Ticketing and Concessionary Travel on Public Transport
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House of Commons Transport Committee Ticketing and Concessionary Travel on Public Transport Fifth Report of Session 2007–08 Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 26 March 2008 HC 84 Published on 1 April 2008 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £0.00 The Transport Committee The Transport Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department for Transport and its associated public bodies. Current membership Mrs Gwyneth Dunwoody MP (Labour, Crewe and Nantwich) (Chairman) Mr David Clelland MP (Labour, Tyne Bridge) Clive Efford MP (Labour, Eltham) Mrs Louise Ellman MP (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool Riverside) Mr Philip Hollobone MP (Conservative, Kettering) Mr John Leech MP (Liberal Democrat, Manchester, Withington) Mr Eric Martlew MP (Labour, Carlisle) Mr Lee Scott MP (Conservative, Ilford North) David Simpson MP (Democratic Unionist, Upper Bann) Mr Graham Stringer MP (Labour, Manchester Blackley) Mr David Wilshire MP (Conservative, Spelthorne) Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at www.parliament.uk/transcom. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Tom Healey (Clerk), Annette Toft (Second Clerk), David Davies (Committee Specialist), Tim Steer (Committee Specialist), Alison Mara (Committee Assistant), Ronnie Jefferson (Secretary), Gaby Henderson (Senior Office Clerk) and Laura Kibby (Media Officer). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Transport Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 6263; the Committee’s email address is [email protected]. 1 Contents Report Page 1 Introduction 3 2 Integrated Ticketing 5 The extent of integrated ticketing today 5 National rail 5 Local transport 5 Integrated bus ticketing 6 Integrated ticketing across modes 7 Sale of tickets 8 Integrated ticketing between different geographical areas 9 Government strategy on integrated ticketing 9 Transport Direct 10 3 Smartcard technologies 11 New technologies, new opportunities 11 The Integrated Transport Smartcard Organisation (ITSO) Standard 14 Smartcards in London—Oyster and ITSO 16 4 Revenue protection and the powers of ticket inspectors 18 Fare evasion—the scale of the problem 18 Ticket gates—not the only solution 19 Staff safety 20 The powers of revenue protection staff 20 The rights of the passenger 22 5 Concessionary travel 23 English national concessionary travel scheme 23 The costs and funding arrangements 24 Reimbursement of bus operators 26 Extending the scope of concessionary travel 28 List of recommendations 30 Formal Minutes 34 Witnesses 35 List of written evidence 36 List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament 38 3 1 Introduction 1. On 1 April 2008 the English national concessionary travel scheme will be launched, giving free national bus travel to older and disabled people in England. This provides an opportunity for the Government and transport operators to take a major step towards integrated ticketing, with the introduction of smartcard concessionary travel passes throughout England. We have, therefore, inquired into the extent to which integrated ticketing on public transport has been achieved for all users; the issues regarding smartcards; arrangements for revenue protection (stopping fare-evasion) which will be affected by new forms of ticket; and the impact of concessionary travel in England which is costing £1 billion per annum. We have not looked at fare levels as this issue was addressed in our previous report How fair are the fares?1 2. The history of public transport conjures up images of machines and infrastructure— Brunel’s Great Western Railway with its engines, tunnels and bridges; the London Routemaster bus; the reintroduction of trams in Manchester; and, more recently, St Pancras International Station and High Speed 1. By contrast, the humble ticket rarely gains a mention. Yet ticketing arrangements are just as important as vehicles and infrastructure from the passenger’s point of view. How and where tickets are sold, whether different tickets are needed for different stages of a journey and the form that the ticket takes, all have a bearing on individuals’ travel choices. The Government recognised this in its 1998 White Paper, A New Deal for Transport – Better for Everyone, which proposed more through-ticketing and easier ticketing arrangements as a central part of its strategy for raising the standard of public transport.2 3. Ticketing is an area which has seen rapid change in recent years: paper tickets served the railways for 150 years and the magnetic stripe ticket for 30 years.3 Contactless smartcards, usually in the form of a plastic card with an embedded chip that can be read without being inserted into a machine, have been in use for around 10 years and in London the Oyster card is now commonplace. However, even these systems are being challenged by new technologies, such as ticketing chips or screen displays in mobile phones and combined travel, credit and bank cards.4 We are grateful to Transys, who operate the Oyster system5 on behalf of Transport for London (TfL), for showing us some of this new technology, as well as giving us a demonstration of the Oyster system. 