It used to be the case that when you got on a bus, someone would come to your seat and give you a piece of paper in exchange for a piece of metal. Later on, someone in a posh uniform would get on the bus, come to your seat and ask to look at that piece of paper writes Bob Whitehead.

Since the metal-and-paper exchangers were abolished, the driver has had full responsibility, with increased workload and stress and not much to show for it. The buses also became less safe.

More recently, we have had the driver having to glance at a piece of hand-held plastic as the passengers get on, and pretend that he or she was doing the impossible job of checking each one.

And now we will have to rub our piece of plastic over a little scanner, until a green light comes on, and the driver will have to check if the green light goes on.

What next? Perhaps a password will be required, or maybe a quote from Shakespeare, or a brief song, before you take your seat.

At least you can then sit back and relax, with the comforting feeling of knowing that you are being spy-camera tracked, and your journey details are being logged to be sent to who knows where.

Maybe you could gaze out of the window at the log jam that surrounds you on the Hagley Road or any other Birmingham trunk road, pondering on how the whole gridlock could be removed by placing all the car occupants in a handful of buses.

You could pass away the hours studying the speed cameras, and imagine how these ugly mechanisms would not be needed if people were travelling in safe, reliable public transport instead of cars that are designed to travel at up to 100mph, but actually spend most of their time going at bike speed or less.

You might even get carried away by considering how much carbon dioxide emissions could be curbed and oil conserved by relegating the private car to the scrap heap of history. But steady on, or you might get so animated that you might start talking to the other passengers, and make travelling with the public an enjoyable experience.

With our over-priced, de-regulated, profit-motivated system of buses and trains, leading to injury, congestion, pollution and delay, it is high time to call a halt to the madness.

On October 16^th, there will a conference in Birmingham to establish a national Campaign for Free Public Transport. It will build on the pioneering work being done in Manchester and elsewhere and send a robust two fingered response to the Con Dem plans to slash public transport as a way of paying for crisis brought to us by the bankers, financiers and fat cats. It will highlight the cities that have already brought in free at the point of use systems, such as Hasselt (Belgium), Zagreb, Newcastle (Australia) and maybe soon even in New York, and show the benefits of having a system where you get on a clean, reliable and frequent bus, walk to your seat and the driver takes you where you want to go reasonably promptly. This is not rocket science. But this pretty basic arrangement is only possible if we break with logic of capitalism and the whole thrust of Government budgetary policy.

The politics of the conference are illustrated by the draft constitution.

Aims

The aim of the Campaign for Free Public Transport is to secure an expanded, land and water based public transport system that is fully integrated, accessible, reliable, publicly owned and ultimately free for all at the point of use.

Objectives

1. To defend the free bus pass for the over 60s.

2. To extend free public transport to children, young people, the unemployed and those in receipt of income support.

3. To secure public ownership of the public transport system, its expansion, full integration and rational planning.

4. To defend and extend the availability and reliability of public transport.

5. To conduct rigorous research on the funding and organisation of public transport.

6. To disseminate the Aims of the Campaign and build public support for them.

UNITE and PCS have policies which are close to these aims, and it is hoped that UNITE will officially sponsor the conference. The Scottish Socialist Party is setting up its own broad based campaign, as well as supporting the Birmingham conference. The Respect Party has agreed to give its sponsorship. RMT New St has given its backing plus a financial donation.

But more support would be welcome.

The conference will be held at the Britannia Hotel, Birmingham City Centre, from 11am to 5pm.

So, if you can manage to fight your way there through the traffic, please come along and contribute your ideas. And in the meantime, kindly seek more backing for this timely initiative.

For full details, go to http://www.freepublictransport.org.uk/