Age needs one voice. Now it has:
Age UK is the new force combining Age Concern England and
Help the Aged in England.
The new force combining &
Both practical and financial support on public transport concessions can help you to lead an active and independent life.
Older and disabled people are entitled to a free bus pass and a minimum concession of free off-peak travel on a local bus anywhere in England. If you are a woman, from 6 April 2010, the age of eligibility for concessionary travel will be your State Pension age. If you are a man, it will be the pensionable age of a woman born on the same day. For more information about State Pension see our factsheet at the bottom of this page. There is a ready reckoner that enables people affected by the pension age changes to see at what age they become eligible for their State Pension and related benefits. You can find it on the Directgov website.
The Senior Railcard is available to anyone aged 60 or over. It costs £26 for one year or £65 for three years and allows you to save one-third of the cost of most rail fares in Great Britain. There may be other offers for cardholders such as reduced-price membership for art or food societies; see the Senior Card website (See Useful websites) for details.
The leaflet ‘Senior Railcard’ includes more details and an application form; it is available from railway stations or the network of rail-appointed travel agents.
The Disabled Persons Railcard costs £20 for a year (or £54 for three years) and it allows you to save one-third of the costs of most rail fares in Great Britain.
If you are aged 60 or over, or you have a local authority concessionary travel pass because of disability, you may be able to get coach fares at half price. Participation in the scheme is voluntary but many coach operators, including National Express, are part of the scheme. For more information contact your coach operator company directly.
Some airlines may offer concessions for older people. The qualifying age may be different for different airlines. For details of any concessions that may be offered for a particular journey, and the qualifying conditions, contact a travel agent or the airline.
Some ferry companies offer discounts to Senior Railcard holders, and others may offer discounts to passengers above a certain age. Check with your travel agent or the ferry company to see what discounts may be available.
If you are disabled and cannot use ordinary public transport, and do not have access to a car, there are community transport schemes that you may be able to use. To get information on all community transport resources available in your area you can use the map provided on the Community Transport network website (see 'Useful websites').
Public transport and concessions factsheet (PDF 175 KB)
State pension factsheet (PDF 245 KB)
Set your location to see what Age UK offers in your local area.
Visit the Senior Railcard website to check if you are eligible for a senior railcard and to apply.
The Community Transport Network website is a fully integrated community transport information system that includes local information.
Downloads
A download is a document (like a research report, a leaflet, or an application form) that can be transferred from our website to your computer. You can download a file, view it on your screen, print it, or save it to your computer.
PDF stands for ‘portable document format’.
Most downloads on this website are PDFs. We use this format to ensure that the document looks the same on everyone’s computer (website pages, by contrast, appear differently depending on how people have set their computer up).
Computers use a program called Adobe Acrobat Reader to download PDFs. If you try clicking on a link to download a PDF and it doesn’t work, you will need to install Adobe Acrobat Reader onto your computer.
The process is quite straightforward and is free.
PDFs cannot be changed. If you need to be able to type into a downloaded document (for example, if we are offering a letter template that you need to put your name on) we will provide it as a Microsoft Word document rather than a PDF. You can then download it, type into it and save it to your computer.
Downloads will open on your computer in a new browser window.
Inside this window (below all your web browser menus), there will be a toolbar with options for you to print or save the document.
Close the browser window to return to the Age UK website.
We have made every effort to make our PDFs accessible to screen readers. Here is an overview of your accessibility options available in Acrobat Reader. Please ensure that you have downloaded the latest version of Acrobat Reader from the Adobe Reader website to ensure that they are included in your version of the programme.
You can use Adobe Reader to read a PDF out loud with the following shortcut keys:
You can also convert a PDF into a web page by following these steps:
You can convert a PDF document into a text file for use with other software and hardware such as Braille printers by opening the PDF and choosing ‘Save as text’ from the File menu.
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