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

Transport Committee: Evidence Ev 25
5 December 2007 Mr Roy Wicks, Mr Neil Scales, Mr David Cook, Mr Adrian Jones <strong>and</strong> Mr Greg Yates
Q196 Chairman: Although, to be fair, Mr Cook, in
local government you spend all your life doing this,
do you not? There is no central government that is
going to say to you, “This is the figure <strong>and</strong> if we do
not like it we might come back to you in six months’
time <strong>and</strong> ask you whether you are doing the right
thing.” If it is, then I can only say all the local
authorities I deal with have been missing out.
Mr Cook: I think my point, Chairman, is that—
Q197 Chairman: I underst<strong>and</strong> your point, Mr Cook,
but it does not happen in anything else in local
government, does it? You are saying, “This is a new
scheme. If it doesn’t work, we want the chance to go
back to us saying, ‘Yes, fine’”. But that would make
it fairly unique in local government.
Mr Cook: There are things where local authorities
are funded on their expenditure.
Chairman: Yes, I do underst<strong>and</strong> that.
Q198 Clive EVord: Mr Cook, you answered a
question from Mr Martlew earlier on when you said
things are likely to go wrong with the concessionary
fares scheme in April. Who is it going to go wrong
for? Is it for the local authorities or is it for the
passenger?
Mr Cook: If I did say that, then I have misled the
Committee.
Mr Martlew: No, I think I said that.
Q199 Clive EVord: I did not hear you disagree.
Mr Cook: Local government has got a good record
of delivering things at relatively short notice <strong>and</strong>
making them work, <strong>and</strong> I am sure this scheme will
work. The question for local government is whether
the funding mechanisms are more likely to make it
harder to make it work <strong>and</strong> harder to make people
take it up <strong>and</strong> reach the hard to reach people we
want to reach.
Q200 Clive EVord: Right. Can I just pursue that
point for a minute? Local authorities are getting £4
per ticket they issue to assist with setting it up <strong>and</strong>
that is part of the money that is being distributed, is
that right?
Mr Scales: Yes.
Mr Wicks: Yes.
Clive EVord: Presumably people choose to get a
concessionary card or not <strong>and</strong> then use it or not, so
where is the problem in that for the passenger?
Q201 Chairman: Mr Yates?
Mr Yates: Chairman, I did not want to interrupt this
strain of thought. I have got another point.
Q202 Chairman: All right. Mr Wicks, do not
interrupt your strain of thought!
Mr Wicks: What certainly most of the PTEs have
done is we have written to everybody who currently
has a pass. We have been in contact with them
probably for the last two to three months with
massive marketing campaigns to make sure that
people are aware that they need a new pass. We have
to issue a new pass to everybody because the new
smartcard enabled pass is a diVerent pass <strong>and</strong> it has
to have the national logo on so that the operator can
tell two things: first of all, that this person is entitled
to the national concession <strong>and</strong> then, for example, in
the case of South Yorkshire where you can also
travel on the tram or the train <strong>and</strong> before 9.30 as a
local concession. So you will get those cards out. The
challenge, I think, is getting the cards out to people,
but most of us are well on the way with contacting
people. The Government has put in place a central
contract for us to draw down the cards from, so
providing the manufacturer is able to meet the
dem<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> local authorities are able to process the
dem<strong>and</strong> in the right size—in other words, if
everybody waits until March to do it, then the
system will collapse, but those authorities that are
getting on with it now, that part of it should work.
So if that helps on the card issue side, then that
should minimise the risk to the bus operator of the
bus driver recognising the card because the bus
driver should only be presented with the national
card. There is some leeway in the system for people
to continue to use their existing cards for a short
period afterwards, as I underst<strong>and</strong> it, <strong>and</strong> that is the
risk area for fraud <strong>and</strong> those sorts of things, but the
intention is that everybody should have a new card
by 1 April.
Q203 Clive EVord: And the equipment to recognise
the card?
Mr Wicks: No bus companies, other than those
which have existing smartcards projects, will be able
to recognise the card. The card will be visually
recognised. It will in eVect be a dummy smartcard. It
will be a smartcard which has the capacity to act as
a smartcard, but there are very few systems around
the country which can read it, <strong>and</strong> that is really what
the push is for <strong>and</strong> what your colleague was referring
to. We want to see the smartcard system rolled out.
In our own case we have the pilot starting <strong>and</strong> I am
sure the DfT is watching carefully how the pilot
works. That will finish in October. We will be
advocating there is a strong business case, which
comes to your earlier point. There is both the
commercial interest for the bus operator <strong>and</strong> a
public interest case in terms of getting better value
for money on surveys <strong>and</strong> underst<strong>and</strong>ing the
market, which should come together <strong>and</strong> say, “Just
get the buses fitted with the equipment,” because at
the moment if you take south <strong>and</strong> west Yorkshire,
rolling out smartcards across those two authorities
will cost in the region of about £30 million. That is
for ticketing equipment on the buses, establishing a
back oYce <strong>and</strong> for the other equipment you will
need to do it with.
Q204 Chairman: What size of movement are we
talking about?
Mr Wicks: That is a population of about 3.5 million
across the two authorities.
Q205 Clive EVord: That equipment will be in place
for how long? How long before it is obsolete? Do you
have any idea?