Examination of Witnesses (Quesitons 40-59)
MR CHRIS
AUSTIN, MR
DAVID MAPP
AND MR
RICHARD MALINS
14 NOVEMBER 2007
Q40 Mr Hollobone: Is that not an
excessive amount that could go into improving the public transport
system? Given that you are having to make a guess of what that
amount is, should data not be collected far more comprehensively
given the scale of the problem?
Mr Austin: I think the answer
is yes to both of those questions. It is a lot and train operators
are doing a lot to address that, both through gating additional
stations and through providing higher levels of ticket checks
on-train, which overcomes the shortcomings of the gates. In the
process of doing this, they are also building up a much better
store of information and time series data to demonstrate much
more accurately the level of losses being incurred, so the two
really go together.
Q41 Mr Hollobone: I think that Mr
Malins is of the view that there is an over-reliance in the rail
industry on introducing barriers to prevent fare dodging and more
sophisticated strategies are needed. Mr Malins, would you elaborate
on that?
Mr Malins: My point here that
I put in the paper, and I repeat for you now, is that, first of
all, as Chris has admitted, there is no sound or consistent method
of measurement by most TOCs on the extent to which they have fare
evasion or simply ticketless travel, what I would describe as
people who may not pay their fares for the very reason the Committee
was alluding to earlier on, that it is actually quite difficult
to buy a ticket in the first place. So we need to distinguish
between people who are deliberately trying to avoid paying and
those who find it difficult to pay because the facilities are
not there. The sort of numbers that Chris has been talking about
would embrace absolutely everything if the number were correct—and
I suspect it might be on the high side.
Q42 Mr Hollobone: Whilst you are
on the subject of whether people are genuinely dodging fares or
accidentally dodging fares, do you have any estimate of the number
of people who are willfully doing this?
Mr Malins: All I can say is that
one can draw a little pie chart which says if you look at the
world at large there are people out there who always want to pay
their fares and are committed to doing it. That could be 80% of
the population but it will vary and I would not like to say that
is an absolutely correct figure. Then there are people who if
it is made difficult to pay they will not bother. Then there are
people who are determined fare evaders. Quite what number they
represent is something that is very difficult to get at. I would
say that the number Chris quoted is probably an outside number
for fares not paid for all sort of reasons, some of them in fact
not the customers' fault. I do not think there is any consistent
measurement within that to know precisely what the number is and
therefore what the reasons are and how best to tackle them. The
point I was making to the Committee is I think it is a knee-jerk
reaction by train operating companies to revert to closing stations,
which is the system we had years ago, which meant people were
standing around getting bored so that we can check people at the
beginning of the journey. The sort of gates that are used are
those designed for the Underground. I think they are effective
where you have got high volumes of short-distance business where
it is difficult to check by other means and also when people are
not encumbered by bags and are familiar with the system. What
alarms me—and I would like the Committee to think about
this—the spreading of this to inter-city business where
I think it is a) unnecessary and b) wholly inappropriate in terms
of customer service. I do not think it is necessary because once
people are on your system for longer, the on-train check is far
the most effective, and that is what people should concentrate
on. Ticket gates where you have got a serious short-distance problem,
yes, but on long-distance business the train is much the best
place to do it.
Q43 Mr Hollobone: I understand the
legal framework for ticket inspection on railways is different
to that which operates on buses. Would there be support for making
that legal framework the same? And then to Mr Mapp: I believe
in your evidence you say that guidelines could be given on both
prosecution and on sentencing which better reflect the serious
nature of fare dodging.
Mr Malins: I said in my note that
because in my business we do this as an agency activity for a
number of rail operators—not all of them TOCs I might say,
one of them is Docklands Light Railway—we find that the
legislation is fit for purpose. It goes back a very long way to
the 19th Century and the Regulation of Railways Act. That is the
one we normally use and we do not want any change in that, it
is fine for railways. I really could not speak for buses but clearly
they could not use that Act because it only applies to railways
and is authorised by Acts of Parliament or other similar means.
Mr Austin: Maybe I could answer
that one. The other piece of legislation is the Penalty Fares
Act and the Penalty Fares Rules which apply to certain areas of
certain train operating companies, principally in the London area
but not entirely; it operates in Leeds and Birmingham for example.
