Bus For Jobs: A Review

On the final day of the Bus for Jobs scheme which ran nationwide through January, providing free bus travel for unemployed people, I will review my experience of the scheme. I will cover advertisement of the scheme, both through the bus companies, the press,  the DWP and the Job Centre; the ease of access to the scheme; travelling by bus using the card; and how effective I think it was. All of the information on this post will be based on my personal experience of the scheme.

Over the Christmas period, I was looking at the First Bristol website to find out New Years bus times, and I noticed the following:

Needless to say, I was intrigued and clicked on the link to find out more. This is where I first heard about the Bus for Jobs scheme organised by Bus for Us.

From the Bus for Jobs website I found out that the scheme was open to people over 18 years old, who had been unemployed for between 3 and 12 months, and were holders of the Job Centre Plus Discount Travel Card and would give me free bus travel during January. I met the first two requirements, so I decided to find out how to get a Job Centre Plus Discount Travel Card, which at this point I had never heard of nor seen.

Advertisement of the scheme:

1) The bus companies (to be more precise First Buses Bristol) - brilliant so far, a nice clear link on the home page of their website.I did not however see any advertisements on the actual buses, so for people who did not look at the bus companies website there was no information provided. 6/10

2) The press - I don't tend to read news papers or watch much TV, so prior to seeing the advert on the First website I hadn't heard about the scheme through the press, this however is my fault not theirs. Once I googled the scheme, I found pages of results from local and national papers telling their readers about the scheme. I am not going to give a mark out of ten for the press because I don't know how clear the message was offline.

3) The DWP - There was not one mention of either the Bus for Jobs scheme or the Job Centre Plus Discount Travel Card on their website. 0/10

4) The Job Centre (website and Bedminster Job Centre) - As with the DWP no information online at all, no leaflets of advertisements within Bedminster Job Centre, and neither my husbands or my advisers let us know about the scheme or the card. 0/10

So on the whole I feel that although there was advertisement within the press, online (facebook, twitter etc) and on bus company websites, the information was not available were most job seekers would be likely to see it, in the JOB CENTRE!!! It felt like the DWP and Job Centre did not want us to know about this scheme or the discount travel card.

Ease of Access:


Without the good fortune of looking at the First Bristol website, followed by a very thorough internet search to find out how to get the travel card, it would have been impossible to actually get the discount card.

When I phoned up to book an appointment to get a card, the person I spoke to told me that I probably wouldn't get one because they could only give 20 out (bulls**t, I had found through intensive searching that it is open to all income based JSA claimants who are over 18 yrs old and have been claiming for 3 months or more) and advised me that I could just print out passport sized photos for the card instead of paying to get proper ones (lies, I found this out at the appointment). Once I got to the appointment to get the card, then went off to get proper passport photos taken, it was a very quick and easy process to get the card. 

Basically, this was not an easy task, and it probably took me well over an hours research online to find the information I needed. 1/10

Using the Job Centre Plus Discount Travel Card to travel by bus around Bristol:

I got my card on the 3rd January, I first tried to use it on the 4th January, and this failed spectacularly. The bus driver had never heard of the scheme, or the card, and was very rude to me in front of about 10 other passengers waiting to board the bus, and I was not allowed to board the bus. If you want to read more about this experience, please read this blog post "Public humiliation is all part of living the high life".

I made a complaint, and the customer services person I spoke to hadn't heard of the scheme either, however the "twitter" person that I also complained to informed me that all staff had been informed of the scheme via a "staff memo", obviously First staff don't read staff memos.

The second day I tried to use the bus, again the bus driver hadn't heard of the card or scheme, but he was lovely, he looked though his ticket machine and found the correct button, let me know which one it was for future reference, and I was able to travel. The return journey was much the same, but I was able to let the driver know which button he needed to press.

I have used the bus regularly over the last month and during this time only one driver recognised the card and that it would normally entitle me to half price fares, but he hadn't heard of the bus for jobs scheme, and was very reluctant to let me travel for free, he did in the end thankfully. Yesterday, on the penultimate day of the scheme, I finally met a bus driver who recognised the card, had heard of the scheme, knew which buttons to press and just waved me on to the bus with no problems.

As much as it has been nice being able to get a bus if I need to without having to consider the cost/affordability, it has also been stressful, not knowing if I will be able to use the bus or if I will get kicked off or humiliated in front of other passengers has not been fun.

How effective was this scheme?

For the people who were able to get a card and use it successfully, I think this scheme was brilliant, it saved me £4 every day that I used it, awesome!

However, the vast majority of unemployed people did not hear about this scheme or were prevented from getting cards by their Job Centres. I spent two weeks during January on an employability course and spoke to other job seekers about the card, not one had heard of it, and I know of one who tried to get the card from their Job Centre and were told by their adviser that they had never heard of the card.

Bus drivers were not actively informed about the scheme, a staff memo is just not good enough, it is a well known fact that most staff do not read the weekly/monthly staff memo emails, because they are usually overly wordy and boring.

I also noticed that a lot of bus drivers didn't bother pressing the button on their ticket machine to log that I was using the Bus for Jobs scheme, therefore any usage statistics gathered from ticket machines will be very inaccurate.

If uptake and usage data for this scheme is collected and analysed, it will undoubtedly show that very few people were interested in taking up this offer, that very few cards were issued, and that very few free bus journeys were made.

Without the active support for and advertisement of this scheme by all local Job Centres and the advisers working in them, this scheme was doomed to fail. I really hope that this scheme runs again it the future, but it needs to learn from the mistakes made this time.