Ticketing and Concessionary Travel on Public Transport - United ...

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strategy, including those in the industry who are keen to know. Coverage of ticketing issues
in strategy documents is patchy. Whereas the Rail White Paper does address ticketing
issues, Putting Passengers First (on buses) has very little to say on the subject.
Transport Direct
28. Transport Direct is a free, online journey planner run by the Department for
Transport. As well as providing public transport, car <strong>and</strong> aircraft routes between any two
locations, it currently allows users to:
a) compare public transport options with car travel;
b) obtain a car route that takes into account predicted traffic levels at different times of the
day;
c) get an estimate of the cost of a car journey;
d) buy train <strong>and</strong> coach tickets from affiliated retail sites without having to re-enter journey
details;
e) use mobile phones to find out departure <strong>and</strong> arrival times for railway stations
throughout Britain <strong>and</strong> for some bus or coach stops; <strong>and</strong>
f) calculate CO2 emissions for a car or public transport for a specified journey.
29. Transport Direct is therefore a rather more sophisticated, though complex, tool than
those offered by some other providers such as Network Rail <strong>and</strong> the AA. It is designed to
promote transport choices based on a wide range of options <strong>and</strong> information. The
Government says that Transport Direct is an important part of its integrated ticketing
strategy. It was launched in 2005, costing £37 million over the first three years. Transport
Direct now claims over 15 million user sessions since its launch, with 20% of users claiming
they did something different as a result of using the site. 31 This may be so but its profile is
still low: it was mentioned by hardly any other witness.
31 Local Transport Today 476, 30 August 2007, p10