Examination of Witnesses (Questions 366-379)
MR STEPHEN
JOSEPH, MR
ANTHONY SMITH,
MR RUFUS
BARNES AND
MR GORDON
EDWARDS
12 DECEMBER 2007
Chairman: Good afternoon to you, the
Committee is now in session. Members with an interest to declare,
Mr Clelland?
Mr Clelland: Member of United.
Clive Efford: Member of Unite.
Graham Stringer: Member of Unite.
Chairman: ASLEF.
Mrs Ellman: Member of Unite.
Q366 Chairman: Thank you very much.
Gentlemen, you are most warmly welcome. I am sure several of you
already know the House rules, if you agree with one another please
do not repeat what somebody else has said. If you want to catch
the Chairman's eye it should not be too difficult because the
clerk will dig me in the ribs. If there is anything else you want
to say we will ask you whether you want to say it. Would you like
to identify yourselves for the record, please?
Mr Edwards: Gordon Edwards, Company
Secretary, TravelWatch SouthWest.
Mr Barnes: Rufus Barnes, Chief
Executive, London TravelWatch.
Mr Smith: Anthony Smith, Chief
Executive, Customer Focus.
Mr Joseph: Stephen Joseph, Executive
Director, Campaign for Better Transport.
Q367 Chairman: Do any of you have
anything you want to say briefly?
Mr Barnes: I would just like to
say that the paper was written nine months ago and certain things
have moved forward since then. I think it is important to make
sure that your members are aware of the changes that we wish you
to take into account. We made reference towards the beginning
of our report to ticket queues on the underground. We believe
London Underground has made progress but things have got worse
recently at King's Cross St Pancras following the transfer of
the Eurostar service and the opening of the First Capital Connect
station there. We have noticed, rather worryingly, that there
are queues for the ticket office and the ticket machines that
are actually causing movement problems within the station. Secondly,
we believe that there has been some very useful progress in relation
to mobile phones and telephones. We referred to this in our report
but we believe that Transport for London has recently announced
that they will be experimenting with the use of mobile phones
and Oyster acceptance. That, we believe, is good and welcome news.
Q368 Chairman: Mr Barnes, I am going
to stop you there. Do you think possibly as the questions come
up you can answer the particular points and point out to us if
there is a gap between what you said originally and what is happening
now and why. If there is a difficulty and at the end of the time
you feel we have missed something by all means raise it. Mr Smith?
Mr Smith: I think the Committee's
investigation is extremely timely as the number of passengers
going through Britain's railway network increases day by day and
in recent research we have done—which unfortunately was
done prior to our report being submitted—reducing ticket
queue time, something as simple as that, actually came out as
the sixth priority among Britain's rail passengers on a national
survey. Subsequently we have also done some research on the passengers'
attitudes to the future of ticketing and future ticketing technology
which I will refer to in the course of questions.
Q369 Chairman: Mr Edwards?
Mr Edwards: Our evidence was obviously
submitted nine months ago and most of it remains relevant today.
However, there has been one change, and we welcome the Government's
decision to pay the additional £212 million towards the cost
of free concessionary travel from the first of April next year
by specific grant using option four.
Q370 Chairman: Thank you. Mr Joseph?
Mr Joseph: I wanted to say that
we would like to take this opportunity, if the Committee wishes,
to update the Committee on something that it expressed interest
in in its report on the draft Local Transport Bill in relation
to the Competition Act and ticketing and bus services. If the
Committee wants to explore that I am happy to update them on where
we have got to on that.
Q371 Chairman: That would be helpful.
Let us see how we go and if you think we have missed bits out
it is not above you to attract the Chairman's attention. Do you
all think that the Government has got a strategy on integrated
ticketing?
Mr Smith: In terms of the national
railways the integrated ticketing works quite well inside the
railway network; it works less well when you try to use rail and
bus or a combination of some other form of public transport. There
are schemes which are now being promoted, the PlusBus scheme whereby
you can buy a bus ticket relatively easily on top of your rail
ticket but we simply do not think that the promotion is high profile
enough at present.
Q372 Chairman: What about smartcards?
Mr Barnes: I think the smartcard
is good in principle and we are delighted that the Government
has pressed national rail to accept Oyster in the London area.
We are worried about the implementation arrangements for that.
Q373 Chairman: In what sense?
Mr Barnes: We are very aware that
the Government's concern is that the ITSO product should not be
undermined by Oyster. We are pleased that the Government has said
that Oyster has to be accepted on all national rail stations in
its pay as you go concept but we are aware that there are going
to be differences across London that are going to be really problematic
and confusing for passengers.
Q374 Chairman: You have presumably
drawn that to the attention of the Government; what response have
you received?
Mr Barnes: The Government appears
to be saying that if some companies offer one thing and another
company offers another thing, then that is the commercial world.
Q375 Chairman: That is what I am
asking you: is there a strategy behind this. Mr Joseph?
Mr Joseph: In answer to that precise
question we have not identified a strategy. In particular what
we have not identified is a strategy which would fit with the
current transport secretary's express wish to focus on door to
door transport. There is, as my colleague to my right said, a
strategy for integration within the railway; there is no strategy
for integration between rail and bus or between creating a smartcard
that will allow door to door transport such as you find in many
other European countries.
Q376 Chairman: Is that your view,
Mr Edwards?
Mr Edwards: Yes, there is no strategy
whatsoever and we have made representations to the Department
for Transport when they have been letting new rail franchises,
that we wanted to see some commitments in there around integrated,
multi-model ticketing. Nothing has happened whatsoever.
Q377 Mrs Ellman: Are smartcards important
or do you think improvements could be made by existing payment
systems?
Mr Smith: The research we have
done with passengers shows that the smartcard is instantly recognisable,
people can see the benefits, they want it, they would like it
to be more available especially in the London area with the pay
as you go concept on the national rail network. The difficulty
with smartcards on the national railway network is that where
you get longer distance journeys, where the price is high and
variable, there is a great reluctance to store large amounts of
money onto a smartcard. It works very well for urban areas and,
as my colleagues have said, it would be great if those urban areas
and smartcards could talk to each other so you could use them
in Manchester, London or Sheffield, but for longer distance journeys
it is much harder to see quite what the benefit is.
Q378 Mrs Ellman: What about outside
the London area?
Mr Smith: There are plenty of
examples outside of London—the Travelmaster card in South
Yorkshire, the Trio in Merseyside, System One in Manchester—where
smartcards work. People like them; they are understandable. As
long as you have a clear pricing structure, a zonal fair structure,
and people know what they are going to pay.
Q379 Mrs Ellman: Do you think that
enough attention is given to the views of travellers outside London
and there is not too much focus on travelling within London?
Mr Smith: I think the existence
of these other smartcards indicates that it is a popular product
in all types of area and could be extended outside urban areas.
The fact is that the Oyster card is a very prolific product in
London; people have seen it and a lot of people use it. In many
ways it is leading perceptions.
Mr Barnes: I think the issue about
London is that Oyster works and Oyster has been seen to work and
Oyster has been popular with users. It is first generation. It
is obviously the case that people need to be able to have a product
that is useable elsewhere and I understand your question, but
we do not want to lose the benefit we have seen of Oyster in London
because people want to have the ITSO product that has a national
benefit.
Mr Edwards: To go back to your
original question, there needs to be more done now, yes. In the
south west of England there are 102 destinations without railway
stations where you can buy a through ticket to. You can only book
on the internet to 20 of those 102. For the other 82 you actually
have to go to the station and buy it. You cannot buy the add-on
fare with any advantage purchase ticket. Why cannot the railway
industry, with the technology that is available today, just deliver
that?
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