Guidance

Managing the English national concessionary travel scheme (ENCTS)

Updated 10 July 2024

Applies to England

Introduction 

The English national concessionary travel scheme (ENCTS) provides free local bus travel to eligible older people and eligible disabled people on bus services in England.

Locally, the scheme is administered by travel concession authorities (TCAs). This guidance is to help TCAs to administer the scheme. It provides details on eligibility, discretionary concessions and issuing of passes.

The ENCTS is enshrined in primary legislation through the Transport Act 1985, the Transport Act 2000 (as modified by the Concessionary Bus Travel Act 2007) and the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (GLA act 1999). 

The mandatory bus concessions may be supplemented with additional concessions at the discretion of a TCA under section 93 of the Transport Act 1985. For example, a TCA can choose to offer free travel before 9:30am for ENCTS passholders within its geography. 

This guidance applies only to England. Concessionary travel is a devolved policy area, and legislation and assessment of eligibility regarding concessionary travel in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are matters for the appropriate devolved administration. 

Eligibility 

Eligible people 

There are 2 broad categories of people eligible for a statutory concession – older people and eligible disabled people. 

Both men and women are eligible for concessionary travel in England when they reach state pension age.

Eligibility for concessionary travel may vary depending on local authorities and the specific terms of the concessionary travel scheme in place. Members of the public should check with local authorities or relevant government agencies for the most up-to-date information on eligibility criteria for concessionary travel. 

Legislation defines 7 categories of disabled people who are entitled to the statutory minimum concession: 

• is blind or partially sighted 
• is profoundly or severely deaf 
• is without speech 
• has a disability, or has suffered an injury, which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his or her ability to walk 
• does not have arms or has long-term loss of the use of both arms 
• has a learning disability, that is, a state of arrested or incomplete development of mind which includes significant impairment of intelligence and social functioning 
• would, if he or she applied for the grant of a licence to drive a motor vehicle under Part III of the Road Traffic Act 1988, have his/her application refused pursuant to section 92 of the act (physical fitness) otherwise than on the ground of persistent misuse of drugs or alcohol 

DfT has produced guidance for local authorities to assess the eligibility of disabled people in England for the ENCTS. 

Eligible services 

The ENCTS applies on eligible local bus services as defined by the ‘Travel concessions (eligible services) order 2002 as amended by the ‘Travel concessions (eligible services) (amendment) order 2009’. 

The 2009 amendment order explicitly excludes certain types of services that are outside of the spirit of the mandatory national concession, with the aim of reducing, the potential for any confusion over which services areas eligible. The following types of services are excluded from the mandatory concession: 

• services on which the majority of seats can be reserved in advance of travel (such as coaches) 
• services that are intended to run for a period of less than 6 consecutive weeks 
• services operated primarily for the purposes of tourism or because of the historical interest of the vehicle 
• bus substitution (rail replacement) services 
• services where the fare charged by the operator has a special amenity element 

Geographical coverage 

The ‘Concessionary bus travel act 2007’ entitles eligible people who are resident in England to travel on any eligible service within England for free. 

TCAs are required by law to reimburse bus operators for carrying concessionary passengers. In respect of the mandatory concession, TCAs must reimburse bus operators for all concessionary journeys starting within their boundaries on a ‘no better and no worse off’ basis, regardless of where the concessionary passholder making the journey is resident. Further guidance on reimbursement arrangements is available. 

TCAs that border Wales or Scotland can use their existing powers to offer travel across the border on a discretionary basis based on their assessment of local need and their overall financial priorities. Discretionary concessionary travel schemes will need to be agreed between the relevant TCA in England and the relevant Welsh of Scottish authority. When making cross-border arrangements, TCAs should also be mindful of the differing ages of eligibility that now exist in the different countries. 

Timings 

The ENCTS allows all passholders free bus travel on eligible services:

• between 9:30am and 11pm on weekdays
• all day at weekends and on bank holidays

TCAs are able to offer concessionary travel outside these hours on a discretionary basis. 

The concessionary travel arrangements for older and disabled people in London are different from those in the rest of England. The statutory minimum concession in London is set out in the GLA Act 1999.

In London, the statutory minimum hours at which the travel concession must be provided are:

• between 9:30am and 4:30am on weekdays 
• all day at weekends and bank holidays

Residency 

The ‘Concessionary bus travel act 2007’ specifies that TCAs must issue an ENCTS pass to an eligible person whose sole or principal residence is in the authority’s area. 

