Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
MR BRIAN
COOKE, MR
JOHN CARTLEDGE,
MR COLIN
FOXALL, MR
ANTHONY SMITH,
MR ALAN
MEREDITH AND
MR STEPHEN
ABBOTT
23 NOVEMBER 2005
Q60 Chairman: Do you want to comment
on that, Mr Cartledge?
Mr Cartledge: Just to add a point.
International comparisons are fraught with many difficulties.
It is a well-known fact, and I do not think widely challenged,
that the published rate of fares for travel around London is higher
than the equivalent fares around most other comparable cities
but London has a much lower level of subsidy and a much higher
level of cost recovery from passengers. However, it is the case
also that London has for many years had a very much more generous
system of concessionary fares for older people and now has a much
more generous system of concessionary fares for young people than
is available in most equivalent cities. It depends very much on
the category of passenger you are talking about as to whether
or not these comparisons hold good.
Q61 Mrs Ellman: When the Rail Passengers'
Council was restructured and regional councils were disbanded
there was a lot of criticism and concern that the new form of
Rail Passengers' Council would not be able to reflect regional
concerns. What are you doing to show us that you are reflecting
the concerns of, in this instance, rail travellers in the regions?
Mr Foxall: First of all, we have
a series of passenger link managers who relate to TOCs and TOC
areas and, therefore, that produces regionality. The second thing
we are doing is using those managers to work with all the local
groups. We are sitting here with one today. We are seeking to
use those groups to represent passengers as our eyes and ears
throughout the whole of the country. Those are two very serious
and very committed positions on dealing with the local. We are
dealing with the national but we are ready to deal with the local.
Q62 Mrs Ellman: What can you tell us
about the impact on passenger journey increases in the cost of
rail travel?
Mr Foxall: At the moment we are
about to do the research. That was what I was saying earlier on,
I am not committing myself here saying "This impact"
and "That impact". I am very interested in things which
have been said today and the conundrum which has been pointed
out between the fact that passenger volumes are rising while fares
are rising also. We need to explore and understand why that is
happening.
Q63 Mrs Ellman: What is the nature of
the research you are doing?
Mr Foxall: We are commissioning
the research now. We are just beginning this piece of policy research.
Q64 Mrs Ellman: Into what?
Mr Foxall: The whole fares policy.
Q65 Mrs Ellman: Have you any information
at the moment on the impact of rising fares on different types
of journeys? Transport 2000 gave us some evidence about the differential
impact on different types of journeys. Have you got any information
as the Rail Passengers' Council?
Mr Smith: I think it is fair to
say that the anecdotal evidence that we receive through complaints
or comments from passengers indicates that obviously fare rises
do have an impact on the ability of some passengers to travel,
that is a self-evident truth. The reason for people travelling
is often driven by lots of factors: the economy is strong, the
marketing techniques of some of the companies are producing very
cheap fares. It is quite a complicated picture. I think, as previous
witnesses said, to try and get a countrywide picture is quite
difficult. You have to look at it region-by-region, route-by-route.
Q66 Mrs Ellman: Do you have any information
about it?
Mr Smith: No, we do not have hard
evidence in that respect, no.
Q67 Chairman: Your terms of reference
will be quite wide and take that in?
Mr Smith: Yes.
Q68 Chairman: We can call you back in
due course for a supplementary report.
Mr Smith: Yes.
Q69 Mrs Ellman: The train operators say
they want more freedom to set and retail fares. Can anyone give
me an example of something good which can come out of such a power
and what are your concerns of negative things?
Mr Meredith: Could I answer the
second question first. I think that an issue is that, in fact,
we are talking about a network. There may well be operators who
are responsible for particular lines of route but, in fact—
Q70 Chairman: Now, Mr Meredith, I am
going to stop you there. They all want to be freed of the existing
restrictions. It is their trade association.
Mr Meredith: But the point I am
saying in terms of the user is that, in fact, very often your
journey takes into account more than one operator and it is when
you get into the areas of more than one operator in that network
that, in fact, total freedom for individual operators becomes
a problem. We have given you instances in our submission but if
you would like us to expand on that.
Q71 Chairman: Briefly, Mr Abbott?
Mr Abbott: As was said, I think
on intercity routes to London there is scope for the airline type
approach to fill off-peak seats. In London and the south east,
as a hangover from the old Network South East, there is a coherent
fare structure. You can buy, for example, a day return ticket
between any two stations. When you get into the regions, I think
the train operators have made use of their freedom to abolish
certain types of tickets and not extend others to all stations
to the disbenefit of passengers. For example, there has been widespread
elimination of day return tickets for medium distances, as a consequence
it is often beneficial to the passenger, if they are in the know,
to buy two tickets for one journey, from A to B and then B to
C. If they ask the booking office for two tickets, the booking
office is obliged to give them but they are not obliged to tell
the passenger that option is available. Similarly with Apex, the
advance purchase tickets, they are available for city-to-city
journeys, if you are travelling from an adjoining station to a
main city you can find you are paying very heavily to buy a through
ticket. For example, Leicester to Carlisle, the cheapest option
is £23 return; Melton Mowbray to Carlisle, the cheapest option
is £63.40, if you are in the know you would pay £5 to
Leicester and start again.
