Counting OAPs is an issue of dispute.Byline: KRYSIA DIVER diver, general term used to refer to many diving birds, e.g., the loon, the grebe, and some ducks, auks, and penguins. TRAVEL bosses are scrapping an auto-count system which checks how many pensioners use Coventry buses, following a compensation feud feud, formalized private warfare, especially between family groups. The blood feud (see vendetta) is characteristic of those societies in which central government either has not arisen or has decayed. with a bus company. Centro, which refunds Travel West Midlands Travel West Midlands is the current trading name for all West Midlands Travel Ltd bus services operating from their depots in the cities of Birmingham and Wolverhampton, as well as the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, and Walsall in the West Midlands region of England. for free pensioner PENSIONER. One who is supported by an allowance at the will of another. It is more usually applied to him who receives an annuity or pension from the government. passes, is ditching a button-pressing system which monitors the number of pass- holding OAPs using buses. Centro believes the bus giant was demanding too much in subsidies for the free travel. In a cost-cutting exercise, it has decided to strip bus drivers of their power to press a button every time a pensioner gets on a bus and go back to old-fashioned head counts. A Centro spokesman said: "The new system will operate using data collectors who take head counts as sample representations. "This will produce more accurate results than those of a driver simply pressing buttons." But Travel West Midlands said that employing "an army" of data collectors will cost the tax payer tax payer n → contribuyente m/f tax payer n → contribuable m/f tax payer n → contribuente more and will produce less accurate results. Travel West Midlands spokes-man Phil Bateman said: "The computers used by bus drivers record every single journey. "Centro will have to employ an army of data collectors to monitor all of our buses. This type of surveying will cost a fortune. It is more open to attack and far less precise. "West Midlands West Midlands, former metropolitan county, central England. Created in the 1974 local government reorganization, the county embraced the Birmingham conurbation and comprised seven metropolitan districts: Walsall, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Sandwell, Birmingham, Solihull, Travel is a legitimate business of high repute. "We invested a lot of finance in getting the highest technology and now it all seems a waste." Cllr David Batten bat·ten 1 v. bat·tened, bat·ten·ing, bat·tens v.intr. 1. To become fat. 2. , member of West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority, said: "The previous system produced irregularities in results and Travel West Midlands has accepted this anomaly. "Drivers have enough to contend with without the added responsibility of having to press buttons on busy roads. "We feel that this is a fairer way to assess pensioner travel as opposed to the previous formula." Centro decided to employ data collectors following intense discussions with West Midlands Travel about compensation for free pensioner travel last November. Travel West Midlands, which was not satisfied with the level of compensation, had threatened to end free travel for pensioners but has since withdrawn the threat. |
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