Concessionary travel legislation makes no reference to nationality but to ‘residents’. Foreign nationals living in England who have met the residency requirements of the ‘Concessionary bus travel act 2007’ would be eligible. A foreign national visitor on a short stay visa or visiting England for business or holiday is not a resident and is not eligible for an ENCTS pass. 

The concession in England is not available to those whose principal residence is overseas (or in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland), whether or not the person holds a British passport. 

Eligible persons who reside in more than one residence in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland should apply for a travel concession pass only with the TCA that they reside in most of the time. 

Good practice would indicate that a signed declaration from an applicant is one way to assist fair application of the ‘sole or principle residence criteria’. If you are a TCA that does not currently collect such a declaration, you may wish to consider including it in future application forms. 

Alternative concessionary arrangements 

Discretionary concessions 

Under section 93 of the Transport Act 1985, local authorities have powers to offer certain additional local concessions, such as: 

• to under 16s 
• free travel before 9:30am 
• a 50% (or other) discount before 9:30am 
• free travel for any person travelling as the companion of a disabled person 
• free, or reduced-rate, travel on other modes of transport 

These discretionary concessions will need to be provided and funded from local resources, such as council tax, based on a local authority’s judgement of local needs and its overall financial priorities. 

Authorities can only give an ENCTS pass to people who meet the criteria set out in the legislation for the statutory minimum concession or those who meet the criteria for discretionary concessions as set out in section 93 of the Transport Act 1985. They can offer local benefits to people who do not qualify for an ENCTS pass but these local benefits should be offered through a pass that uses a design that is clearly different from the ENCTS pass. 

DfT recommends that local authorities should:

• seek their own legal advice when creating, withdrawing or amending such policies
• be mindful of the impact that any changes to the concessions on offer may have on their residents and other stakeholders and keep them appropriately informed during the process

Authorities should also ensure that they comply with their own disability equality schemes. 

Alternative schemes  

In addition to the mandatory bus concession, TCAs are also able to offer discretionary concessionary travel schemes, that is, schemes which go beyond the statutory minimum in one or more respects. This does not require a separate scheme to be created. 

As set out in the Travel Concession Scheme Regulations (1986), the proposed arrangements for discretionary concessionary travel schemes must be published by the TCA at least 28 days before the scheme commences. It should be clear to operators from the published details what concessions they will be required to offer including the timing and amount of reimbursement that they can expect to receive. 

Enhanced benefits can be given to all residents who are eligible for the national concession, or to subgroups (such as blind people). They can be given within a scheme area or sub-scheme area and, at the authority’s discretion, on cross boundary journeys, and journeys in the vicinity of the scheme area. 

Section 145a (9) of the ‘Transport act 2000’ allows TCAs to provide an alternative scheme whereby a person eligible for the statutory minimum concession may agree with the TCA to surrender their right to their ENCTS pass for a period in return for travel concessions under a different scheme, such as travel tokens or a railcard. 

The person concerned can opt for the alternative even if it would generally be of lower value than the statutory minimum bus concession. 

In cases where local authorities envisage offering a scheme (such as a token scheme) as an alternative to the statutory minimum, rather than in addition to it, they will need to ensure that the information provided about the alternative scheme makes clear to those participating in it that they do so on the basis that they have accepted it as an alternative to their rights to the statutory minimum (the national bus concession) and not as an addition to those rights. 

It should be noted that local authorities are not under an obligation to offer an alternative scheme, nor are their residents able to require them to offer it. It should also be noted that even where a TCA does offer an alternative to the national bus concession to their own residents, they are still obliged to reimburse bus operators for all concessionaires using the ENCTS pass (including non-residents) for journeys starting in their area. 

ENCTS passes 

Issuing passes

As a minimum, each ENCTS pass must show the name/logo of the issuing authority. The maximum expiry date that can be set is 5 years. 

ENCTS passes are to be issued free of charge. The legislation does not require the applicant to be fully indemnified for the cost of providing his/her photograph – nor for any signed medical certification, or any postage on his or her application. 

Bus operators must grant the statutory minimum concession to eligible persons. The purpose of imposing on the authority a duty to issue ENCTS passes is to enable concessionaires to provide evidence to bus operators of their entitlement. 

There is no provision in the legislation about safe keeping and it is DfT’s view that it is the ENCTS passholder’s responsibility to look after that evidence. This suggests that the obligation to issue an ENCTS pass free of charge would be limited to the first pass only. However, if a person applies for a replacement, it is doubtful whether the authority would have the right to refuse to issue one without good reason or to charge more than a sum representing roughly the cost of producing it. 

