That was my understanding of what Nigel said.
I then asked if he was cutting services because he was safe in the knowledge that the income [from WCC] would be the same regardless. His reply was that would be a very short term situation as next years payment would be negotiated based on the number of passengers carried this year.
I therefore now assume that a lump sum is paid to the operator in advance based on a negotiations, and that those negotiations use previous loading figures.
If I’m correct in the way I interrupted this, a one-off or infrequent use of a Concession Pass will have no impact on route income, and a new regular user will only make a difference after a long period of time - depending on how often the payments are renegotiated.