Memorandum from Journey Solutions (TPT
33)
The Department for Transport states that "integrated
ticketing is a key component of integration between services and
between public transport modes". Changes in statuary provisions
over the past decade have enabled local authorities and other
transport providers to create integrated ticketing schemes. But
is it working? Is ticketing sufficiently integrated across different
modes of transport and between different geographical areas?
1. INTRODUCTION
There is a nation-wide integrated ticketing
scheme for train and bus travel that's available to 195 towns
and cities across Britain. It has been introduced over the last
five years by a non-profit making partnership established and
funded by the six main PLC bus and train operating Groups in Britain
(along with their respective trade associations). On 16 January
this year, Tom Harris MP (Under Secretary of State for Transport)
congratulated Britain's bus and train operators for the Journey
Solutions initiative that has introduced PLUSBUS integrated
ticketing across England, Wales and Scotland, without the need
for financial support from central Government.
2. JOURNEY SOLUTIONS
Journey Solutions was created in 1999 to enable
the public transport industry to deliver on its commitment of
improving transport integration—in particular making combined
train and bus travel easier, more convenient and better value
for customers. All Journey Solutions work aims to support Government
policies on improving and integrating public transport in local
communities, across regions and throughout the whole of Britain.
3. Journey Solutions is funded entirely
by Arriva, Blazefield/Transdev; First; Go-Ahead; National Express
and Stagecoach, the Association of Train Operating Companies and
the Confederation of Passenger Transport. Essentially Journey
Solutions is an operator-led initiative to improve modal integration.
4. Journey Solutions is managed by Jonathan
Radley, the full-time Commercial Director, who is supported by
Giles Fearnley, the Chairman. Both have many years experience
of management in both the bus and train operating companies. Each
of the supporting organisations has a director or senior representative
who sits on the Journey Solutions Board. It is this Board that
decides strategic direction for the initiative, taking advice,
leadership and sharing best-practice from each of the supporting
organisations. Journey Solutions uses a number of respected public
transport consultancies to deliver its programme.
5. Journey Solutions also has an Advisory
Panel, which includes representatives from a wide range of stakeholders.
These include:
Central Government agencies: Department
for Transport, Transport Direct, Transport Scotland, Welsh Assembly
Government, Commission for Integrated Transport, and the Countryside
Agency.
Local Government representatives: Association
of Transport Co-ordinating Officers, Local Government Association
and the Passenger Transport Executive Group.
Consumer groups: Association of Community
Rail Partnerships, Bus Users UK, London Travelwatch, Passenger
Focus and Transport 2000.
Professional bodies: County Surveyors'
Society and the Institute of Logistics and Transport.
It is important to Journey Solutions that these
organisations are able to contribute to our agenda and the feedback
received is most welcome.
6. Journey Solutions looks at improving
the customers' whole journey experience, including:
— travel information before the integrated
journey begins and during the journey;
— integrated ticketing for the whole
journey; and
— easy interchange between different
methods of public transport during the journey.
7. Journey Solutions has two guiding principles
underlying its work. These are to:
— create an environment which makes
it easier for travellers to use public transport for their entire
journey; and
— develop integrated products that
encourage people to use public transport.
8. Specifically Journey Solutions has:
— managed the successful development
and implementation of a standard template for nation-wide integrated
train and bus ticketing schemes;
— worked with public transport operators
and their trade bodies to identify opportunities for better integration;
— encouraged and supported operators
in sharing integration "best practice" and introducing
new integration initiatives; and
— promoted the integration of bus and
train services, including with other modes (eg metro/light rail
and tram networks).
9. Journey Solutions believes that maximising
the use of public transport will help to reduce road congestion
and contribute to better air quality in our towns and cities.
Encouraging more public transport use can also play its part in
reducing the damaging effects of global warming.
10. PLUSBUS
PLUSBUS is the brand name of a nationally
available train ticket add-on for bus travel. It is available
to 195 towns and cities across Britain. A further 21 new destinations
will be available with PLUSBUS from 20 May 2007. It has
always been the aspiration of Journey Solutions that every rail-served
town and city with a population over 80,000 together with other
strategic centres, would have PLUSBUS available. We are
now very close to meeting that target.
