Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
DFT, ATOC, NETWORK
RAIL, ORR AND
SRA
12 OCTOBER 2005
Q160 Stephen Williams: Turning now
to sustainability and encouraging cyclists to use the train, on
page 33, paragraph 3.22, it refers to a survey by the Cyclists
Touring Club which suggests that if you go to a large station
you are likely to have somewhere safe to park your bike but if
you go to a small station, it implies here, only a quarter have
cycle rack facilities. I accept that there are difficulties in
linking up with other forms of public transport like buses and
so on but it really ought to be easy at every station to have
basic cycle rack facilities. It could be as little as three bicycle
racks present at each station. Again, is there a target to have
cycle safety facilities at every station?
Mr Muir: No. I think the concept
of having defined things which are required at every station,
if I can generalise, was what underlay a previous project, which
was modern facilities at stations, and it turned out to be exceptionally
expensive. The view of everybody, having looked at the very high
bill, which at one point was £500 million, £600 million,
£700 million (and that was only doing 600 stations), was
that it simply became irrational. The concept that we are going
to have X, Y and Z at every station turns out to be exceptionally
expensive. If I can turn back to cycling, what the train operators
are doing is targeting cycling where it is needed and where they
have got space. Quite a lot of progress has been made. York station,
for example, I think has room for 2,000 bicycles. If you give
me a second I will check the figure but it is a very large number
of bicycles.[13]
Q161 Stephen Williams: That is accepted.
It says here that 85% of the larger stations have cycle facilities.
It was the smaller stations I was drawing the contrast between,
that only a quarter have any cycling facilities at all, which
was what I was asking you to comment on: could you not provide
basic facilities at every smaller station, which actually would
be very cheap? Cycle racks do not cost a great deal of money.
Mr Muir: I cannot commit that
we will do that. I do know that train operators are progressively,
across their stations, encouraging cycling among many other things.
Dr Mitchell: Maybe I can add to
that answer. First Great Eastern carried out a programme of cycle
parking installation in the latter part of their franchise and
by doing that they doubled the number of passengers arriving by
bicycle from 1.5% to 3%, so in suitable areas it can be very effective.
Q162 Stephen Williams: It has, for
the very low cost of providing cycle racks, presumably a huge
spin-off in terms of extra passenger revenue, so it has a good
payback. On that point of the payback for investments, on page
32, paragraph 3.19, although this is only a sample of medium and
small stations, it does say at the end of that paragraph that
few had self-service ticket machines. It is obviously very unhelpful
in this context but it does imply that hardly any of the sample
that were visited by the NAO had self-service ticket machines.
I am only familiar with two branch lines. One is Valley Lines
in South Wales where I grew up, which I still use quite often,
and the Severn Beech line which goes through my constituency in
Bristol. Quite often you get a free journey, particularly at busy
times, because the conductor on that train has no time to collect
the fare, whereas if at each unstaffed station there was a self-service
ticket machine you could get your ticket before you got on the
train and then the conductor on the train would simply check that
people had a ticket rather than spend increasing long periods
of time with the more and more cumbersome machinery they have
these days issuing tickets and looking for change. Do you not
think there would be a big payback by having more self-service
ticket machines at smaller stations?
Mr Muir: Yes, there would. There
are some stations where you cannot have them because they get
vandalised but on the whole that is not a general answer. It is
part of the progressive improvement of the railway and progressively
in the past years and in the future we have installed and will
continue to install more ticket machines. The current replacement
order for ticket machines which is now going through includes
4,000 machines. 4,000 machines have been and are being swapped
out in the last 12 months and in the next 12 months.
Q163 Stephen Williams: Are being
swapped out? You are only replacing them where there already are
some?
Mr Muir: The old electrical ones
are being swapped out with newer ones. There is a massive investment
programme going on at the moment in ticket machines. We have seen
it a lot of use of new ticket on departure machines which are
generally at the large stations and as the years go by, and hopefully
as the money is available, there is a progressive programme of
improving the stations and we will deliver these machines to the
stations you are talking about.
