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

Ev 36 Transport Committee: Evidence
cards, <strong>and</strong> clearly we feel very proud of it, it is still
the case that the basic method by which we are
collecting revenue is unchanged for the last 150
years. When you arrive at a TfL service, whether
that is a bus or the Underground, you have to
change your currency into something that we have
given you before you are allowed to travel. This is
the way we have done ticketing for the last 150 years,
but it does not need to be that way. If you go further
back into history, people were collecting cash on
buses. The reason we stopped doing that was
because a large portion of the cash used to go
unaccounted for <strong>and</strong> was typically taken by the
conductors. The ticket was largely invented as a
means of accounting for the revenue which was
being collected. We have moved on from that point,
but for the last 150 years at every point where new
technology has been introduced we have had to
invent it. For the first time the banking industry
seems to be coming up with a product that will
actually work for us <strong>and</strong> will be there in the h<strong>and</strong>s
of a large majority of the people, if not all. So this is
something we are looking at adopting because this
would remove the hassle for the vast majority of
people from buying tickets in the way they have to
do today.
Q306 Chairman: Is it reasonable that TranSys, who
actually have the Oyster contract <strong>and</strong> have a vested
interest in protecting Oyster, should be carrying out
the study into whether ITSO can be integrating with
the system?
Mr Verma: Unfortunately, because the system right
now is provided by TranSys <strong>and</strong> at the front end,
which is at the gates or on the buses, it has to be
integrated. There is no option other than the fact
that we have to go to TranSys. This is the PFI
contract that the Government –
Q307 Chairman: So you have built in some
independent checks <strong>and</strong> balances, have you?
Mr Verma: I have a very large team which oversees
everything which TranSys does.
Q308 Chairman: If a large team is a guarantee of
independence, life would be a lot easier!
Mr Verma: The point I would make to you is that a
large part of the new technology work that is going
on is actually going on within my team not within
TranSys, so the work that is going on to adopt—
Q309 Chairman: I underst<strong>and</strong> that, but all I am
saying is these people have the Oyster system. They
supplied the Oyster system. You have asked them to
look at whether it can be integrated with ITSO <strong>and</strong>
if you are not careful they are going to be doing the
final arbitration. I may be an untrusting creature,
but it seems to me they might have a vested interest
in saying no.
Mr Verma: There is no doubt that they have a vested
interest. They are a technology provider. They have
a long-term contract. They have essentially a
monopoly position for 17 years <strong>and</strong> the means that
we have at our disposal to control that is to build a
similar capability within our team. I can assure you
5 December 2007 Mr Shashi Verma <strong>and</strong> Mr Steve Burton
that we have spent a large amount of eVort building
technical capability within our team to make sure
that we are not being given answers which are
inadequate.
Q310 Chairman: Have you got any idea of how
much it will cost to integrate the two systems?
Mr Verma: We expect that it is going to be in the
region of about £50 million.
Q311 Chairman: Is that just the marginal cost of
adding ITSO?
Mr Verma: That is just the marginal cost of adding
ITSO.
Q312 Chairman: So no other upgrades are included
in that figure?
Mr Verma: No upgrades, no.
Q313 Clive EVord: Mr Verma, if you can tell us, if
you have got the information, what proportion of
the cost of the Freedom Pass in London do the local
authorities currently get back from central
government?
Mr Verma: I am sorry, I do not have that
information to h<strong>and</strong>. I can provide you with that
information if we have access to it, but I do not have
that information to h<strong>and</strong> right now.
Clive EVord: If you could it would be useful.
Q314 Chairman: Could you give us the figures about
the young people who are travelling with free bus
travel?
Mr Verma: About 16% of people travelling on the
buses are travelling on under 18 concessions.
Q315 Chairman: What impact has that had?
Mr Verma: We do see a more pronounced peak in
the afternoon which we did not see before. This is
when people are coming out of school between 3.00
<strong>and</strong> 4.00 in the afternoon. But the afternoon peak is
not as sharp as the morning peak. So the morning
peak is still the one that drives the total provision of
bus capacity in London.
Q316 Chairman: Do they cause an enormous racket?
Is there a lot of overcrowding <strong>and</strong> antisocial
behaviour?
Mr Verma: As I say, the peak bus capacity is in the
morning. The same bus capacity operates in the
afternoon, so it is diYcult to make the case that there
is overcrowding. The point about antisocial
behaviour as well has been trailed very widely.
Mr Burton: Just on the capacity issue, London Buses
works very actively to monitor where there is undercapacity
on the network <strong>and</strong> we have added a
number of additional buses to routes where capacity
is an issue, <strong>and</strong> that is kept under constant review.
With regard to antisocial behaviour, our feeling is
that the noisiness <strong>and</strong> low level disorder has
increased. That is mostly to do with the increasing
number of young people on the network <strong>and</strong> that is
the way young people are. We think you deal with
that through behavioural information, through
visual policing, through making kids more aware of