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

Ev 24 Transport Committee: Evidence
5 December 2007 Mr Roy Wicks, Mr Neil Scales, Mr David Cook, Mr Adrian Jones <strong>and</strong> Mr Greg Yates
Mr Cook: If we ran the assumption it was right now,
which we cannot really validate because we do not
know how many people will take it up <strong>and</strong> how
many genuines we have, but even if we ran that
assumption now it is probably going to be something
like 10% out in a year or two.
Q189 Mr Hollobone: A number of authorities of the
291 are issuing smartcards <strong>and</strong> some are not. What is
your underst<strong>and</strong>ing of the percentage of the issuing
authorities which have got smartcards?
Mr Cook: I would not know that, but perhaps one
of my colleagues would.
Q190 Chairman: Mr Scales, do you want to have a
go at guessing? We will not hold you to it.
Mr Scales: No, but what I will do, Chairman, is I will
provide the Committee with a note. I will go back
into ITSO <strong>and</strong> ITSO services <strong>and</strong> get a very accurate
response for you.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
Q191 Mr Hollobone: My underst<strong>and</strong>ing is that
authorities are not required to have the cards until
2009, <strong>and</strong> please correct me if I am wrong. Is not the
danger that local authorities are issuing the
smartcards but the actual bus operators are not
incentivised to actually incorporate that smartcard
facility into their own operations because the bus
companies are going to get paid on the basis of the
average single fare. Therefore, if there are a lot of
pensioners who are taking short journeys that is to
the benefit of the bus operators <strong>and</strong> it is to their
benefit that nobody knows about that?
Mr Cook: There is certainly some rough justice in
terms of what gets paid <strong>and</strong> if we had smart buses as
well as smartcards then, for the reasons colleagues
mentioned earlier, we are actually able to say we
know where someone got on a bus <strong>and</strong> where they
got oV the bus <strong>and</strong> what the precise fare is as
opposed to the sort of averaging, which has some
elements of rough justice in it. For the integration
reasons colleagues have talked about, the sooner we
get a smart system which is both smart for the
customer <strong>and</strong> is smart for the operator then the
better that will be all round.
Mr Jones: I think there is an issue, in that because we
have not got an eVective smartcard scheme across
the board we are having to go into a position now of
very expensive survey work, much more expensive
than we have previously had to do, which is really a
complete waste of public money.
Q192 Chairman: So that you can make sure you
know where everybody is <strong>and</strong> what they are using, is
that what you are saying?
Mr Jones: Yes, that is right. We have got to do
manual surveys in order to validate the agreements
of what we charge the bus companies.
Q193 Mr Hollobone: I wonder if members of our
panel could just run us through the problem that
tourist areas have with regard to concessionary
fares, because my underst<strong>and</strong>ing is that say, for
example, somebody wanted to go for a day out in
Scarborough <strong>and</strong> they were leaving from another
district authority area, the authority from where
they live would pay for the journey to Scarborough
but it would be the local authority in Scarborough
that would have to pay for the return journey.
Therefore, presumably attractive parts of our
country which attract a lot of tourists are going to
find themselves with a rather large bill to pay, but my
underst<strong>and</strong>ing is that this £212 million is not
allocated on the basis of tourist areas, it is allocated
on the basis of resident population?
Mr Jones: If I could answer part of that, the issue is
not just about tourist areas. Wherever there is any
big shopping centre, Nottingham, York, somewhere
like that, there is a big problem because people come
in from the suburbs, which are outside the
boundary, <strong>and</strong> then the city centre authority has to
pay for them to go home, so that is a big problem for
us. My underst<strong>and</strong>ing—my colleagues may correct
me—is that the formula being consulted on does to
some extent take this issue into account. It is a
question of whether they take it into account
enough.
Chairman: I think we have made that point. I think
some of these questions will be arguments between
you <strong>and</strong> whichever authority is giving you the cash
when it comes down to it.
Q194 Mr Hollobone: It is essentially about the fact
that if you are introducing any new system you are
meant to reimburse the local authorities for the cost.
When you have put these issues to Her Majesty’s
Government what has been the response?
Mr Wicks: If I could give a brief answer, in the
example you are looking at, which is how is the
money distributed, we went to the Government <strong>and</strong>
said, “We think it would be much better if you
actually did a specific grant to authorities,” <strong>and</strong> the
Government has listened to that <strong>and</strong> has come back
with four proposals. It has consulted on four
diVerent methods of distribution <strong>and</strong> we will know
tomorrow what the outcome of that distribution is.
So to that extent they have listened. I think on some
of the other issues about the 2.5% for next year we
have made those points quite strongly to
Government. As yet, they have not changed their
minds, but then they have not said they will not
change their minds either. I think the Government is
as keen as we are in making sure the policy
actually works.
Q195 Chairman: You mean they do not want it to
collapse. Mr Cook?
Mr Cook: I think the important thing is that
currently some local authorities are disincentivised
from encouraging this scheme because of the
damage it does to the bottom line, which would be a
shame because it is an otherwise wonderful scheme.
The key issue would be if the funding was reviewed
after six months of practical operation, that would
allow us to have the evidence <strong>and</strong> the experience of
how it is actually working <strong>and</strong> to flex it, but we
would not want that to be impossible because a
figure had been determined <strong>and</strong> no matter what, that
is the figure—