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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Ev 52 Transport Committee: Evidence 12 December 2007 Mr Tom Harris MP <strong>and</strong> Mr Bob Linnard Q425 Mrs Ellman: You spoke about cashless transport, what about the people who want to use cash <strong>and</strong> just go <strong>and</strong> buy tickets? Is there going to be any room for them in the future? Mr Harris: Yes, absolutely, as there is at the moment in London, if you do not want to use an Oyster card. Q426 Chairman: It will cost you a hell of a lot if you want to stick with your commitment to cash. Some of us have this strange, old fashioned commitment to the pound, shilling <strong>and</strong> pence as were. Mr Harris: Indeed. Q427 Chairman: We like the feel of it. Mr Harris: To answer Mrs Ellman’s question, I do not foresee a position in the future where it will not be possible to use local transport without a smartcard. There will be an opportunity to use cash. Obviously in London, as you say Mrs Dunwoody, there seems to be a premium on using cash. I do not want to make predictions about how that situation might be rolled out for the rest of the country <strong>and</strong> I would not want to set any hares running or newspaper reports that say that the Government supports a scheme where you spend far more money using cash than smartcards. That is what has happened in London, but I just do not see the situation arising where you would not be allowed to use cash. Q428 Mrs Ellman: What is the Government going to do to ensure that that is the case? We have had evidence that operators might find it cheaper not to have cash <strong>and</strong> want to make booking facilities more diYcult? Is the Government going to do anything to restrain that? Mr Harris: On trains the Government has a lot more influence, as you know, than as far as buses are concerned. Buses are completely deregulated outside London. Q429 Chairman: “Piratical” is the word you are finding diYcult to find, Minister. Mr Harris: That may be a word you are comfortable using, Mrs Dunwoody; I will stick to “deregulated”. The Government has little or very little influence on the level of fares charged by bus companies outside the capital. In terms of guarantees that I can oVer, I could not, with h<strong>and</strong> on heart, tell you that we can oVer a cast iron guarantee that that would not happen in terms of bus operators. The Local Transport Bill which I probably should have mentioned in my introductory comments will allow new structures in place where local authorities will have to a certain degree more influence over local bus operations <strong>and</strong> that may well include fares in a quality contract context. As far as trains are concerned, obviously we do not foresee any change to the regulation of train tickets that currently exists up to the end of the next control period in 2014; decisions beyond that will obviously be taken in the next few years. Q430 Mrs Ellman: Will the Government maintain any instructions on the availability of ticketing for people who want to pay cash or pay on the day? Would the Government put any regulations on that? Mr Harris: I do not want to perjure myself in front of the Committee by saying that we can oVer that guarantee. At this stage, although I do not foresee a situation where people will be forced to use a smartcard, I am not aware of any mechanism that the Government actually has to enforce that. Q431 Chairman: Mr Linnard, you always get the diYcult ones. Mr Linnard: There is on the railway something called the <strong>Ticketing</strong> <strong>and</strong> Settlement Agreement which governs a number of technical issues about the availability of tickets, including things like the opening of ticket oYces. One of the things that the Government would not agree to would be changes in that that reduced the availability of the ability to pay cash for tickets unless it was quite clear that that was not going to disadvantage people. Q432 Mrs Ellman: We have had evidence from local authorities <strong>and</strong> the PTEs saying that it is diYcult to introduce integrated ticketing <strong>and</strong> smartcards in the deregulated environment. What diVerence do you think the Local Transport Bill is going to make to that? Mr Harris: The Local Transport Bill will eliminate some of the obstacles that local authorities <strong>and</strong> PTEs across the country are having to navigate at the moment if they want to move to quality contract. This Committee will know far better than I some of the complaints <strong>and</strong> problems that local authorities have had trying to move towards quality contracts. The Local Transport Bill grew out of an awareness in Government that that situation should not go on. Obviously we have never said <strong>and</strong> we do not intend to go back to the situation pre-1986; I do not think anyone wants us to go back to that particular era. However, I do hope, not just in quality contracts, that the fact that local authorities <strong>and</strong> PTEs will be able to get a quality contract more easily than at the moment will serve as an incentive to some bus operating companies to cooperate more fully with local authorities. Even before the Local Transport Bill comes into eVect <strong>and</strong> becomes an act there is quite a lot of movement among the bus operating companies in terms of cooperating with local authorities, with Passenger Transport Executives to produce more integrated ticketing. Obviously that has to be done in cooperation with the Competition Commission because it is illegal for bus companies to talk to each other <strong>and</strong> set fares together; that is why we have the block exemption from the Competition Commission, but where that happens there is actually quite a lot of cooperation between bus companies <strong>and</strong> between those bus companies <strong>and</strong> Passenger Transport Executives. However, you are right, things will improve I hope with the Local Transport Bill. Q433 Mrs Ellman: How much do you expect them to improve?
