BUS companies are doing nicely.

Arriva and Stagecoach, the main operators in the North- East and Yorkshire, on Wednesday paid sharply increased dividends to shareholders.

Already in receipt of billions in subsidies, they are this week celebrating the first six months of their latest gravy train; since April they have benefited hugely from the national free-rides scheme for pensioners.

As private companies, they cannot be expected to run services that without help from the public purse would lose them money. Nor can anyone doubt how much the elderly appreciate the perk.

So popular is the scheme that full-fare payers around seaside destinations like Robin Hood’s Bay have sometimes been crowded off their workaday bus.

Arriva is looking at the problem and such is the industry’s subsidy mindset it would be no surprise if a bill for any “duplicates” is sent to county halls. What’s a few thousand more, the unspoken premise might be, when the taxpayer has already forked out more than £40m to support the region’s buses since 2002?

“Highway robbery that would make Dick Turpin blush,” said Hartlepool MP Iain Wright. It has to be asked whether officialdom has conducted subsidy negotiations with enough vigour.

Has it been argued forcefully enough that income from pensioner travel (not a one-off windfall) is largely all profit because overheads have already been met? Or that the way these fares are charged to councils – in Arriva’s case, the average paid by ordinary users multiplied by the number of OAP journeys – amounts to index-linking?

Sadly, even with soaring petrol charges, bus travel is still a too-expensive, inconvenient option for most people, even for greens. New thinking is called for if the millions more passengers needed – both to drive down fares and to save the planet – are to be lured from their cars.

A standard fare and a national version of London’s Oyster card which cuts fares for regular passengers might help.

As important would be to tackle the exasperation factor. A bus that can race by up to ten minutes before its passengers gather is worse than an understandable late arrival and just as bad as cancellation.