Examination of Witnesses (Questions 72-79)
MRS ELAINE
HOLT, MR
MARTIN DEAN,
MR LES
WARNEFORD AND
MR IAN
DOBBS
14 NOVEMBER 2007
Chairman: I am sure we associate your
Association with lightness of approach and the ability to dance
round all the problems! Thank you very much, gentlemen, I am very
grateful to you.
Q72 Chairman: Good afternoon to you,
gentlemen and madam, you are most warmly welcome. Could I ask
you to identify yourselves for the record please.
Mr Warneford: I am Les Warneford,
I am the Managing Director of Stagecoach UK Bus.
Mr Dobbs: I am Ian Dobbs, I am
Chief Executive of Stagecoach Rail Division.
Mr Dean: I am Martin Dean, Business
Development Director, UK Bus Division for First Group.
Mrs Holt: I am Elaine Holt, I
am Managing Director of First Capital Connect.
Q73 Chairman: Thank you. Did any
of you have anything you wanted to say before we begin? Nothing
at all. You know about the Government's strategy on integrated
ticketing. What do you think they ought to do to encourage rail
and bus operators to develop integrated ticketing arrangements?
Mr Warneford: I think they could
probably help a lot by putting some money with us into promoting
the schemes that we are already developing.
Q74 Chairman: Such as?
Mr Warneford: PlusBus in particular
which I think for its simplicity has a lot of potential to grow
enormously.
Q75 Chairman: Do you agree with that?
Mr Dean: I think that is right
and that is a good point, but one of the things to say in terms
of what the Government has done is the block exemption on ticketing
to the Competition Act which has been very, very useful in terms
of allowing us to have ticketing agreements between operators
and not fall foul of the Competition Act, and that is very, very
important and that has led to the development of a lot of schemes,
and PlusBus is a very positive one.
Q76 Chairman: Since both of you have
got major bus and rail operations—Stagecoach for example
have got nearly half of the shareholding in Virgin Rail Group—why
is it that there are not more integrated ticketing schemes across
all these different modes? Mr Warneford, why can I not go from
one to another on a Stagecoach?
Mr Warneford: As far as I know,
Chairman, where we know that there is some demand we are very
happy to provide that.
Q77 Chairman: Where you know—?
Mr Warneford: —There is
a demand for it then we are happy to provide through ticketing.
I am not conscious that there is a huge gap there.
Q78 Chairman: You are not conscious,
so we are not looking for customers, we are going wait for them
to come to us, are we?
Mr Warneford: No, we have already
promoted schemes, we have joint ticketing.
Q79 Chairman: Mr Dean, are you happy
with everything you are doing?
Mr Dean: Yes, Chairman, if you
look at a lot of locations throughout the United Kingdom where
we operate in an area and another operator runs in that area as
well, then there are examples of joint ticketing schemes and we
have implemented quite a few, as Mr Warneford said, where there
is the demand to do that.
Mrs Holt: I think when you are
looking at customer requirements and particularly the environment
focus going forward, there is an increasing demand for integrated
transport, whether it be cycling or bus integration, and I think
as train operators we are doing quite a lot of work in this area
to see how we can better respond to customer needs. I think customer
focus is changing particularly around the environment and access
to rail stations is becoming more important to them, so I think
that there is more that we can do, and certainly First Group rail
operators are working very closely with the local bus companies
and indeed cycle groups and other bodies to make sure that we
do respond to customer demand.
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