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

Ev 38 Transport Committee: Evidence
which are not gated, including some very busy
stations like Finsbury Park, but the Oyster system is
not designed to run on a system which is fully gated.
It is designed to run on a system where a large
proportion of the flows have one end gated, so either
the origin or the destination is gated, because we
collect a maximum cash fare when people enter the
system <strong>and</strong> we refund them the diVerence when they
exit the system to bring the fare down to the
correct level.
Q324 Mr Hollobone: On the fare dodging which does
take place, to what extent is there serial fare
dodging? Is there a hard core of people who
persistently try to evade their fares, or is it lots of
people making the occasional mistake?
5 December 2007 Mr Shashi Verma <strong>and</strong> Mr Steve Burton
Witnesses: Mr Manuel Cortes, Assistant General Secretary, Transport Salaried StaVs’ Association, Ms Fran
Hill, Chair of UNISON Bus Sector, <strong>and</strong> Mr Richard Sherratt, Member of UNISON Transport Service
Group, gave evidence.
Q325 Chairman: Good afternoon. Can I ask you to
identify yourselves. I am sorry we are a little bit late.
Forgive me.
Mr Sherratt: Richard Sherratt. I am a member of
UNISON’s Transport Service Group.
Ms Hill: I am Fran Hill <strong>and</strong> I am from UNISON’s
Transport Service Group.
Mr Cortes: Manuel Cortes from the TSSA.
Q326 Chairman: Mr Cortes, can I ask you to do me
a favour <strong>and</strong> extend the best wishes of the
Committee to your General Secretary? We are sorry
to hear he is not well. We hope he will soon be back
firing on all cylinders.
Mr Cortes: I will do so.
Q327 Chairman: Did anybody have anything they
wanted to say to us before we start?
Mr Cortes: Yes, if I may, please. Just a few general
remarks before we start the session. As a union we
favour integrated ticketing, but what we see is that
there is not enough of it <strong>and</strong> we believe the
fragmented nature of our public transport systems
do not assist the eVorts of gaining further ticket
integration. We have also got particular concerns
with regard to what has been happening with the
provision of tickets because over the last decade
what we have seen is that the introduction of new
technology is being used as a way of reducing choice
for passengers. So what we have seen is a steady
deterioration in the amount of booking oYces
available, for example, on the railway <strong>and</strong>
supplementing those with ticket machines, call
centres, et cetera. This has been done in many
instances against the wishes of passengers. What
seems to happen—<strong>and</strong> we have got a good example
of what happened in South Eastern only a couple of
years ago where there was a very successful
campaign to stop the plans to significantly reduce
the opening hours of booking oYces—is that these
proposals resurface a couple of years later. So
although passengers are against it, the operators will
Mr Burton: It is both types actually. We have a small
hard core of serial oVenders, as you do in many areas
around antisocial behaviour. The way we deal with
that is we keep records of who we are issuing penalty
fares to, which is where the name <strong>and</strong> address would
really help us. I have a prosecution section within my
department which takes a very active role in taking
people to court when we think that is the appropriate
sanction <strong>and</strong> we work very closely with the criminal
justice system to ensure there are appropriate
sanctions in place. But yes, we do have a small hard
core of serial oVenders <strong>and</strong> those are people whom
you will not change their behaviour by posters <strong>and</strong>
they are the people where enforcement <strong>and</strong> visible
policing is a way to deal with it.
Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much. You
have been very instructive.
do so actually, if not with the approval, without
encountering the wrath of the DfT, <strong>and</strong> just come
back with recycled proposals <strong>and</strong> the booking oYces
opening hours get reduced. While we welcome the
introduction of Oyster, although its roll-out has
been somewhat slow, TfL is now using that as an
excuse to close down 40 booking oYces within the
London area. There are proposals for 40 complete
closures <strong>and</strong> then in addition to that they are looking
at reducing the hours in many others. Clearly, we
think the general public does not want that. In
addition to that, if you do not use an Oyster card
now you pay what can only be described as a penalty
fare because a single fare with an Oyster card is £1.50
for central London <strong>and</strong> without it it is £4.00. That
cannot be in the best interests of passengers. I think
I will leave it at that at this stage.
Q328 Chairman: Can I ask all of you, do your
members have any idea how smartcards or
integrated ticketing can develop in the UK? Is it
something you have debated at all?
Mr Sherratt: Not what we have debated, but the
actual bus company I work for has just started trial
on electronic smartcards using the GPS system. Yes,
there are benefits. The plus side for our members is
that the administration of it looks complex <strong>and</strong> is
certainly more involved than we are used to in the
bus industry—
Q329 Chairman: Was that a fleet which already had
GPS in it, or are they having new technology put in
<strong>and</strong> paid for by somebody else?
Mr Sherratt: No, it is new technology paid for by the
bus company. It is linked to real-time information.
All the bus stops have to be GPS located <strong>and</strong> the idea
is that the customer will have what we call a
“mango” card <strong>and</strong> touch on, touch oV, <strong>and</strong> the
current discount on a single fare is 25% <strong>and</strong> then it
is capped at a daily rate, but I am not aware if that
is ITSO-compliant or not.