11. PLUSBUS is a bus ticket that
the customer buys at the same time as their train ticket. PLUSBUS
offers train travellers unlimited bus travel around the urban
area of a town or city, at the start, the finish, or both ends
of the train journey. With a valid PLUSBUS ticket the customer
can make as many bus journeys as they like on all participating
bus operators services, at any time of day within one easily defined
zone, covering the whole urban area of the town or city.
12. The minimum standard is that the zone
covers what the public would reasonably expect to be the urban
area of the named town or city. In many cases this zone is actually
larger and covers nearby settlements, villages, or small towns.
In most PTE areas, the zone encompasses the whole region. Zone
maps for all PLUSBUS served towns and cities are available
on the website: www.plusbus.info.
13. Journey Solutions encourages all local
bus service operators in each town to participate in the PLUSBUS
scheme and accept the ticket for travel (bus operators remain
free to choose to participate). A number of light rail/tram/metro
schemes also accept PLUSBUS tickets (eg Midland Metro and
Sheffield Supertram). PLUSBUS has been established in line
with the Transport Ticketing Block Exemption Orders (2001 and
2005). Schemes function as both a Multi-Operator Travelcard (MTC)
and a Through-Journey ticket scheme.
14. PLUSBUS can be added to most
types of train ticket:
— single journey tickets;
— day return tickets; and
The customer specifies the date of their return
journey in order to have PLUSBUS. Typically a customer
would buy two PLUSBUS tickets, one for your outward journey
and a second for the return journey.
These are currently available to 103 towns and
cities across Britain, for specific periods, to match the most
popular train season tickets: 7-consecutive days, 1-calendar month,
3-months and a year. Ten more towns will have PLUSBUS season
tickets available from 20 May 2007.
15. HOW DOES
PLUSBUS WORK?
Customers ask for PLUSBUS when buying
their train ticket and are then issued with one or more ticket(s)
for both their train and bus travel in one convenient transaction.
The whole transaction can be paid for using cash, credit or debit
card. A PLUSBUS valid rail ticket has either the origin
or destination of the ticket marked with "+BUS".
16. For customers PLUSBUS is easy
to use and easy to explain, as it is based on existing ticket
types that customers are familiar with. From an industry point
of view, the advantage of PLUSBUS, is that it makes best
use of existing rail ticketing technology and revenue apportionment
systems (particularly the Rail Settlement Plan managed by ATOC).
Therefore, it's development and expansion has not involved considerable
capital investment, or protracted development lead times which
using new ticketing technology would have inevitably required.
17. Now that PLUSBUS is embedded
into the National Rail fares and ticketing system, conversion
of the ticket aspect of the product to any future Smartcard application
should be possible.
18. WHAT DOES
PLUSBUS COST?
PLUSBUS tickets are designed to be great
value and can save customers money (compared with the cost of
buying multiple separate tickets for several journeys). A PLUSBUS
ticket costs a specific headline price for each complete day's
unlimited bus travel, in addition to the cost of the train fare.
At present, 70% of PLUSBUS day tickets cost £2, or
less. In virtually all cases the PLUSBUS fare is less than
the equivalent cost of buying a similar unlimited bus travel day
or season ticket from the bus operator(s) themselves. This added
discount is considered an important customer benefit of PLUSBUS,
in order to entice rail users to try the product (and hopefully
switch from using another less sustainable mode of transport to/from
the train station).
19. Prices start from as little as £1
day. Below is a list of destinations currently available with
PLUSBUS for just £1 a day: Aberystwyth, Bangor, Bletchley,
Bury St Edmunds, Colwyn Bay, Dovercourt, Exeter, Flint, Great
Yarmouth, Harwich, Ipswich, Kings Lynn, Llandudno, Lowestoft,
Milton Keynes, Norwich, Prestatyn, Rhyl, Ruabon, Stanford-le-Hope,
Witham, Wivenhoe, Wolverton, and Wrexham.
20. PLUSBUS is currently available
to over 50 towns and cities across Britain, for less than £2
a day, including, for example: Birmingham £1.50, Bishops
Stortford £1.60, Blackburn & Darwen £1.50, Burnley
£1.50, Chester £1.50, Coventry £1.50, Durham £1.50,
Elstree & Borehamwood £1.60, Harpenden £1.60, Luton
£1.80, Manchester £1.70, Potters Bar £1.60, Rochdale
£1.70, Sunderland £1.90, Wolverhampton £1.50.
