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

Ev 28 Transport Committee: Evidence
5 December 2007 Mr Roy Wicks, Mr Neil Scales, Mr David Cook, Mr Adrian Jones <strong>and</strong> Mr Greg Yates
Q226 Chairman: I know we have talked a bit about
new technology, but they did specifically say to us—
<strong>and</strong> you can underst<strong>and</strong> it because you must have
the same problem in Liverpool -because of the
numbers they are h<strong>and</strong>ling <strong>and</strong> the speed at which
the reader can cope with that, they are very
concerned that Oyster cards can be read in 200
milliseconds, which is actually an item of time which
means nothing in my life at all but which I am sure
is very important, whereas ITSO cards take 700
milliseconds, or whatever it is it is rather more than
the 200. You yourself know from the numbers
h<strong>and</strong>led by the Underground system here that we are
talking big numbers <strong>and</strong> the diVerence in time, even
if it was a couple of second for each traveller—
Mr Scales: I will not trouble the Committee,
Chairman, with the intricacies of fast frequency shift
keying, but I will provide you with a note which will
make it underst<strong>and</strong>able in non-technical terms.
Chairman: If you ever want to appear here again, Mr
Scales, you will write that in big letters <strong>and</strong> put it
over your desk! Thank you very much indeed.
Q227 Mr Hollobone: Kettering Borough Council is
going to extend this concessionary fare scheme to
peak times as well. Mr Cook, could you just run
through the thinking of the council as to why it is
prepared to do that <strong>and</strong> what are the implications for
other authorities if diVerent authorities are taking a
diVerent approach to peak <strong>and</strong> oV-peak?
Mr Cook: I think the thinking of the council was that
parts of the area are rural <strong>and</strong> the access to bus
services after 9.30 might be non-existent or might be
extraordinarily patchy. We talked about tourist
destinations earlier. Kettering is a hospital
destination, so if people want to come into the
hospital, or whatever, they might need transport <strong>and</strong>
we have quite a number of villages which are poorly
served by bus networks <strong>and</strong> the council felt they
could diVerentiate in that way <strong>and</strong> they wanted to
see bus travel encouraged, full stop, <strong>and</strong> they wanted
to make sure that those hard to reach groups who
might have diYculties were also able to have the
benefits of this. That was one of the reasons. I think
if someone undertakes a journey from an authority
which has exercised that discretion into an authority
which has not exercised that discretion, then if they
want to make another onward journey before 9.30
they might find that they are having to pay for that
journey, but in most cases if they were going, say, for
employment somewhere then they would be coming
out, back home again, as it were, in oV-peak time
<strong>and</strong> so would not therefore pay. Our thinking <strong>and</strong>
the members’ thinking was to make it fair <strong>and</strong>
accessible <strong>and</strong> to reach all aspects of the community.
Q228 Mr Hollobone: Would you have any feeling at
all for the number of authorities which might be
looking to extend the scheme in this way?
Mr Cook: I have not any feeling for that now, but I
am sure we could find that out with colleagues in the
LGA <strong>and</strong> provide a note, if that would help.
Q229 Chairman: This is a rather sensitive subject.
How secure is all this personal information that you
are going to obtain? One reason why I am, frankly,
not very keen on the system in London is that I see
no particular reason why my dear friend Ken should
know when I get on a train <strong>and</strong> when I get oV it. I
did not tell my husb<strong>and</strong>, so I am certainly not telling
the Mayor!
Mr Cook: If I might start the answer on that, I think
the local authority holds a massive amount of
sensitive data about individuals—
Q230 Chairman: Mr Cook, I am not arguing with
what they have got now. What I am saying is, you
are going to add a whole lot more <strong>and</strong> Mr Scales has
made it very clear this is the only way they are going
to make their economics actually make sense,
because they need to know how many people, where
they get on <strong>and</strong> where they get oV. You are holding
a lot of secure personal information, particularly if
they are concessionary travel cards. We need to
know really. What is the level of uptake, for
example, you are experiencing?
Mr Cook: As far as security is concerned—<strong>and</strong> this
is the issue that runs with any smart system—any
smart system depends on data, so that goes with
smart systems. The uptake we have had is that—
Q231 Chairman: Mr Cook, I think you are making
us more unhappy. I think you should move on. Mr
Jones, do you know how secure it is?
Mr Jones: I think we are reasonably happy with the
security. I think it has passed all the relevant
compliances <strong>and</strong> there is a massive amount of data
out there in private h<strong>and</strong>s about what you do which
you might be more worried about than it being held
by local authorities. You question about the uptake
comes back to a point which I do not think was
answered earlier, which is about how we actually
incentivise uptake eVectively. I think that was the
point Mr Cook was making, that we have got a
perverse situation at the moment. It is actually in our
interests not to incentivise—
Q232 Chairman: Yes, I underst<strong>and</strong> that.
Mr Jones: But it is really important that we do. In
our particular case, we have managed to get to 93%,
which is very, very high. That is a direct result of
targeting hard to reach groups like elderly Asian
women, which is a group with a particularly low
uptake <strong>and</strong> we have managed to dramatically
increase it by targeting it. It is actually against my
interest.
Q233 Chairman: Yes, but what I am saying is that
that is actually a policy decision by your authority to
give you this broad set of remits <strong>and</strong> say, “Get on
with it”?
Mr Jones: Yes, but surely it is underpinning what the
Government wants the concessionary scheme—