It is DfT’s view that nothing in the legislation would prevent an authority from refusing to issue a replacement ENCTS pass to a person whom it had good reason to believe is engaged in fraud. As a matter of good practice in preventing fraud, the department strongly recommends that any pass issued in replacement for one which has been lost or stolen should generally be issued using the same photograph as the original pass. Each TCA is strongly encouraged to maintain a database of persons to whom ENCTS passes have been issued, including a digitised photograph of each recipient. 

The use of the ENCTS pass is subject to the conditions of carriage of the individual operator on whose vehicle the journey is being made. 

Specification of passes

When the ENCTS was introduced, a new England-wide ENCTS pass design was introduced so that bus drivers throughout England could recognise at a glance that an ENCTS passholder was eligible for free travel.  

The Concessionary bus travel (permits)(England) regulations 2008 set out the specification of the ENCTS passes. TCAs are responsible for producing passes that comply with the standard design as specified in the regulations for their concessionaires. 

The regulations set out the position and format of the standard elements of the ENCTS pass including:

• the holder’s photograph
• their name
• the expiry date
• the hologram
• the unique identifying number
• the ITSO logo
• the rose logo
• the ribbon background

They also require ENCTS passes to be ITSO smartcards. This means that, where bus companies have installed ITSO smart readers on their buses, the passes will be read electronically. Where buses don’t have ITSO readers, the passes will simply be shown to the driver. 

The ENCTS pass features an expiry date which must be no more than 5 years from the date of issue. Whilst the maximum life of a pass is 5 years from the date of issue, there is no recommended minimum life. 

The ENCTS pass has a hologram, which acts as a security feature and a deterrent to fraud and counterfeiting. The hologram is supplied by DfT to ensure that every hologram is identical.

Figure 1: the hologram comprises the rose logo and ribbon design

Pass image 

There are 2 different ENCTS pass designs, depending on whether the holder is eligible as a disabled person or as an older person.

Figure 2 – a pass for an older person has a blue strip down right-hand side

Figure 3 – an orange strip down the right-hand side shows that the pass has been issued to someone with an eligible disability

The top right-hand corner of the ENCTS pass is for local customisation. It must feature, as a minimum, either the logo or the name of the issuing TCA (or both) so that bus drivers can recognise who has issued the pass. 

TCAs are free to add other additional symbols, logos or words if they wish. For example, as TCAs are able to offer additional benefits above the statutory minimum concession to their residents, they may wish to use this area to identify whether an ENCTS passholder is eligible for any additional local benefits (for example, companion travel or travel before 9:30am). 

Card production 

TCAs are able to produce ENCTS passes themselves or are able to outsource to a card production supplier. In both instances, the required specification of the ENCTS pass as set out above must be met. Local authorities should do this within the scope of UK procurement legislation and their own procurement rules. 

Data collection 

DfT suggests that the following minimum data should be collected and stored for each ENCTS passholder: 

• name of passholder 
• address of passholder 
• an expiry date for the pass 
• a photograph 
• entitlement type (age or disability related) 
• a unique reference number 
• ITSO shell reference number (ISRN) 

Authorities might also want to consider, subject to their own legal advice, collecting the national insurance number of the passholder in order to assist future national fraud initiative (NFI) exercises that are carried out by the Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA). 

The NFI is a matching exercise in comparing all of the concessionary travel data in the UK with the national death register in an attempt to find members of the public who are participating in fraud. The Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) does not require additional work to be carried out to collect this information; however, authorities may decide locally to collect it in order to further improve the quality of NFI matches. There is however no statutory requirement for an applicant of an ENCTS pass to divulge their national insurance number to a TCA. More information on the NFI is available.  

The department also recommends that the TCA arrangement with the general registrar is such that they have access to death information to maintain their England National Concessionary Travel Scheme (ENCTS) passes database. This information could also be complemented by the National Fraud Initiative (NFI) and/or a death notification provided by the Tell Us Once service (DWP) to the issuing local authority.  

All TCAs should satisfy themselves that all data on individuals is collected and further processed in accordance with UK data protection legislation:

• all applicable UK law relating to the processing of personal data and privacy, including but not limited to the UK GDPR, and the Data Protection Act 2018 to the extent that it relates to processing of personal data and privacy
• (to the extent that it may be applicable) the EU GDPR

The UK GDPR and EU GDPR are defined in section 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018. 