21. The following towns offer PLUSBUS
for just £2 a day: Aberdeen, Basingstoke, Blackpool,
Bracknell, Brighton & Hove, Carlisle, Chesterfield, Chorley,
Colchester, Darlington, Derby, Droitwich Spa, Edinburgh, Falkirk,
Glasgow, Harrogate, Hereford, Inverness, Kidderminster, Lancaster,
Leicester, Lincoln, Maidenhead, Newport, Newton Abbott, Northampton,
Oxford, Paignton, Penzance, Preston, Reading, Southampton, Southend,
Stirling, Swindon, Telford, Torquay, Truro, Weymouth, Windsor.
22. A small number of PLUSBUS tickets
cost between £2.10 and £3.50 a day, for example: Bristol
£3.00, Leeds £2.50, Watford £2.50. The highest
ticket price is £5.50 which offers unlimited bus travel on
participating operators around the whole of Pembrokeshire (a higher
cost reflecting the extensive area of validity).
23. RAILCARD
SAVINGS
PLUSBUS is the only nation-wide integrated
ticketing product for train and bus travel that offers all Railcard
holders (Disabled Persons, Family, Network Card, Senior, Young
Persons) standard rail discounts on their bus travel. Railcard
holders save one-third off the price of a day, or period return
PLUSBUS ticket. Children (aged 5 to 15 years) pay half-fare
for a PLUSBUS day or period return ticket and in some cases
can also obtain half-fare on PLUSBUS season ticket prices.
24. WHERE TO
BUY
PLUSBUS can be bought at:
— all staffed train station ticket
offices in Britain;
— by telephone through selected train
company telesales teams (Arriva Trains Wales, First Great Western,
First ScotRail, GNER and ONE Railway);
— appointed travel agents of National
Rail; and
— self-service ticket machines (at
selected stations only).
A new generation of self-service ticket machine
is gradually being installed across the rail network, which are
able to be programmed to sell PLUSBUS tickets.
For bus travel at the start of the journey,
customers are advised to buy their PLUSBUS ticket in advance
from either a station, or by telephone (through the TOC Telesales
units).
25. We are also working with National Rail
and the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) to offer
online sales of PLUSBUS during the later part of 2007.
26. JOURNEY INFORMATION
Pre-journey information is important, it reassures
the passenger that they can make their entire journey by train
and bus with confidence. In order to help travellers understand
the PLUSBUS product and become familiar with where the
ticket can be used and on what bus operators services tickets
are valid, the PLUSBUS website (www.plusbus.info) provides
all this information, as well as all ticket prices, in an easy
to view format. Detailed colour zone maps for all 195 PLUSBUS
served towns and cities are available on our website as downloadable
PDF's. These show the boundary of each zone, list all the main
places/suburbs within each town served by participating bus services
and also show locations of Hospitals, University/college campuses
and main leisure/tourist attractions.
In order to assist customers arriving at an
unfamiliar station, we produce detailed "Continuing your
journey around town with PLUSBUS" information posters
(specific to each town) for display on the concourse of 60 main
stations across Britain. These posters show customers the zone
map within which their PLUSBUS ticket is valid, provide
a journey gazetteer of bus routes and places served. The poster
also lists all bus companies that accept PLUSBUS in that
town and give "traveline" details (telephone 0871 200
22 33 or www.traveline.info), should customers want to check bus
times. (In several PTE areas eg West Midlands, Greater Manchester,
the relevant authority produces similar onward travel posters).
27. ACHIEVEMENT
PLUSBUS is the first major product developed
and introduced by the Journey Solutions partnership. PLUSBUS
is a nationally available integrated train and bus travel
ticket on sale across the whole of Britain. Journey Solutions
has established customer focused minimum standards, which can
be exceeded by a scheme. In effect PLUSBUS provides a national
template, which can be tailored to accommodate some local/regional
variation to make the product relevant to local market conditions.