Mr Harris: I am sorry, I am not going to oVer you a hostage to fortune; I think it will be significant. 12 December 2007 Mr Tom Harris MP <strong>and</strong> Mr Bob Linnard Q434 Mrs Ellman: What can be done to make it easier to have bus tickets that enable people to travel on diVerent buses instead of keep having to get diVerent tickets? Mr Harris: In January this year I was invited to launch not PlusBus but it was the advertising campaign for PlusBus. PlusBus—I am sure you have dealt with this already—is an add-on to a train ticket so that when you are travelling to one of the 220 diVerent towns throughout Great Britain, if PlusBus is operating in the town or city you are going to you can be oVered a £2 add-on to your train ticket <strong>and</strong> that allows you to use bus services at the end of your journey. It is the only such system in Europe which is completely organised, paid for, administered by the private sector. In that respect I do not foresee the Department for Transport trying to elbow in on that; I think it is actually a good product. My only reservation about this—I raised this with the Association of Train Operating Companies just yesterday—is that you could perhaps lay a criticism at the train companies that this is a tick box exercise, they have ticked the box saying they do integrated transport. The reason I am saying that they are vulnerable to that accusation but I am not actually making it myself is because the marketing budget for PlusBus is between £40,000 <strong>and</strong> £60,000 a year, which is almost nothing, <strong>and</strong> yet if you look at the take-up of PlusBus it has increased by more than 100% in the past year, so there is a market there. I am not sure that the Association of Train Operating Companies are properly exploiting that market. Chairman: Heaven forbid, Minister, that you should suggest that the Association of Train Operating Companies do not take up commercial challenges; I cannot believe you could make such an unwarranted slur on these entrepreneurs. Q435 Mr Leech: Do you think that this could be extended to include trams in areas where trams are in existence, like Manchester for example? Mr Harris: In principle I have no problem with that at all, but as I said at the beginning this is <strong>and</strong> will remain a completely private sector initiative. Q436 Graham Stringer: In your introductory statement <strong>and</strong> once or twice since you have said that there are enormous benefits from concessionary travel, it is always a benefit if you pay nothing or you pay less. What other benefits are there? Mr Harris: In terms of social inclusion, in terms of saying to a group of people who perhaps did not feel they could aVord to travel before, to say that you can now travel from A to B completely free of charge. I know from personal experience pensioners who are taking up the opportunity this scheme has aVorded to them in Scotl<strong>and</strong> who are making journeys that they would never have considered before. It is incredibly popular among those who qualify <strong>and</strong> I just think that in terms of social inclusion that is by far <strong>and</strong> away the highest benefit. Whatever you may consider the drawbacks of its administration—you Transport Committee: Evidence Ev 53 might want to come back to that—I think the principle of oVering pensioners, older people <strong>and</strong> disabled people free bus travel is one which is very diYcult to criticise. Q437 Graham Stringer: I just wondered whether the Government is moving or has thought of moving or would move beyond the sort of anecdotal evidence available—social inclusion, pensioners getting out who were housebound previously—to some measurement, some objective research that might be related to social inclusion, it might be related to health, it might be related to education. Have you looked at that or is the Government just relying on anecdotes? Mr Harris: Going back to smartcard technology, it is actually very diYcult to calculate the precise number of people using a particular concessionary travel scheme unless you have smartcard technology to back it up. An awful lot of the evidence that you are looking for about movement of people, about numbers of people, is something that you will be able to glean far more eVectively once ITSO is being used nationwide. Q438 Graham Stringer: I was thinking of something more than movement of people. When those people move, apart from them moving, is their quality of life either in health, education or in other ways, is the Government looking at measuring that? Mr Harris: To be honest I am not aware of specific bits of research that the DfT have made in this case. Q439 Graham Stringer: That is slightly surprising, is it not? There is a billion pounds being spent