Again the rules there are written around the requirements of the
railway rather than a bus where the driver is inspecting every
ticket as you get on the bus. We put the bit in our evidence about
sentencing because there was (admittedly anecdotal) evidence from
train operating companies around the country that sentencing of
offenders who have deliberately set out to travel without a ticket
is pretty patchy, and some seem to consider it a more serious
offence than others and sometimes that sends the wrong messages
generally to people who are thinking about trying it on.
Q44 David Simpson: Given the links
between fare dodging and anti-social behaviour, do you think that
enough is being done by the train operators to protect the honest
passengers that are travelling and using their facilities?
Mr Austin: I think you are right
to raise that. It is a very serious issue and it is one of the
reasons that makes on-train ticket inspection in urban areas at
certain times of day more expensive because you cannot do that
with a single person or even two people, it has to be a team of
people, very often supported by a rail enforcement officer or
the British Transport Police. That is part of a wider societal
problem, it is not just limited to the railways, and that is a
problem. We do try, I think assiduously, to protect passengers
who do try to pay their fares. I know there are a number of anecdotal
experiences where, as we discussed earlier this afternoon, people
have found it difficult to buy tickets, and I think smartcard
ticketing and Oyster will help that because of the amount of prepay
that will be going on. We try to do that with an increased number
of ticket machines around the system. Mr Mapp has already mentioned
over the last three years 900 additional machines have gone in
across the network. Then there is an appeals procedure for people
who feel they have not been treated fairly.
Q45 Clive Efford: Can I just follow
up that point about safety. Is it not a fact though that you can
eradicate the problem by stopping people who are obviously intent
on causing problems from getting on trains in the first place,
and then does it not become a problem because you do not have
stations manned particularly in off-peak periods?
Mr Austin: Up to a point in the
sense that there is evidence that gating of stations has helped
in keeping the railway for people who are passengers not who are
just using it as an area to congregate, but it is not always the
complete answer.
Q46 Clive Efford: In this age where
people have got a heightened sense of security on our public transport
system, is having any stations unmanned on the network a sensible
way forward?
Mr Austin: I think it is inevitable.
There is a large number of quite small stations with relatively
light usage all around the country, principally in rural areas
but also in some suburban areas as well, where the costs and the
benefits of having staff on the station are just miles apart.
Mr Malins: Could I add to that
Chairman, I mentioned earlier on that I do some work for the Docklands
Light Railway and I think many of the Committee will know that
is basically an unstaffed railway as far as stations are concerned.
We would say that in fact they do not have the problem that you
are describing to any great extent, although they do to a small
extent but it is kept under control. Partly of course that was
a system designed to be like that from the outset, so you can
design out some of the problems by building the thing correctly
in the first place and that is more difficult on an the established
rail network. I would say, yes, you can have an unstaffed railway
that is safe and the Docklands Light Railway proves it.
Q47 Chairman: Is not a lot of that
because it was specifically built and tailored in a particular
way? Does it not have automatic coverage by security cameras,
it is a very restricted railway anyway and it tends, if I may
say so without sounding pejorative, to be in places where there
is going to be quite a big movement all the time on the stations,
these are not isolated stations.
Mr Malins: No, but they will be
similar to suburban stations elsewhere.
Q48 Chairman: Is that actually true?
The DLR tends to cover areas where almost by definition they will
have larger numbers moving around than, say, some of the smaller
urban areas even in London?
Mr Malins: To some extent you
are right, but I think it does demonstrate that you can have an
unstaffed model that works; that is all I am saying.
Q49 Clive Efford: Can I pick up something
Mr Malins said earlier on about checking tickets on trains. He
said if you have people on a train for a length of time it is
sensible to have checks on the train. What is a long period of
time? Are you talking about commuters?
Mr Malins: Exactly where you draw
the boundary perhaps is something we can debate, but let us say
notionally that on journeys of an hour or longer it should be
quite practicable. For what I would call the intercity network
you should be able to do it all properly on-train.
