The free travel pass is a great boon to many older people, but serious questions have to be raised as to whether it should be a universal benefit at 60. We are now in an era of huge cuts in public funding and there are more urgent social care needs among the poorest and most vulnerable older people than a free pass which can and is used by people who are still at work, such as Keith Ludeman, chief executive of Go-Ahead (Let pensioners pay one-off fee for bus pass, says Go-Ahead, 3 September). There are serious questions as to whether it is the poorest older people who benefit most from the universal free pass, or whether, as in so many other cases, it is of more value to the wealthier people. Rather than go down a means-testing route, though, one answer may be to raise the age of eligibility for a pass.
Leon Kreitzman
Chair, Age Concern Lewisham & Southwark, London
• A one-off payment for bus passes would, indeed, cut the £1bn annual cost, but it would seriously affect the poorest pensioners. A better solution would be to make all benefits received by pensioners (bus passes, winter fuel allowances, free TV licences and NHS prescriptions) taxable so better-off pensioners contributed according to their means.
John Howes
London
• The greatest benefit of the bus pass is that pensioners who have lost their cars through ageing and ill health can still get about without worrying about the cost. They meet neighbours on board who become friends that help each other when needed, and save the social services far more money than the obnoxious Ludeman complains about.
Brian Robinson
Brentwood, Essex
• Transport for All's attack on London Underground's staffing proposals (Letters, 30 August) is based on a misunderstanding. Our proposals have come about because ticket sales at stations have dropped significantly since the introduction of Oyster, so that now only one in 20 journeys starts with a visit to a ticket office, and some stations sell fewer than 10 tickets each hour. Under our plans, every station that has a ticket office now will continue to have one, and staff will remain in every station in exactly those areas that Transport for All want them to be: in ticket halls and on platforms where they can help customers, not hidden away behind under-used ticket office windows. Staff will still help with any problems and provide a reassuring presence across the network – including for older and disabled Londoners, many of whom receive a Freedom Pass which requires no interaction with either ticket offices or machines.
Managing director, London Underground