Here at trentbarton, we’re doing our bit to help people make a new start this New Year. As part of the nationwide Bus For Jobs campaign, we’re partnering up with the local Job Centre Plus network to allow free travel for those looking for employment during the month of January.

We believe that it is important to support our local economy and those people without work. The offer of free travel will provide tangible help for people who are actively seeking work or taking part in training. Jobseekers who have been unemployed for between three months and one year will be eligible, although the scheme is particularly targeted at young people for whom unemployment rates remain high. 

The scheme will cover holders of a JobCentre Plus Travel Discount Card. Those who are eligible for the card, which is available through JobCentre Plus, include people claiming Jobseekers’ Allowance, Incapacity Benefit, Employment and Support Allowance or Income Support and actively engaged with a Jobcentre Plus adviser in returning to employment. Jobcentre Plus staff are actively promoting it to those looking for work and full details of the scheme are available at www.busforus.co.uk.

How does it work?

Contact your local Job Centre Plus to get your Travel Discount Card. You will need to meet certain criteria set out by them before getting your card. Then, just show your JobCentre Plus Travel Discount Card to the driver and you will be able to travel for free on any trentbarton bus at any time of day or night. This includes travel on routes operated by other companies including pronto and X38.

Your Card will enable you to travel free for the calendar month of January 2013 – Tuesday 1 January to Thursday 31 January inclusive. After this time, we can offer you 25% off single cash fares through MANGO – our no cash, no fuss way of travelling. You can apply for a MANGO at any time at www.trentbarton.co.uk/mango.

How bus travel can help our economy and enable those looking for work to reach jobs

The project in allowing free travel to jobseekers follows the publication of research recently carried out by the Institute for Transport Studies (ITS) at the University of Leeds that shows buses contribute £64 billion to the British economy every year. This research shows that:

•  1 in 10 bus commuters would be forced to look for another job if they could no longer commute by bus.
• More than 50% of students are frequent bus users and depend on the bus to access education or training.
• An estimated 400,000 people are in work or in a better job because of the availability of a bus service, equating to £400 million additional gross value added (GVA) per annum.
• 25% of bus commuters have turned down a job because of a lack of availability or frequency of bus services.
• Half of bus commuters said they believed access to a better bus service would give them access to a better job and 400,000 people believe they are in a better job because of a bus service.
• 2.5m commuters require a bus to get to work and a further one million use them as back up to other modes of transport.
• More than 50 per cent of businesses surveyed rely upon bus services for recruitment and retention, while one fifth of businesses consider the bus to be central to their business operations.

Buses are an essential mode of transport, accounting for over five billion passenger journeys every year and are used by one fifth of the country’s working population outside London. Nearly three times as many trips are made by bus as by surface rail and underground combined. Moreover, 25% of households do not have access to a car and are completely reliant on the bus for many of their essential journeys.

Buses also provide a cost effective solution to congestion. They are flexible, can deliver extra capacity very quickly, take up less space on the road and when combined with priority measures such as bus lanes can reduce delays and improve journey time reliability. Reduced congestion and the resulting improved network speed and reliability has a direct and significant impact on business costs, enabling the logistics systems and supply chains to operate more efficiently and sustainably.

For more information on the nationwide Bus For Jobs’ campaign and the work of Greener Journeys – the industry campaign to encourage the switch to bus and coach journeys – check out www.greenerjourneys.com