4. The latest rail franchises have varying commitments to introduce smartcard ticketing, and arrangements are in hand to extend the Oyster Pay-as-you-Go system throughout the National Rail network in London by 2010. It is already available on some routes. A zonal fares structure has been introduced and station equipment to facilitate smartcard use is to be installed, including ticket gates at Waterloo. 1 Transport Committee, Sixth Report of Session 2005–06, How fair are the fares? Train fares and ticketing, HC 700 2 Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions, A New Deal for Transport – Better for Everyone, Cm 3950, July 1998 3 Q 71 4 The Barclaycard “OnePulse” card combines Oyster, a credit card and a cashless payment card. In November 2007, the mobile phone operator O2 launched a trial of 500 telephones with embedded Oyster cards. 5 See Section 3 for an explanation of Oyster 4 5. Smartcards offer a range of new possibilities but it is important to remember that integrated ticketing and smartcards are separate, though related, issues. Greater integration can be achieved without smartcards and smartcards do not, in themselves, produce integrated ticketing arrangements. Technology must be the servant and not the master, assisting with the implementation of policy, not dictating its direction. 5 2 Integrated Ticketing The extent of integrated ticketing today 6. None of our witnesses dissented from the view that integrated ticketing—the issuing of a single ticket which will cover several legs of a journey, sometimes by different modes—was a good thing. Many witnesses were also of the view that public transport ticketing in the England was still not sufficiently integrated, either between different modes (e.g. bus and rail), across transport authority boundaries and sometimes even within a mode (e.g. between different bus operators in the same city). National rail 7. Comprehensive through-ticketing is provided between passenger train operators on the National Rail network. Train operators are obliged, as a condition of their passenger licences, to participate in through-ticketing arrangements covering most station-to-station journeys6 in the country. In addition, passengers can buy rail tickets that include other modes (London Underground, and some light rail systems and ferries) and even some major visitor attractions.7 Some 413 million rail tickets were sold in 2006/07.8 Of these, around 100 million included some sort of add-on, such as a London Travelcard or a passenger transport executive9 multi-modal ticket. It is also increasingly possible, under a voluntary initiative by rail and bus operators, to buy a combined rail and bus ticket called “PlusBus”10 for over 200 towns and cities outside the metropolitan areas. Local transport 8. In London there is a tradition of integrated ticketing on public transport, between the rail networks and other services now provided by TfL. For example the London Travelcard allows the holder to use bus, tram, Underground, Docklands, Overground and National Rail services. It can be bought in paper ticket format (with magnetic stripe), or for period (season) use can be held on an Oyster card. 9. Outside London, there is no requirement for rail or bus operators to provide integrated ticketing. Since bus deregulation and the consequent reduction in powers of the passenger transport executives, this is left entirely to the market and to voluntary arrangements between operators and local transport authorities. In the metropolitan areas and larger cities, a range of multi-modal and multi-operator tickets are available for local buses, trains, trams and metro systems. 6 Train operators are also required to sell tickets that include London Underground but there is no statutory requirement to sell tickets to other destinations, such as metro or bus stops. 7 Ev 132 (It is not generally possible, however, to buy a through rail ticket with light rail as the first stage of the journey, e.g. Manchester Metro to London.) 8 Data provided by the Association of Train Operating Companies from the LENNON passenger revenue database. Statistics on the extent of multi-modal journeys were not available from the National Travel Survey. 9 There are six passenger transport executives in England: Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, Tyne & Wear, West Midlands and West Yorkshire.