28. Before PLUSBUS there existed
a myriad of individual agreements between train operators and
local bus companies, which offered the traveller a wide and confusing
range of through-journey tickets. Each of these was a different
offer to the passenger. Through partnership and negotiation, Journey
Solutions and the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC)
has introduced a set of national standards for PLUSBUS ticketing
that offers the customer a consistent and reliable product they
can trust. This has made it much easier for retail staff at stations
to sell integrated ticketing. For operators it has also brought
about the simplification of integrated ticketing and a significant
reduction in the amount of administration and the cost of establishing
and maintaining such products. By providing a national template
for integrated ticketing, it is also possible to have a nation-wide
marketing campaign for integrated ticketing.
29. In January this year, the first-ever
national marketing campaign for PLUSBUS was launched. 750,000
promotional leaflets have been printed and are racked at nearly
1,000 train stations across Britain. Over 500 promotional posters
have been put on display at train stations and the website (www.plusbus.info)
has been re-designed. Train Operators are encouraged to have more
information about the product included in their own publicity
literature (such as timetables and customer service guides) and
also on their websites. In partnership with Train Operators we
are also working to raise the PR profile of the product, by arranging
regional events and launches. (Printed colour samples of literature
referred to in this paragraph have been provided separately to
the Committee as evidence).
30. Journey Solutions would like to thank
the Association of Train Operating Companies for their significant
ongoing contribution to the management and development of PLUSBUS
ticketing. As well as offering use of their Rail Settlement
Plan (revenue allocation system) ATOC also offers a forum, the
Integrated Transport Working Group, where all TOC's are able to
share best-practice in the field of modal integration and integrated
ticketing, which has proven very valuable to Journey Solutions
in the on-going development of PLUSBUS. The fact that several
more recently awarded TOC's now have Integration Managers focusing
on improving modal integration has been extremely helpful in achieving
results.
31. Last Summer we celebrated our 100,000th
PLUSBUS ticket issued. A total of 68,300 PLUSBUS tickets
have been sold during the last 12 months (year to January 2007).
At present sales of PLUSBUS tickets are 45% higher than
for the same period last year.
32. DEVELOPMENT
OBJECTIVES
By the end of 2007, PLUSBUS should be
available to over 230 rail-served towns and cities across Britain,
including all those with a population of 80,000 and over (as well
as many with smaller populations). The next logical step for the
development of the initiative is to develop a nation-wide product
that covers through-ticketing between the National Rail network
and non-rail served towns, where a bus/coach service completes
the link between interchange rail station and the non-rail served
town. The key to success with this product very much mirrors what
has been achieved with PLUSBUS, ie to work in partnership
with TOC's, bus operators and local authorities/PTE's on the development
of a set of minimum national standards for such a product, which
can then rolled-out across the country as part of a coordinated
campaign.
The list (below) gives an indication of the
current development objectives for integrated ticketing that Journey
Solutions has:
— Complete national coverage of PLUSBUS
(ie all rail-served towns with a population of 80,000 or more),
by introducing schemes in the following towns: Bedford, Eastbourne,
Gravesend, Hartlepool, Medway Towns (Chatham, Gillingham &
Rochester), Maidstone, Middlesbrough, Peterborough, Stockton.
— Introduce season tickets for many
more destinations across Britain.
— Undertake a series of TOC-based regional
media events to launch further new schemes and the introduction
of season tickets for existing towns.
— Run an on-going national marketing
campaign to raise awareness of PLUSBUS amongst:
— train company retail amd marketing
teams (regular newsletters, retail training tools and marketing
template material);
— bus company driver and supervisory
teams (bus driver notices and briefings);
— rail users (using a variety of commuter
communications channels); and
— politicians & other important
stakeholders (through regular meetings and newsletters).
— Continue to improve the PLUSBUS
website.
— Update and re-issue (at least once
a year) bus information posters for 60 main stations.
— Introduce online sale of PLUSBUS
tickets and work with TOC's to programme self-service machines
to sell PLUSBUS.
— Imbed greater commercial focus/sales
targets in all areas of activity.
— Work with ATOC, train operators and
bus operators to introduce a nation-wide set of standards and
public brand for "RailLink" through-journey/line-of-route
tickets between local rail stations and non-rail served towns/villages
(eg Minehead).
— Continue to demonstrate that privatised
bus and rail Groups are successfully working in partnership (along
with Local Authorities/PTE's) to improve modal integration and
deliver a key Government transport objective.
March 2007
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