A local resident raised the issue of not being able to use a travelcard on the new 22 bus service. The following is the initial concern from the resident and, following a letter to Ensign, the reply of the bus operator.  

I wish to raise an issue regarding the regarding the No. 22 bus route (Upminster to Aveley). I have tried to use this bus on a couple of occasions when it was first introduced only to be told that my "Gold Card" travel card cannot be used and I would need to pay again.

As this bus travels for a part of its journey, similar to the 370, within the travel zone 6 I would have expected this No. 22 bus to allow the use of travel cards from Upminster station to where the no. 6 zone ends.

I refuse to pay again for a journey from the station to just before the crematorium, that is already covered in my annual season ticket and which I feel is excessive in cost already.

I see these buses travelling back for forth, mostly empty of passengers, when people who would happily hop on for the trip down from the station are now unable to.  I am not alone in this thinking and have had many a conversation at the local bus stops as the No. 22 roles on by and we continue to wait for the No. 370 to eventually arrive.

How can a bus company travelling within this London transport travel area not be made to accept annual season tickets or other travel cards already covering this journey?

With the cost of fuel and emissions problems it seems daft to me to run empty buses around and deter people from using them by forcing them to pay for a journey a second time.  I thought people were being encouraged to leave their cars at home and use public transport. 

Are you aware of this situation and is there anything you can do to try and get Ensign to accept annual travel cards within the zoned area.

Ensign reply: 

  I fully understand the situation and would like to reply as follows:

Firstly, route 22 is not a Transport for London (TfL) service.  This is a commercially operated service - the bulk of which operates in Thurrock.  The route operates into and out of the London Borough of Havering under a permit scheme with TfL, however there is no agreement to accept any TfL tickets.

As we are not a TfL service, if we were to accept TfL tickets we would not be paid anything for them so in effect would end up carrying a lot of people for free with an increased chance of people overriding beyond the TfL boundary.  Like any business we are simply unable to give anything away for free.

Transport for London had the option of making former route 373 into a full TfL bus route some time ago but chose not to - they only picked route 370 which has led to the situation we are now in.

As I hope you can see, there is nothing we can do in relation to accepting TfL tickets at the present time.

7.8.08