FC
Math "There is absolutely no reason for the school to do the admin of bus pass money at any time other than at the beginning of the month"
FC There is absolutely no reason for them to do at all. Because that is up to the bus company. You don’t travel on buses in the U.K. very often, do you?
Au contraire, there are all sorts of practical reasons for the college to handle payments.
We know the college keeps track of who has passes because they can issue temp ones, so there is no reason not to assume the college does the selling of the passes too. A college could not possibly issue a temp pass if they did not have any idea who had a paid up pass.
Since the route the DD travels is only for college students it makes perfect sense for the college to handle payments, thus ensuring that passes and student ID numbers can be matched, and therefore only students at the college can get a pass. Otherwise students would have to provide some college ID to the bus company, which would lead to a potential compromise of the security of the college ID number. If the bus company handles the payment and issues the passes then the driver should have been able to check if a pass was in good standing.
I prefer to use my own experience of nearly 50 years of using buses and bus passes in the UK. Plus my DDs more recent experience as a school child, a student and now a worker.
All on dedicated services and not public buses, I presume?
Because I and other family members of mine have extensive experience of dedicated bus services in the UK and other countries, and normally details of ID and payment can most easily be co-ordinated by the institution that contracts with the bus service (be it school, college, healthcare facility, airport, or whatever). In fact, it is often the case with schools that the route and number of buses required are only determined when the final numbers and home locations for travel for the term can be established.
Quite often - at least among the schools where children of friends and relatives of mine attend, in the London area and in the environs of York - the dedicated bus service pass is the institution ID, meaning that the pass/ID is an incontrovertible photo ID, and in addition, students can buy voucher books for a fixed price from the school and use individual vouchers for a one way fare.
...your question is irrelevant because if yiu read OPs posts you will see that she pays monthly. So all your angst about yearly passes is irrelevant in this case
My 'angst' was in response to your poorly thought out statement that only one bus pass was issued in the year. There is a difference between angst and contradiction.
She does indeed pay monthly. Thank you.
'Monthly' being a word with a specific meaning that is not equivalent to 'every four weeks'.
If college starts on the 12th of September, then the student will have a pass starting on that day for a month (whether that is 30 days or 31 days or a calendar month - these things will be decided by the bus company). Therefore a new pass is required on the 12th of December for the remainder of the term. When going back to college, the pass is still valid for the first week or so and then a new pass is needed
Logic and experience of dedicated bus services fail here.
I have already explained this you you but will now do so again.
A dedicated bus service will normally have an annual bill for service that can be broken into monthly payment increments that are equal, regardless of how many school days the month has. Payments may even be spread over 12 months.
I suspect you are confusing public services with the dedicated service for the college students.