Q50 Clive Efford: Presumably you
are not talking about packed commuter trains because that would
not be possible?
Mr Malins: No.
Q51 Mr Martlew: Mr Malins, you talked
about mainline stations but can I ask Mr Austin, are you thinking
of gating stations like Euston for example where people are going
through with lots of luggage and will be travelling perhaps three,
four or five hours? Is that what you are thinking about? It seems
to me that you may be.
Mr Austin: Yes there are proposals
to gate. I am not quite sure of the timescale, I do not have that
in my head, but Waterloo, which is one of the larger stations
that is not gated at the moment, and King's Cross, and Richard's
example, Paddington is already gated partially. I think the important
thing there is to make sure that the level of customer service
surrounding that is high enough to assist people who have tickets
that will not go through the gates or who have luggage. I know
as a regular user of Paddington that the staffing levels at the
barriers are quite high for that purpose.
Q52 Chairman: If you use Victoria,
Mr Austin, which I am sure you do in coming back from the airport,
you will discover that you are enormously dependent on whoever
happens to be at the gate at the time. I think they do make an
effort but if they empty one train at the same time, which is
the pattern coming from the airport particularly, there are frequently
occasions when it is extraordinarily difficult to get through
if you have an awkward-sized piece of luggage or a child in a
pram.
Mr Austin: Yes, I understand that.
Q53 Chairman: Which does not auger
well for the sort of numbers that you are talking about at Waterloo.
Mr Austin: No but I mean they
will have the advantage of the experience at the other stations
to build on in the design for that, but you are quite right—
Q54 Chairman: You mean having done
it wrong once we can always pray we will not do it wrong again?
Mr Austin: More than pray, I hope—actually
get it better.
Q55 Chairman: So you are assuring
us that all will be well?
Mr Austin: I think it is certainly
in our members' interests to make it work well because we do not
want to be deterring passengers by having a difficult struggle
through the gates to get on the train in the first place.
Q56 Mrs Ellman: Have you got any
evidence of passengers with free concessionary passes transferring
from rail to bus?
Mr Austin: Yes, we have a little.
There has been a little bit of work done on local services which
indicates no big swing as a result of the introduction of concessionary
fares in England but a slight dropping off in the rate of growth,
because local services have been growing quite strongly over the
last ten years and there is some evidence over the last year that
that may have started to tail off. In Wales there is definitely
evidence on the Conwy Valley line of quite a significant reduction
in patronage once the bus concession was introduced and then the
opposite when the concession was extended to rail and indeed,
on the Heart of Wales line they have had to double the length
of the trains from one car to two cars to carry the extra people
who are travelling.
Q57 Mrs Ellman: Would you welcome
the extension of the concessionary schemes in England to rail?
Mr Austin: As I mentioned earlier,
I think that would be quite difficult unless it were accompanied
by the funding to increase the capacity of the service as well
because it would, as we have seen in a small way on the Heart
of Wales line, increase the demand on a railway that has already
got strong growing demand and some overcrowding problems—
Q58 Chairman: And nothing frightens
rail companies like the thought of having too many passengers
does it, Mr Austin?
Mr Austin: We welcome that but
what we do not want to do is to have it in an unplanned way that
we cannot provide for with additional trains and longer trains,
and in some cases additional platforms.
Mr Mapp: I think it is also worth
mentioning that we do already offer a range of railcards targeted
at parts of the market which are likely to be affected by the
sort of concessionary scheme that you are highlighting. We offer
a railcard aimed at the senior retired market, the young persons'
market and the family market, and those railcards have been remarkably
successful, and they continue to be remarkably successful to the
extent that there are now 2.2 million people in the country who
have railcards that can take advantage of the discounts which
they offer.
Q59 Mrs Ellman: Would you be opposed
to a proposal to extend the concessionary bus schemes to rail?
Mr Mapp: It is a matter for government.
It is really a matter of public policy. If the Government believes
that that is a policy objective which they wish to pursue then,
as Mr Austin has made clear, providing the necessary financial
arrangements are put in place then of course in principle we would
not oppose that, but there are practical issues in terms of overcrowding
that would need to be addressed and I think the implications of
those issues should not be under-estimated.
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