas are also small. The difference for London is larger. There can be differences in the trends in these two series. There may be differences in how journeys are recorded by PSV operators and local authorities, coverage of the surveys and by necessity, differences in the way that missing data are imputed.

Concessionary travel for other modes of transport

The Concessionary Travel Survey includes questions on policies relating to other modes of transport. The information is published in BUS08_policy.

Data on concessionary journeys on light rail and tram systems is collected as part of DfT’s Light Rail and Tram Survey, including concessionary journeys and reimbursement revenue by light rail system.

Uses of the statistics

Within DfT, these statistics are used:

• to understand the impact of changes to the concessionary travel scheme and reimbursement guidance
• for ministerial briefing
• to answer public enquiries

Other users include TCAs and others with an interest in concessionary travel, such as campaign groups, bus operators and specialist transport press.

We would welcome any feedback on these statistics, please contact bus statistics.

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