Q72 Chairman: I think they are following
Mr Crow's prejudices about where people live.
Mr Smith: I think it is quite
absurd to suggest that you can have a free-for-all. There is very
little competition between rail companies. By and large rail companies
have a monopoly on the type of travel they are offering, particularly
on some Intercity and commuter routes. Monopoly industries are
regulated, it is one of the standard market forces that is applied.
The attempts to regulate fares over the years have produced the
mishmash situation we are in. That is why on behalf of passengers
we think the right approach is to try and think much further forward
in terms of ten years forward to think about how passengers might
want to pay for travel then and try and work out a system which
meets the competing needs of the public in terms of the public
service and the revenue needs of the industry but you cannot have
a free-for-all.
Q73 Clive Efford: That is easily said;
we could all come up with a similar set of words to say that is
what we have to do for our rail service. Where are the efficiencies
we can make within the existing budgetary framework which will
reduce pressure on ticket prices, perhaps increase the capacity
to reduce costs? That is an open question to whoever wants to
pick it up.
Mr Foxall: I think, realistically,
the issue is this. We have a constraint on capacity. I do not
want to hypothesise in front of the Committee, it will waste the
Committee's time. If you were to reduce fares very significantly
you would overwhelm trains quite quickly and that is in no-one's
interest, not even the passengers' interest. All we can operate
on is the basis of the argument I have been putting forward for
value for money. What I think you want to look at, in the piece
of work that Mr Smith has been describing, is to see if there
is a way forward. I agree with you, it is very easy to say those
words and very hard to come up with it. I do not promise we will
come up with it but if someone does not try then we are never
going to deliver that sort of system. What we want to do is to
try, it is our job, it is the job of this new Council to lead
this sort of debate and I want to try to lead it, if I can.
Q74 Clive Efford: Your approach to ticket
prices then is that not only do we want to make it as economical
as possible but it has to be a mechanism also to prevent over-capacity?
Mr Foxall: No, I want there to
be value for money and I want passengers to get what they expect
out of their journeys. I want there to be trains they can get
on. Within the capacity that is there, we want to exploit that
as fully as we can for passengers' benefit. That is the sort of
premise we will be using in approaching this piece of policy.
Q75 Clive Efford: Within a price range
that does not put too much demand on the system?
Mr Foxall: Maybe when we do the
research we will discover that passengers would not mind being
crowded and standing up all the way from here to Newcastle but
I suspect we will find they will not want to.
Q76 Clive Efford: Can I ask London TravelWatch:
you have conducted a great deal of research into particular fare
issues in the capital. What are the main problems specific to
London?
Mr Cooke: The main problem is
the huge variation that there is in price-per-mile for very similar
journeys on very similar rolling stock with very similar difficulties.
We fully support the Department for Transport's view that a zonal
fare system should come in fully to London and should be integrated
with both the Tube and rail within Greater London. In fact, the
Department have directed TfL and the train operators to try and
work such a system from January 2007. We are not convinced it
can be achieved by January 2007 because of the complexities and
the difficulties but within London we believe that a zonal system
similar to TfL's zonal system on the Tube could come in at some
point and would make life a lot easier.
Q77 Clive Efford: You envisage that being
fully integrated with TfL?
Mr Cooke: Yes, we do, and indeed
the powers which are given to the Secretary of State in the Railways
Act, to give the Mayor certain controls over that, we welcome.
Q78 Clive Efford: What are the obstacles
in the way of that?
Mr Cooke: The obstacles are that
there would be some losers as well as winners in that in terms
of the changes to the fares. Some point-to-point fares, particularly
on the south east network have been artificially held low in our
view purely because of the way the revenue is divided up between
the train operating companies, and TfL means that they get a greater
share than on point-to-point tickets.
Q79 Clive Efford: Why do you think the
Oyster card is not yet integrated with the national rail services
in the London area?
Mr Cooke: Some of the Oyster card,
of course, is because if you have a travel card on an Oyster it
is fully integrated and you can use that on national rail services.
The pre-pay Oyster is not yet accepted by the vast majority of
national rail companies. There are two issues there. One is we
think they could have done far more to make it integrated but
there is also the question of equivalent stations with gates and
readers which not all stations are yet equipped with.
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