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

Ev 170 Transport Committee: Evidence
26. Journey Information
Pre-journey information is important, it reassures the passenger that they can make their entire journey
by train <strong>and</strong> bus with confidence. In order to help travellers underst<strong>and</strong> the PLUSBUS product <strong>and</strong> become
familiar with where the ticket can be used <strong>and</strong> on what bus operators services tickets are valid, the
PLUSBUS website (www.plusbus.info) provides all this information, as well as all ticket prices, in an easy
to view format. Detailed colour zone maps for all 195 PLUSBUS served towns <strong>and</strong> cities are available on
our website as downloadable PDF’s. These show the boundary of each zone, list all the main places/suburbs
within each town served by participating bus services <strong>and</strong> also show locations of Hospitals, University/
college campuses <strong>and</strong> main leisure/tourist attractions.
In order to assist customers arriving at an unfamiliar station, we produce detailed “Continuing your
journey around town with PLUSBUS” information posters (specific to each town) for display on the
concourse of 60 main stations across Britain. These posters show customers the zone map within which their
PLUSBUS ticket is valid, provide a journey gazetteer of bus routes <strong>and</strong> places served. The poster also lists
all bus companies that accept PLUSBUS in that town <strong>and</strong> give “traveline” details (telephone 0871 200 22 33
or www.traveline.info), should customers want to check bus times. (In several PTE areas eg West Midl<strong>and</strong>s,
Greater Manchester, the relevant authority produces similar onward travel posters).
27. Achievement
PLUSBUS is the first major product developed <strong>and</strong> introduced by the Journey Solutions partnership.
PLUSBUS is a nationally available integrated train <strong>and</strong> bus travel ticket on sale across the whole of Britain.
Journey Solutions has established customer focused minimum st<strong>and</strong>ards, which can be exceeded by a
scheme. In eVect PLUSBUS provides a national template, which can be tailored to accommodate some
local/regional variation to make the product relevant to local market conditions.
28. Before PLUSBUS there existed a myriad of individual agreements between train operators <strong>and</strong> local
bus companies, which oVered the traveller a wide <strong>and</strong> confusing range of through-journey tickets. Each of
these was a diVerent oVer to the passenger. Through partnership <strong>and</strong> negotiation, Journey Solutions <strong>and</strong>
the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) has introduced a set of national st<strong>and</strong>ards for
PLUSBUS ticketing that oVers the customer a consistent <strong>and</strong> reliable product they can trust. This has made
it much easier for retail staV at stations to sell integrated ticketing. For operators it has also brought about
the simplification of integrated ticketing <strong>and</strong> a significant reduction in the amount of administration <strong>and</strong>
the cost of establishing <strong>and</strong> maintaining such products. By providing a national template for integrated
ticketing, it is also possible to have a nation-wide marketing campaign for integrated ticketing.
29. In January this year, the first-ever national marketing campaign for PLUSBUS was launched.
750,000 promotional leaflets have been printed <strong>and</strong> are racked at nearly 1,000 train stations across Britain.
Over 500 promotional posters have been put on display at train stations <strong>and</strong> the website (www.plusbus.info)
has been re-designed. Train Operators are encouraged to have more information about the product included
in their own publicity literature (such as timetables <strong>and</strong> customer service guides) <strong>and</strong> also on their websites.
In partnership with Train Operators we are also working to raise the PR profile of the product, by arranging
regional events <strong>and</strong> launches. (Printed colour samples of literature referred to in this paragraph have been
provided separately to the Committee as evidence).
30. Journey Solutions would like to thank the Association of Train Operating Companies for their
significant ongoing contribution to the management <strong>and</strong> development of PLUSBUS ticketing. As well as
oVering use of their Rail Settlement Plan (revenue allocation system) ATOC also oVers a forum, the
Integrated Transport Working Group, where all TOC’s are able to share best-practice in the field of modal
integration <strong>and</strong> integrated ticketing, which has proven very valuable to Journey Solutions in the on-going
development of PLUSBUS. The fact that several more recently awarded TOC’s now have Integration
Managers focusing on improving modal integration has been extremely helpful in achieving results.
31. Last Summer we celebrated our 100,000th PLUSBUS ticket issued. A total of 68,300 PLUSBUS
tickets have been sold during the last 12 months (year to January 2007). At present sales of PLUSBUS
tickets are 45% higher than for the same period last year.
32. Development Objectives
By the end of 2007, PLUSBUS should be available to over 230 rail-served towns <strong>and</strong> cities across Britain,
including all those with a population of 80,000 <strong>and</strong> over (as well as many with smaller populations). The
next logical step for the development of the initiative is to develop a nation-wide product that covers
through-ticketing between the National Rail network <strong>and</strong> non-rail served towns, where a bus/coach service
completes the link between interchange rail station <strong>and</strong> the non-rail served town. The key to success with
this product very much mirrors what has been achieved with PLUSBUS, ie to work in partnership with
TOC’s, bus operators <strong>and</strong> local authorities/PTE’s on the development of a set of minimum national
st<strong>and</strong>ards for such a product, which can then rolled-out across the country as part of a coordinated
campaign.