Q164 Stephen Williams: Are you implying
that this is again at large stations, if you are replacing what
is already there rather than, as the Report suggests here, at
the smaller stations where there is not a quantified number? It
implies that there are hardly any.
Mr Muir: I think the replacement
is happening where there are the old machines. They are all being
switched over.
Q165 Stephen Williams: But are there
new ones?
Mr Muir: They will switch to new
ones.
Q166 Stephen Williams: Extra ones?
Mr Muir: Having done that, the
train operator will then be looking at other stations which can
justify a ticket issuing machine.
Q167 Stephen Williams: In the time
available I will just make one last point that several other colleagues
have made about complying with the Disability and Discrimination
Act. I travel back to Bristol Temple Meads quite frequently and
I have often overheard passengers who are due to get off at Bath
complaining that there are not facilities there for disabled passengers
because it is a listed building. Is that a common problem, that
we are not complying with the DDA because of the difficulties
of adapting a listed building?
Mr Armitt: Adapting listed buildings
can be difficult. We have even had an argument with the heritage
authorities with regard to the positioning of a CCTV camera because
they do not like where it is going, so a lift, which has a significant
impact on the structure, can be a constraint but at the end of
the day it should not prevent it altogether. It just means that
it is going to be a longer than two-year process to achieve it.
Q168 Stephen Williams: I am in danger
of treading on a colleague's territory here but Bath obviously
is a station that has visitors from all over the world and it
would be terrible if it were not complying with the DDA.
Mr Muir: Is it wheelchair access
that it does not have?
Stephen Williams: I think so, yes. I
helped someone off the train once because there were no staff
available on the train to help the person off.
Q169 Mr Davidson: I wonder if I can
ask Mr Newton, arising from paragraph 2.17, about the question
of taking remedial action. In the entire year, as far as I can
see, you only issued 18 station-related breach notices. Do I take
it that all the rest of the stations were fine?
Mr Newton: No. What that means
is that the transgression was considered sufficiently serious
that we should issue a breach notice.
Q170 Mr Davidson: Can you give us
a list of the 18 and can you tell us which company was the worst
offender?
Mr Newton: I would need to give
you a note on that.[14]
Q171 Mr Davidson: You do not know?
Mr Newton: No.
Q172 Mr Davidson: You would not like
to give us a clue, would you?
Mr Newton: No.
Q173 Mr Davidson: Okay. You prefer
to do breach notices rather than have the passenger dividends
but in response to a question from Mrs McCarthy-Fry you said that
any number of those were taken. Can you just clarify for me the
balance between these passenger dividends and breach notices?
How many were there?
Mr Newton: I do not have those
numbers to hand.
Q174 Mr Davidson: Can you give me
an idea then?
Mr Newton: As I say, I could not.
It would be a wild guess.
Q175 Mr Davidson: How in that case
can you say to Mrs McCarthy-Fry that any number were taken if
you do not know what the number was?
Mr Newton: I recall the frequency
but not the quantity.
Q176 Mr Davidson: Sorry—the
frequency but not the quantity?
Mr Newton: Yes.
Q177 Mr Davidson: Can you use those
figures to give me a stab at it then?
Mr Newton: No. As I say, I am
quite happy to write to you.
Q178 Mr Davidson: Okay. In terms
of the situations where you have had cause for concern you had
18 remedial actions and a number unspecified of passenger dividends.
What was your methodology for getting a resolution of other situations
that caused you concern or were there no other situations that
caused you concern?
Mr Newton: The focus initially
was on remedying the transgression, depending on the seriousness
and whether it had a material adverse effect on passengers.
Q179 Mr Davidson: So there were three
categories, were there? There was a breach notice, a passenger
dividend or something else? In every case something got resolved,
did it?
Mr Newton: Yes. There was either
a breach notice or some enforcement action.
13 Note by witness: It is 395 bicycles. Back
14
Ev 27 Back
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