Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-159)
MR PAUL
PLUMMER, MS
JANET GOODLAND,
MR ROB
HOLDEN, MR
THEO STEEL
AND MR
PAUL SMITH
19 OCTOBER 2005
Q140 Mrs Ellman: Have you considered
running direct services from European cities to the Olympic site?
Mr Holden: Eurostar will no doubt
be looking at possible options. As I have already said, the Eurostar
services which will ordinarily stop at Stratford will be suspended
during the course of the Games with trains stopping both at Ebbsfleet
and King's Cross St Pancras. Whether Eurostar plans to run beyond
Paris and Brussels is not something I could give an answer to
today.
Q141 Mrs Ellman: Do you have a view on
that?
Mr Holden: I believe it will be
extremely difficult to run services from beyond Paris and Brussels
given the length of journeys and the ability to obtain train paths
beyond the existing destinations.
Q142 Mrs Ellman: Has this been investigated?
Mr Holden: Not to my knowledge
at this time, no.
Q143 Mrs Ellman: How do you know it would
be so difficult?
Mr Holden: Eurostar people, I
know, have had enormous problems in recent years in obtaining
paths at the right times in order to improve existing services
between London and Paris and London and Brussels. As I understand
it, the biggest difficulty is likely to be on the French high
speed line between Paris and Lille which is already very heavily
congested at most times of the day.
Q144 Mrs Ellman: It sounds as if there
have been either some investigations which are not being disclosed
or a decision reached without working out the way that decision
has been arrived at.
Mr Holden: I am not aware that
any investigations have been done specifically for the Olympic
Games. What I do know is that Eurostar have in the past looked
at frequencies on the high speed line, particularly in France.
SNCF and RFF, the French railways, would have to increase the
capacity in northern France to increase the frequency of services.
Q145 Mrs Ellman: I would like to ask
about what arrangements the train operating companies are making
on the provision of foreign languages on trains, anticipating
large numbers of overseas visitors.
Mr Steel: I certainly have some
trains where we make prerecorded foreign announcements on coming
into Harwich at the moment. Most of our trains have the drivers
making announcements and that is something that we will have to
think through carefully. If you go to Harwich on one of our hourly
trains from Liverpool Street, you will have one of my staff's
Dutch mother making an announcement which is relevant to Harwich
and the project manager who built the trains speaking in German.
Q146 Chairman: You do Dutch and German?
Mr Steel: Yes, at Harwich International.
The ships go to Germany and to Holland.
Q147 Chairman: You are assuming no one
will travel to either of those countries from further afield.
In Korean trains routinely, including suburban and domestic trains,
the Committee were able to follow the system very simply on their
own because every train had announcements, a loop, which played
with four different major languages and which, in the case of
Korea were not only Korean and Japanese but were Mandarin and
English. What plans does ATOC have to cover not just the possibility
of having one Dutch speaking person on board but a number of languages
which would provide information, not just on the trains but in
the stations?
Mr Steel: We are more than happy
to look at it.
Q148 Chairman: But you have not done
so yet?
Mr Steel: No. There are automatic
announcements that we have in foreign languages. I believe I have
staff at Liverpool Street, from when we last did an audit, that
can speak 64 different languages.
Q149 Chairman: Yes, but they are not
doing it. I know lots of staff that can speak 64 different languages.
They are not usually the sort you can record in Hansard.
Mr Steel: That is from the total
number of staff.
Q150 Chairman: You are looking at the
information system so that people entering the stations at either
end can find what is available and follow the information?
Mr Smith: Information is critical,
is it not? We need to understand exactly what sort of information
needs to be given to certain sorts of people and determine that
in advance, particularly those who are arriving at London termini
travelling through to Olympic events. We work with our partners,
TFL, with Network Rail and others in determining the consistent
message we will give to those customers. I think information rather
than language is critical initially and we will move on to what
we can do in terms of—
Q151 Chairman: And you are already doing
this?
Mr Smith: We are not doing it
yet but we will be looking at those options.
Q152 Mr Martlew: This is not the first
Olympic Games ever to be held. Are you going to reinvent the wheel?
Are you going to cities which have had the Olympic Games in the
past to find out what they did and whether it worked?
Mr Smith: We have not yet but
no doubt we will draw on experience from those places.
Mr Steel: In the company I work
for we had an Australian experience which included running buses
in the Sydney Olympics and we can certainly draw on that experience.
Q153 Mr Clelland: Can I ask if the train
operating companies are prepared to cooperate in the scheme to
take part in the integrated travel and admission tickets such
as the Oyster card system?
Mr Steel: We are in very active
discussions with the Department for Transport and TFL over Oyster
cards. Two of us personally have spent a lot of time on that subject
and we have had letters from the Minister encouraging us to find
a way forward and to be involved.
Q154 Mr Clelland: You are confident you
will find a way forward. What are the obstacles? What are the
problems?
Mr Steel: Obviously London Underground
is a closed system with gates. We have gates at our key stations
and we have to make sure that we can protect the revenue. The
revenue risk is quite an important element in this consideration.
Q155 Mr Clelland: What is the danger
to the revenue?
Mr Steel: If people do not key
in and key out with their Oyster card and if they do not have
a gate to go through, then we have to make sure that the revenue
is accounted for.
Q156 Mr Martlew: I travel regularly on
the Docklands Light Railway and they do not have gates but they
do take Oyster cards.
Mr Steel: Their average fare is
rather lower than ours and the Docklands Light Railway system
is the Docklands Light Railway system. I know it connects in and
out at various locations but once you are at Stratford you can
get to Norwich.
Q157 Mr Martlew: Are you saying that
the DLR is not interested in collecting fares?
Mr Steel: No. I am saying that
we are looking at that very carefully in terms of gathering evidence
and trying to see a way forward.
Q158 Mr Clelland: Are there some technical
difficulties apart from people skipping the barriers, in producing
a system?
Mr Steel: We have to find a modern
ticket issuing machine which is Oyster compatible.
Mr Smith: We do not have the capability
yet to issue Oyster tickets. That is one of the issues. We need
to develop a system that can do that, which we are currently working
on with DFT and TFL.
Q159 Chairman: Are Thameslink passengers
going to have to walk 500 metres to King's Cross Thameslink from
the Pentonville Road or are they going to be able to use the new
stations adjacent to the CTRL shuttle?
Ms Goodland: I think we answered
Mr Efford's question on that earlier. I repeat that we are currently
working with the Department and the Office of the Rail Regulator
to try and identify a way of taking that project forward so that
the new station will be open well in advance of 2012.
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