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

things around it. We have got over 2,000 oYcers
policing the network from the police agencies. We
have got the revenue oYcers. We do a lot of
marketing around behavioural issues <strong>and</strong> we will
carry on doing that in the New Year. We are looking
at ways of improving the ticketing product, using
Oyster to make it more secure. For example, in the
early part of next year we will introduce a photo
Oyster card for 11 to 16 year olds, which we hope will
improve the ability for drivers to check tickets on the
front end of buses. We have got CCTV on all buses
in London. There is a whole raft of things we are
doing for this. We actually do think that that is
impacting on the levels of crime <strong>and</strong> antisocial
behaviour on the bus system in particular. We look
at the crime statistics very carefully. In the first six
months of this year crime on <strong>and</strong> around the bus
network has gone down 11% <strong>and</strong> the number of
crimes per million passenger journeys on both the
Underground <strong>and</strong> the bus network is approximately
15 per million passenger journeys.
Q277 Clive EVord: You say that crime has gone
down on buses. Are you confident that that is not
just because people are not bothering to report
them?
Mr Burton: I am pretty confident of that. Actually,
a lot of the crime on the buses we record is criminal
damage <strong>and</strong> pick-pocketing, both of which people
tend to report, particularly criminal damage. If
anything, over the last few years we have increased
the rate of reporting, I think, because we have
encouraged bus operators in particular to report
graYti <strong>and</strong> etching because we want to deal with that
criminal damage, <strong>and</strong> we have through CCTV. Our
experience is the more visible policing we have on the
network, the more people are willing to report crime
because they see we are taking an interest <strong>and</strong> taking
care of our customers.
Q278 Clive EVord: You say you have got 291
revenue enforcement oYcers?
Mr Burton: Yes, 290 plus.
Q279 Clive EVord: That is less than ten per borough?
Mr Burton: That is right.
Q280 Clive EVord: Is that suYcient?
Mr Burton: We keep that under continual review. At
the moment, as I say, we check 16 million passengers
a year. We are looking at how we can improve
targeting the revenue oYcers. We are doing a lot
more analysis of the statistics <strong>and</strong> the travel patterns
of people <strong>and</strong> we are starting to target revenue
oYcers, we think, in a more eVective way. We are
doing a lot of marketing. It is arguable whether
checking tickets or changing people’s behaviour is
the most eVective way to deal with this issue. One of
our big drives is to convince people that fare-evading
is actually an antisocial behaviour in many ways. It
aVects our ability to invest in the network. So we are
doing a whole portfolio of things to do this. We keep
the number of oYcers under review. We increased
them by 40 last year <strong>and</strong> if we see it as an issue again,
we will look at that again.
5 December 2007 Mr Shashi Verma <strong>and</strong> Mr Steve Burton
Transport Committee: Evidence Ev 33
Chairman: Mr Burton, if you can instil moral values
by posters, I think you will have an enormous
audience amongst all sorts of other institutions!
Q281 Clive EVord: TfL say—<strong>and</strong> this is a quote—
that it “has yet to reach the levels of performance in
this area,” that is revenue protection, “to which it
aspires”. You have more control over transport
services than any other local passenger transport
authority in Engl<strong>and</strong>, so is this because you have just
taken your eye oV the ball?
Mr Burton: No. I would say we are doing a good job
on this. I think there is a couple of issues that we have
identified going forward. One is, as I have said,
targeting where we put the resources. We can always
do that better <strong>and</strong> that is where travel information
<strong>and</strong> passenger movements come into play. The
second issue for us is that there is a small powers
issue in the fact that our oYcers have no right to find
out people’s names <strong>and</strong> addresses when they find
them travelling without a ticket. There is no legal
power. We have got something in the current TfL
Bill which is going through Parliament which will
give them that power, because obviously one of the
issues is if you are not travelling with a ticket <strong>and</strong> you
are not willing to give your name <strong>and</strong> address then
the only recourse to our oYcers at the moment is to
call the police in. We would prefer to have the legal
right to know someone’s name <strong>and</strong> address. We have
got something going through Parliament at the
moment <strong>and</strong> I think that would improve our
eYciency dramatically.
Q282 Clive EVord: Are there any other powers that
you think might be needed?
Mr Burton: Again, we certainly keep it under review
<strong>and</strong> one of the issues we have been looking at is
whether accreditation as PCSOs would be an option.
It is an option open to us under the new police
powers which came in through various policing
Acts. At the moment there is not a clear case for us
to do it, but again we will be looking at the over the
next year or so.
Q283 Clive EVord: Is it a safe job?
Mr Burton: It is, I think. We train our people in how
to deal with potentially confrontational situations.
We train them very well in how to speak to people,
how to manage their safety on the network, <strong>and</strong> we
get a relatively low level of assaults.
Q284 Chairman: Are you asking for extra powers,
for example, to detain people or talk to people?
Mr Burton: Not at this moment.
Q285 Chairman: Not at this moment. You mean you
are contemplating it?
Mr Burton: We are not contemplating that. That
would be one of the things which might come with
accreditation as a PCSO. It is not part of our
programme at the moment.
Q286 Chairman: It is not just a question of your
money, is it, Mr Burton? It raises all sorts of
questions about the roles of PCSOs.