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

Oral evidence
Taken before the Transport Committee
on Wednesday 14 November 2007
Members present
Mrs Gwyneth Dunwoody, in the Chair
Mr David Clell<strong>and</strong> Mr Eric Martlew
Clive EVord Mr Lee Scott
Mrs Louise Ellman David Simpson
Mr Philip Hollobone Graham Stringer
Mr John Leech
Transport Committee: Evidence Ev 1
Witnesses: Mr Chris Austin, Director, Public Policy, <strong>and</strong> Mr David Mapp, Commercial Director,
Association of Train Operating Companies; <strong>and</strong> Mr Richard Malins, Managing Director, Transport
Investigations Ltd, gave evidence.
Chairman: Good afternoon, gentlemen. Firstly, we
do have a little bit of housekeeping of our own;
Members with an interest to declare?
Clive EVord: Member of Unite.
Mr Martlew: Member of Unite <strong>and</strong> GMB.
Mr Clell<strong>and</strong>: Member of Unite.
Graham Stringer: Member of Unite.
Chairman: There is a slight lack of imagination here!
Gwyneth Dunwoody, Aslef.
Mrs Ellman: Member of Unite.
Q1 Chairman: Can I ask you gentlemen firstly to
identify yourselves for the record, beginning on my
left.
Mr Mapp: I am David Mapp, the Commercial
Director for the Association of Train Operating
Companies.
Mr Austin: Chris Austin, Director of Public Policy
for the Association of Train Operating Companies.
Mr Malins: Richard Malins, I am a director of my
own business, Transport Investigations Ltd.
Q2 Chairman: Did Mr Malins or Mr Austin want to
say anything specific before we begin?
Mr Austin: No, Chairman.
Q3 Chairman: In which case you know how
concerned this Committee has been in the past about
ticketing. Can you tell us what you underst<strong>and</strong> as the
Government’s present strategy on integrated
ticketing?
Mr Austin: Yes, the strategy was set out in the
Government’s White Paper published in July <strong>and</strong>
covers around a seven-year period making provision
for smartcard <strong>and</strong> ITSO smartcard ticketing <strong>and</strong>
other forms of electronic ticketing.
Q4 Chairman: Mr Austin, can we spell out ITSO, I
do not think many people listening will have much
of an idea what it is.
Mr Austin: It is a bit of a mouthful. It is Integrated
Transport Smartcard Organisation.
Q5 Chairman: We will allow you ITSO from now on
since we have it on the record.
Mr Austin: It covers that <strong>and</strong> it covers other forms
of electronic ticketing, <strong>and</strong> other forms of ticketing
which are convenient to passengers, <strong>and</strong> proposes a
way of continuing to develop those over a sevenyear
period.
Q6 Chairman: Do you think the Government is
doing enough to encourage rail operators to develop
integrated ticketing arrangements, particularly in
relation to buses <strong>and</strong> coaches?
Mr Austin: I think it is. I think the important thing
is to set the framework <strong>and</strong> to allow the operators
then to work within that to develop policies to
produce the results that are required. In some cases
there may be help needed, <strong>and</strong> indeed there has been
Government funding for ITSO in the development
of proposals <strong>and</strong> some research work as well, but the
rest other less complex systems like PlusBus for
example have been introduced entirely by the
operators on their own initiative without the need
for Government support.
Q7 Chairman: The diYculty about that is when the
National Passenger Survey asked about ticketing
sales facilities at stations <strong>and</strong> by phone, one in five
passengers thought they were either “poor” or “very
poor”. Do you think that is an acceptable level of
customer satisfaction?
Mr Mapp: The National Passenger Survey does
indeed ask a question about ticket buying at
stations. The overall score from the last wave in the
spring of this year was that 67% of customers
interviewed were either “fairly” or “very” satisfied
with the ticket buying at the station which they
had used.
Q8 Chairman: How was the question phrased, in the
same way? Are we comparing like with like?