on concessionary fares, or thereabouts, more than £200 million nationalising the scheme, would it not be normal to look at a cost benefit analysis to look at the benefits of what is happening? Mr Harris: We will do once the 2008 scheme is fully implemented. Q440 Graham Stringer: So you are going to do this kind of research. Mr Harris: There will be an analysis after it is fully implemented. By then of course the scheme will have been implemented. I should think this is a political decision the Government has made. This is political <strong>and</strong> we have made a deliberate political decision because we think this is a good thing. Q441 Graham Stringer: You <strong>and</strong> I signed up to the same manifesto <strong>and</strong> the same policies which are based on evidence, are they not? What I am trying to do is get to what evidence there is because there has been criticism of the scheme in that you could spend money to better eVect if you did not give free transport to pensioners <strong>and</strong> made them pay something but you extended the scheme to young people, poor people, the unemployed <strong>and</strong> so on. Have you looked at that or is this a straightforward political decision without evidence? Mr Harris: We have looked at making the scheme as flexible as possible within the legislation so that in future, depending on experience <strong>and</strong> basing any
Page 1 and 2:
House of Commons Transport Committe
Page 3 and 4:
Contents Report Page 1 Introduction
Page 5 and 6:
4 5. Smartcards offer a range of ne
Page 7 and 8:
6 Integrated bus ticketing 10. Thro
Page 9 and 10:
8 Long distance coach services are
Page 11 and 12:
10 strategy, including those in the
Page 13 and 14:
12 long-distance rail passengers ma
Page 15 and 16:
14 services have not been put in pl
Page 17 and 18:
16 Oyster on rail services in Londo
Page 19 and 20:
18 4 Revenue protection and
Page 21 and 22:
20 Staff safety 61. Transport staff
Page 23 and 24:
22 66. An integrated ticketing syst
Page 25 and 26:
24 Transport should commission an e
Page 27 and 28:
26 concession authorities that attr
Page 29 and 30:
28 operators and a
Page 31 and 32:
30 List of recommendations Integrat
Page 33 and 34:
32 Concessionary t
Page 35 and 36:
34 Formal Minutes Clive Efford Mrs
Page 37 and 38:
36 List of written evidence 1 Dr Ro
Page 39 and 40:
38 List of Reports from the Committ
Page 41 and 42: Oral evidence Taken before the Tran
Page 43 and 44: 14 November 2007 Mr Chris Austin, M
Page 51 and 52: Transport Committee: Evidence Ev 11
Page 57 and 58: 14 November 2007 Mr Keith Halstead
Page 59 and 60: definition of severe disability <st
Page 71 and 72: about how the data on the smartcard
Page 73 and 74: things around it. We have got over
Page 75 and 76: which comes out of the usage of the
Page 77 and 78: the impact of their behaviour on ot
Page 79 and 80: 5 December 2007 Mr Manuel Cortes, M
Page 81 and 82: 5 December 2007 Mr Manuel Cortes, M
Page 91: Transport Committee: Evidence Ev 51
Page 95 and 96: 12 December 2007 Mr Tom Harris MP <
Page 97 and 98: Q464 Chairman: Is Transport Direct
Page 103 and 104: 3.2 Conclusion—Smartcard St<stron
Page 119 and 120: Integrated Transport Memora
Page 143 and 144:
Transport Committee: Evidence Ev 10
Page 145 and 146:
Page 147 and 148:
Page 149 and 150:
Page 151 and 152:
Page 153 and 154:
Lostwithiel to Liskeard Transport C
Page 155 and 156:
Page 157 and 158:
Page 159 and 160:
Is the legal framework within which
Page 161 and 162:
The Use of Smartcard Technologies I
Page 163 and 164:
Executive Summary Memorand<
Page 165 and 166:
Integration Nationally Transport Co
Page 167 and 168:
Page 169 and 170:
— Ensure the confidentiality of d
Page 171 and 172:
Page 173 and 174:
Page 175 and 176:
7. What appeal mechanisms exist for
Page 177 and 178:
8. Are the rights of passengers <st
Page 179 and 180:
Concessionary Fare
Page 181 and 182:
Introduction Memorand</stro
Page 183 and 184:
4. Does the ITSO System cater for t
Page 185 and 186:
Page 187 and 188:
Page 189 and 190:
Page 191 and 192:
Page 193 and 194:
Page 195 and 196:
Page 197 and 198:
Page 199 and 200:
March 2007 1. Summary Transport Com
Page 201 and 202:
Page 203 and 204:
Page 205 and 206:
9. Do operators of public transport
Page 207 and 208:
Page 209 and 210:
Page 211 and 212:
Page 213 and 214:
Page 215 and 216:
Page 217 and 218:
Page 219 and 220:
Page 221 and 222:
Page 223 and 224:
Concessionary Fare
Page 225 and 226:
Page 227 and 228:
Ferry Transport Committee: Evidence
Page 229 and 230:
Page 231 and 232:
Page 233 and 234:
Page 235 and 236:
Confusion over what local authoriti
Page 237 and 238:
Page 239 and 240:
Question 68 Timings of Oyster <stro
Page 241 and 242:
show all

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

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?