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

the impact of their behaviour on other people, <strong>and</strong>
we are looking at doing all that over the next year
or so.
Q317 Chairman: Yes. It will put oV a lot of people,
particularly pensioners, from travelling, will it not, if
the level of general antisocial behaviour is higher
than it used to be? It is a fairly urgent problem is
what I ought to have said to you, is it not?
Mr Burton: We are dealing with that issue in a
number of way. I think a lot of the noise <strong>and</strong> stuV
like that probably is not antisocial behaviour even,
it is just generally young people being rowdy on the
network.
Q318 Chairman: Yes, but in spite of what people say
most pensioners can sort out the diVerence between
somebody who is making a row <strong>and</strong> who is making
themselves perpetually deaf by having an industrial
level of noise in their ears through some tin <strong>and</strong>
someone who is actually doing something which is
causing the atmosphere to deteriorate for everybody
else on the bus.
Mr Burton: Yes, we recognise that <strong>and</strong> one of the
issues for us is to find the most appropriate way to
deal with those issues. For that low level stuV one of
the things we found to be very eVective is over the
last year we have put out 440 PCSOs into the outer
London boroughs <strong>and</strong> their roster <strong>and</strong> their shift
pattern is focused around that school run, 3.00 to
5.30 time period <strong>and</strong> they are very visible on the
buses. The thing about PCSOs is that they are there
to be visible to the public. We have had very positive
feedback about that <strong>and</strong> that is one of the ways we
are dealing with this. But I think it is really
important to say that there has been approximately
a 35% increase in young people travelling on the
network over the last two years because of the
concessionary travel, which we are very positive
about because it does allow people to travel around
the network. If there is a very small number of those
children—<strong>and</strong> I actually do believe it is a small
number—who are committing disorder/antisocial
behaviour then we will deal with them
appropriately. I think it really is important to say
that our experience is that it is a small number of the
kids who are problematic rather than the majority,
as sometimes you read in the papers.
Chairman: Yes. I did have an agent who was a bus
driver who used to do the school bus runs <strong>and</strong> who
alleged that they came out of some of the best
disciplined schools <strong>and</strong> behaved like absolute
maniacs, so I hope it is something you are dealing
with seriously.
Q319 Clive EVord: Just on that line of questioning,
do you get the majority of complaints about the
school bus run or is it about the young people who
are now using the buses where they did not in the
past because it is now free?
Mr Burton: The peak time of those sorts of issues is
during the 3.00 to 6.00 period when the kids are
travelling home mostly in general terms, <strong>and</strong> that is
when we focus our resources. There is a number of
options. In relation to kids travelling to the bus stop
5 December 2007 Mr Shashi Verma <strong>and</strong> Mr Steve Burton
Transport Committee: Evidence Ev 37
from the school, one of the most eVective ways we
have got of dealing with that is we work with schools
who actually have teachers out just to be a figure of
authority around the queues. So there is a number of
ways in which we can deal with this <strong>and</strong> we are doing
a number of things.
Chairman: I just want to ask you about your own
revenue protection.
Clive EVord: Perhaps if people sent their children to
the local school it would reduce the problem.
Q320 Chairman: What a good idea. TfL you say has
not reached the levels of performance in the area of
revenue protection to which it aspires. You are in
total control of that, better than anybody else
anywhere in Engl<strong>and</strong>. Does that mean you are not
very good at it?
Mr Burton: It does not. I would say that, would I
not? If you look at it the other way round, we think
levels of evasion on the network are about 3%, which
means pretty much 96 to 97% of the public are
actually paying, if you turn that around. We have
some regulatory issues which we have talked about
already. We have diVerential regulations between
the modes. We think our oYcers could work much
more eVectively if they had a legal right to find out
someone’s name <strong>and</strong> address.
Q321 Chairman: Yes, we have done that, but what
training <strong>and</strong> supervision st<strong>and</strong>ards do you apply to
your revenue protection staV?
Mr Burton: They get very good training including
how to deal with confrontation, how the Oyster
system works, how the ticketing system works on the
network. We think they work very eVectively. I think
they do a very, very good job <strong>and</strong> will keep the levels
down very low. You can always improve, which I
know is always said, but you can. If we can get the
name <strong>and</strong> address stuV sorted out I think we can
drive the levels of evasion down even lower.
Q322 Chairman: How often do they get assaulted?
Mr Burton: We have no more than two assaults a
month at the most. Again, I can write to you with
the details.
Q323 Chairman: I need your health <strong>and</strong> safety
records for your staV, I think, in relation to the
revenue protection. If you could tell us about the
health <strong>and</strong> safety regulations.
Mr Verma: Could I make a specific point on the use
of smartcards on revenue protection. As I said, since
the introduction of the Oyster card the money lost
through the system has reduced quite sharply. On
the Underground particularly the largest amount of
loss of revenue is through the misuse of concessions.
So this is people who are not entitled to a concession
making use of the concession <strong>and</strong> the revenue
collection eVort has focused very largely on that
particular problem. All other means of travelling
without an appropriate ticket have largely been
taken into account in the design of the Oyster
system. The system is partially gated. It is not fully
gated, despite some miscomprehensions some
people have. There are large parts of the system