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

Ev 18 Transport Committee: Evidence
Mr Halstead: We can certainly go down that route,
yes.
14 November 2007 Mr Keith Halstead <strong>and</strong> Mr Ewan Jones
Q150 Chairman: Disabled people who cannot use
mainstream transport are entitled at the moment to
concessions from the DWP, are they not, in terms
of benefit?
Mr Halstead: Yes.
Q151 Chairman: Are these adequate? Do you think
this is the way round it? Is that what you are telling
Mr Martlew?
Mr Jones: Our key point here is that if there is a
concession which is available to certain people in
certain categories <strong>and</strong> the national policy is that
disabled people over 60 are entitled to free transport
on registered buses, then there will be a group of
people who cannot access that concession due to the
nature of the services <strong>and</strong>/or the vehicles. In those
cases in order for a national policy to be delivered
across the board locally, diVerent tools need to be
used. Yes, the registered bus service obviously is the
first choice but we are arguing that community
transport, taxis <strong>and</strong> other mechanisms should all be
there in the toolbox because this is an issue of
discrimination potentially otherwise because certain
people cannot travel. It is not about community
transport wanting funding. Community transport
should be reimbursed for providing free travel <strong>and</strong>
underst<strong>and</strong>s <strong>and</strong> accepts that it should be no better
or no worse oV as a result of doing that because this
is about the concessionary travel for the individual,
not about the Community Transport Group looking
for a funding stream.
Q152 Mr Martlew: I accept what the Chairman says.
It is called a mobility allowance, is it not? Would you
accept that it would have to be a cash sum? It would
not be paid in cash. You could not give an open
ended commitment to some lady who lives at the top
of a mountain to be able to travel in to do her
shopping every day, could you? It would have to be
cash limited to some extent. Would you accept that
or not?
Mr Jones: Practically any scheme would have to be
cash limited. The current scheme is cash limited.
Q153 Mr Martlew: The pensioner can travel every
day where there is a bus. It does not matter how
many times he travels; he or she does it free. If you
were using taxis for example that would not be
possible, would it? There would have to be a
financial cap so that you could spend more over the
year, I suspect in rural community transport as well.
Mr Jones: Yes. It is a question of agreeing where the
balance point is, is it not? There is certainly an
argument that for instance the problem with living in
an area where there are not services is partly because
there are not services, but it is partly a lifestyle choice
as well for a lot of people. The point is we need to try
<strong>and</strong> find the balance.
Q154 Chairman: While we are talking about lifestyle
choices, what about smartcards? Have you done any
work on whether your members find smartcards
acceptable?
Mr Jones: Not specific work but I think it is our
general view that a lot of concessionary travel pass
schemes exist already. If you use a pass, if that pass
is replaced in some way or used in conjunction with
a smartcard, I feel that is likely to be relatively easy
for a lot of people to use. Particularly, given some of
what was being said towards the end of the last
contributor, it would improve the whole through
ticketing issue <strong>and</strong> access to diVerent services. Oyster
cards are great when you come to London for people
like me, who do not live here. It would be even better
if I could use that everywhere else on any form of
transport. Disabled people <strong>and</strong> older people are
using community transport or any other form of
transport <strong>and</strong> the same benefits could potentially
apply.
Q155 Chairman: Have you experiences from the
other countries of the United Kingdom that would
help you in assessing the eVects of the changes
towards, say, smartcards within Engl<strong>and</strong>?
Mr Jones: Yes. In particular we administered a
programme of grants, the Community Transport
<strong>Concessionary</strong> <strong>Travel</strong> Initiative, £3 million over a
three year period in Wales, where that money went
to 15 projects in Wales to deliver free transport to
people who are entitled to concessions. The Welsh
Assembly Government are just in the process, I
believe, of appointing external evaluators for that
project which will be very interesting to see. Those
again were projects across Wales, north, south, east
<strong>and</strong> west, operating in diVerent ways, diVerent types
of projects, some using dedicated vehicles, others
linking in with existing taxi <strong>and</strong> community
transport networks, to provide the free transport
that concessionary passengers were entitled to. We
have yet to see the evaluation of that because we
administer the grant payment scheme on behalf of
WAG <strong>and</strong> we service the independent panel that
made recommendations to the Minister in Wales as
to who should receive the funding. Obviously we are
not involved in evaluating that ourselves.
Q156 Chairman: That independent assessment
meant that you did not lay down a specific template
to the various organisations dealing with it; you
simply said, “This is what you should be doing
overall”. Is that right?
Mr Jones: Yes. What we said to groups was not that
they had to use this kind of model or this kind of
service, but, “You have come to the assessment
panel. Tell us about your area, about the passengers
who are entitled.” The Welsh Assembly
Government was quite specific. It was not across the
board disabled people. The term they used was
“severely disabled people” so it was only a certain
subset. It was not even the whole entitled market, if
you like. “Come <strong>and</strong> tell us about your area, of your