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

14 November 2007 Mr Chris Austin, Mr David Mapp <strong>and</strong> Mr Richard Malins
to be in places where there is going to be quite a big
movement all the time on the stations, these are not
isolated stations.
Mr Malins: No, but they will be similar to suburban
stations elsewhere.
Q48 Chairman: Is that actually true? The DLR tends
to cover areas where almost by definition they will
have larger numbers moving around than, say, some
of the smaller urban areas even in London?
Mr Malins: To some extent you are right, but I think
it does demonstrate that you can have an unstaVed
model that works; that is all I am saying.
Q49 Clive EVord: Can I pick up something Mr
Malins said earlier on about checking tickets on
trains. He said if you have people on a train for a
length of time it is sensible to have checks on the
train. What is a long period of time? Are you talking
about commuters?
Mr Malins: Exactly where you draw the boundary
perhaps is something we can debate, but let us say
notionally that on journeys of an hour or longer it
should be quite practicable. For what I would call
the intercity network you should be able to do it all
properly on-train.
Q50 Clive EVord: Presumably you are not talking
about packed commuter trains because that would
not be possible?
Mr Malins: No.
Q51 Mr Martlew: Mr Malins, you talked about
mainline stations but can I ask Mr Austin, are you
thinking of gating stations like Euston for example
where people are going through with lots of luggage
<strong>and</strong> will be travelling perhaps three, four or five
hours? Is that what you are thinking about? It seems
to me that you may be.
Mr Austin: Yes there are proposals to gate. I am not
quite sure of the timescale, I do not have that in my
head, but Waterloo, which is one of the larger
stations that is not gated at the moment, <strong>and</strong> King’s
Cross, <strong>and</strong> Richard’s example, Paddington is
already gated partially. I think the important thing
there is to make sure that the level of customer
service surrounding that is high enough to assist
people who have tickets that will not go through the
gates or who have luggage. I know as a regular user
of Paddington that the staYng levels at the barriers
are quite high for that purpose.
Q52 Chairman: If you use Victoria, Mr Austin,
which I am sure you do in coming back from the
airport, you will discover that you are enormously
dependent on whoever happens to be at the gate at
the time. I think they do make an eVort but if they
empty one train at the same time, which is the
pattern coming from the airport particularly, there
are frequently occasions when it is extraordinarily
diYcult to get through if you have an awkward-sized
piece of luggage or a child in a pram.
Transport Committee: Evidence Ev 7
Mr Austin: Yes, I underst<strong>and</strong> that.
Q53 Chairman: Which does not auger well for the
sort of numbers that you are talking about at
Waterloo.
Mr Austin: No but I mean they will have the
advantage of the experience at the other stations to
build on in the design for that, but you are quite
right—
Q54 Chairman: You mean having done it wrong
once we can always pray we will not do it wrong
again?
Mr Austin: More than pray, I hope—actually get it
better.
Q55 Chairman: So you are assuring us that all will
be well?
Mr Austin: I think it is certainly in our members’
interests to make it work well because we do not
want to be deterring passengers by having a diYcult
struggle through the gates to get on the train in the
first place.
Q56 Mrs Ellman: Have you got any evidence of
passengers with free concessionary passes
transferring from rail to bus?
Mr Austin: Yes, we have a little. There has been a
little bit of work done on local services which
indicates no big swing as a result of the introduction
of concessionary fares in Engl<strong>and</strong> but a slight
dropping oV in the rate of growth, because local
services have been growing quite strongly over the
last ten years <strong>and</strong> there is some evidence over the last
year that that may have started to tail oV. In Wales
there is definitely evidence on the Conwy Valley line
of quite a significant reduction in patronage once the
bus concession was introduced <strong>and</strong> then the
opposite when the concession was extended to rail
<strong>and</strong> indeed, on the Heart of Wales line they have had
to double the length of the trains from one car to two
cars to carry the extra people who are travelling.
Q57 Mrs Ellman: Would you welcome the extension
of the concessionary schemes in Engl<strong>and</strong> to rail?
Mr Austin: As I mentioned earlier, I think that
would be quite diYcult unless it were accompanied
by the funding to increase the capacity of the service
as well because it would, as we have seen in a small
way on the Heart of Wales line, increase the dem<strong>and</strong>
on a railway that has already got strong growing
dem<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> some overcrowding problems—
Q58 Chairman: And nothing frightens rail
companies like the thought of having too many
passengers does it, Mr Austin?
Mr Austin: We welcome that but what we do not
want to do is to have it in an unplanned way that we
cannot provide for with additional trains <strong>and</strong> longer
trains, <strong>and</strong> in some cases additional platforms.
Mr Mapp: I think it is also worth mentioning that we
do already oVer a range of railcards targeted at parts
of the market which are likely to be aVected by the
sort of concessionary scheme that you are
highlighting. We oVer a railcard aimed at the senior