Memorandum from Dr John Disney, Senior
Lecturer, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University
(TPT 26)
I address the 11 questions as posed by the Committee
in order.
1. Integrated ticketing across modes is
rare; where it does exist it is badly publicised and often ridiculously
difficult to use with numerous restrictions. "PlusBus",
as indicated in my letter to RAIL published in August 2006, is
a great concept but extraordinarily difficult to administer, market
and use and consequently has very low market penetration. It is
not available from on-line ticket retailers (who shun all integrated
tickets even when they offer by far the best deal for passengers);
requires the date of the return journey to be stated even when
purchased with an open unrestricted rail ticket and needs to be
purchased in advance if bus travel is required at the start of
the journey. Fare levels are inconsistent and are often higher
than the cost of a simple connecting bus journey from the rail
station to specific destination or an operator's own day ticket.
The only exceptions to this bleak picture are
London, most of the PTE's, North Wales and Derbyshire. The latter's
"Derbyshire Wayfarer" integrated bus and train ticket
is the ideal benchmark to which other shire counties should aspire.
Visitors to and residents of Cumbria appear
to have a choice between a "Stagecoach Explorer" or
"Cumbria Goldrider" 7 day ticket costing £26.50
or £21 respectively. Timetable leaflets fail to clarify any
differences in availability except the fact that the cheaper ticket
is only available from Tourist Information Centres.
All the above mentioned schemes have defined
boundaries and it is frustrating that the tickets are normally
unavailable outside these areas and cannot be purchased on trains
(even if the station is unmanned) or on many buses.
However, even in Derbyshire there are deficiencies
and anomalies on specific services. For example, there are three
different bus services between Ilkeston and Derby with different
fare structures and ticketing schemes with a bewildering array
of conditions surrounding their interavailability. The limited
evening tendered bus service between Ashbourne and Derby is operated
by Arriva and accepts return tickets issued on TrentBarton's daytime
commercial service but not TrentBarton's discount day ticket.
A third operator, TM Travel, operated the Sunday service under
Derbyshire County Council (DCC) contract with yet more different
ticketing arrangements.
Bus and train tickets between Derby and Matlock
were interchangeable for three years up to August 2006 when the
arrangement was withdrawn. This is despite many bus services being
extended to Derby Rail Station from October 2005 using DfT Kickstart
funding and new bus stop flags being installed to indicate the
proximity of rail stations en route.
Even bus companies with common ownership do
not accept each other's tickets. Trent Barton and Notts + Derby
are both owned by Wellglade and occasionally interchange vehicles,
but tickets are not interchangeable on overlapping services in
Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. TransDev subsidiaries Keighley
& District and Harrogate & District provide abutting services
on West and North Yorkshire but there is no interavailability
of tickets unless using a pre-paid WYPTE Metro ticket.
Some SYPTE bus/rail tickets are accepted on
trains departing Sheffield Station but cannot be purchased there.
Potential customers are directed to the Bus Station Travel Shop
200yards away which is closed on Bank Holidays.
2. The Government appears to have no
strategy for the development of integrated ticketing.
3. Outside London, and to a lesser extent
Scotland, the industry is proving very reluctant to adopt Smartcard
ticketing. Many smaller operators do not even possess or use ticket
machines. In North Staffordshire and rural Northumberland return
tickets are handwritten and no ticket is issued for single journeys.
Derbyshire County Council has attempted to overcome this by leasing
modern ticket machines to smaller operators in order to apportion
concessionary fares revenue and monitor use of tendered services.
TrentBarton are trialling a new Smartcard based
ticketing system this summer but this does not appear to be compatible
with the Smartcards issued by Nottingham City transport for season
tickets although many routes overlap. Furthermore concessionary
fare holders in Nottinghamshire have a separate Smartcard to permit
free off-peak travel but have to pay for peak journeys by cash.
4. I believe that this issue is open to
debate and do not feel able to comment upon it at present.
5. Smartcards work very efficiently on gated
systems such as Tube/Rail stations with automatic barriers and
on buses as season tickets or with a flat fare provided there
is just one entry point to the bus with a Smartcard reader monitored
by the driver. However they are cumbersome to read with hand held
machines on multiple entrance vehicles such as articulated buses
in London and trams in Nottingham. This leads to a substantial
(and unquantifiable) revenue loss especially at peak times.
6. Discretion needs to be exercised as appropriate
to avoid genuine honest passengers being deterred from using public
transport for a fear of being penalised for inadvertently using
the wrong ticket or service.
7. The need for, and frequency of, appeals
should be at an absolute minimum.
8. Yes, provided that discretion is exercised
by ticket inspectors when appropriate.
9. Many rail operators fail to ensure that
on-train staff make regular ticket checks whilst few bus companies
now employ ticket inspectors and drivers have neither the time
nor power to check tickets after the passenger has boarded to
prevent "over-riding".
10. The Government's concessionary fares
policy is an unaffordable disaster. It is a subsidy to both bus
operators and those over 60's and disabled persons fortunate enough
to both live close to a bus route taking them where and when they
want to travel and be in sufficient good health to travel by bus.
It leads to overcrowding between 0930 and 1030 which deters other
potential paying customers and it will result in single fares
increasing at a greater than expected rate whilstever reimbursement
to operators is based upon an agreed proportion of the single
fare.
It will do nothing to encourage operators to
offer integrated ticketing as it removes up to 50% of the off-peak
market and therefore makes the administration of such schemes
even less commercially attractive.
It will also lead to a deterioration in service
quality as customers travelling free are less likely to complain
about the service offered and will exhibit less brand loyalty
to a particular operator. Effectively free travellers will catch
the first available bus and it is likely that the viability of
"all day" routes will be undermined by low quality operators
targeting free off-peak passengers possibly between school journeys.
11. There is a danger that free bus travel
will reduce off peak use of parallel rail services, especially
for medium distance inter-urban journeys where journey time is
of less importance. The proposed England-wide free bus travel
has significant cost implications for tourist areas where "outsiders"
will seasonally outnumber "locals" yet it appears that
the local authority will be expected to foot the bill. It is to
be hoped that this will not lead to cuts in supported bus services
which local residents rely upon to reach essential services such
as health and shopping, whilst "over 60" leisure travellers
and holidaymakers enjoy free travel.
I must stress however that the solution to this
problem is not to offer free "local" rail travel
but to withdraw the exorbitantly expensive free bus travel scheme
and replace it with a UK concessionary half fare scheme available
on all modes at all times using Smartcard technology. Operators
should be offered a flat rate administration fee per passenger
carried (paid by Central Government) and savings should be diverted
to installing compatible Smartcard readers on all buses and at
all rail stations with all concessionary passes being Smartcard
based. This would reduce boarding times and provide a robust,
reliable means of tracking the use of concessionary travel passes.
It would also restore an element of competitiveness in the market
and allow the continued use of well established elasticity theory;
free concessionary travel invalidates such theory and will inevitably
lead to some fares increasing at a higher rate.
March 2007
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