ITSO and ISL 

ITSO specification is the UK technical specification for interoperable smart ticketing. Concessionary Bus Travel (Permits)(England) Regulations 2008 requires that all ENCTS passes must be issued in compliance with ITSO. 

ITSO Limited is an organisation that supports, facilitates and enables the delivery of smart, integrated and interoperable ticketing across Great Britain. 

Host operator or processing system (HOPS) is the element of the back office system defined within the ITSO Specification to cover message handling, ITSO shell and product accounting and asset management functions. 

OIDs and CPICCs 

An OID (operator ID) number is issued by ITSO for unique identification of a participant within the ITSO environment. For the purposes of ENCTS, OIDs are utilised to identify concessionary travel schemes. 

CPICCs (concessionary pass issuing cost center) denote the TCA responsible for administering the scheme. 

Read separate technical guidance on ENCTS passes. 

Funding 

Central government provides funding to local authorities for the ENCTS through the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities’ (DLUHC) Local Government Finance Settlement.

The calculation of Start Up Funding Assessment in 2013 to 2014 included an assessment of relative need for concessionary travel which is paid via Revenue Support Grant and Baseline Funding Levels, 2 non-ringfenced sources of income which gives local authorities the freedom and flexibility they want in their use of funding. 

Reimbursement 

TCAs are required by law to reimburse bus operators for carrying concessionary passengers, on the principle that the operators are ‘no better off and no worse off’ by taking part in concessionary travel schemes. The aim is not to subsidise bus operators, but to pay for any costs that they have incurred. Sections 149 and 150 of the 2000 Transport Act make provision for the reimbursement of operators by TCAs. 

Calculating concessionary travel reimbursement is predicated on determining what would have happened in the absence of the ENCTS. 

Concessionary fare reimbursement is made up of 2 elements.

The ‘revenue forgone’: the revenue operators would have received from those concessionary passengers who would otherwise have travelled and paid for a (full fare or discounted) journey in the absence of a scheme. 

The ‘net additional costs’ operators have incurred as a result of the scheme: this includes marginal costs of concessionary journeys which would not have been made in the absence of the scheme. It also includes scheme administration costs.  

Guidance for calculating reimbursement 

DfT makes available:

• a reimbursement calculator
• guidance to assist local authorities in calculating reimbursement rates

Use of the calculator is not mandatory and local authorities can use local data instead, provided the principle of ‘no better and no worse off’ is adhered to. 

Appeals 

In the event of a disagreement between an operator and TCA as to the reimbursement arrangements offered by the TCA, there is a mechanism provided under sections 98(2) and 99(2) of the 1985 Act and section 150(3) of the 2000 Act, by which the operator can apply to the Secretary of State for Transport for cancellation, variation or modification of the arrangements. 

The right of an operator to apply to the Secretary of State for modification of the proposed reimbursement arrangements offered by a TCA is an important safeguard. This process is often referred to as the ‘appeal process’. 

Applications can be made under both the 1985 and 2000 Acts. Under the 1985 Act, operators ‘appeal’ against being compelled to participate in a scheme through a participation notice which has been served on them by a TCA (and the SoS can release them from participation or direct that changes be made to the reimbursement arrangements). Under the 2000 Act operators apply to the SoS in order to obtain changes to the reimbursement arrangements put in place by the TCA that relate to the provision of the mandatory concession by the operator. 

Applications should only be submitted after proper consideration and after attempts to reach a resolution at the local level have been exhausted. The time limit for making an appeal is 56 days from the commencement or variation of a scheme. 

The Secretary of State appoints an independent decision-maker to determine the applications on his behalf, in line with the provisions of section 100(5) of the 1985 Act and section 150(6)(b) of the 2000 Act. 

DfT has produced guidance on the appeals process. 

Communications 

TCAs are responsible for ensuring that people who are eligible to claim concessionary travel are able to do so. 

TCAs should inform eligible people of: 

• what they are entitled to 
• how they can obtain a ENCTS pass 
• how they can check their eligibility 
• what services they can use their pass on 
• how they can obtain further information 

Sharing best practice 

The concessionary travel Knowledge Hub is a forum for those involved in delivering concessionary travel (including local authorities and bus operators) to share best practice, ideas and practical tips.  

Support

If you cannot find the information you need within this guidance, you can contact the concessionary travel team at concessionaryfares@dft.gov.uk.