http://www.inthenews.co.uk/money/news/transport/stagecoach-retains-south-western-franchise-$452553.htm
Quote
Under the new franchise, Stagecoach has agreed to increase capacity on
its trains by agreeing to boost the number of seats on its mainline
peak services by 21 per cent and on peak suburban services by 20 per
cent.

The company has also pledged to ensure a more visible staff presence at
its stations to improve the security of passengers and to invest £19
million in Oyster smartcard technology to make it easier for rail
travellers to purchase tickets.

Stagecoach also plans to invest about £40 million on "core station
improvements", including major refurbishment at 14 large stations.

Commenting on today's development, Peter Hendy, commissioner for
Transport for London (TfL), said: "Six million people already use
Oyster every day in London. This means that from 2009, passengers on
the South Western franchise will be able to use Oyster
ticketing, including pay as you go, integrated with transport modes
across London, including the Tube, bus and Docklands Light Railway
(DLR).

"It is vital we have an integrated ticketing system between mainline
rail and TfL's tube, bus and DLR network in London, so that passengers
can enjoy the full benefits and convenience of Oyster. This is a major
step towards fully integrated ticketing in London."
Unquote

Two questions
If Stagecoach have had to agree to boost the number of seats at the
peak by 20/21% - how come the same provisions were not applied to FCC
thuis leading to the Thameslink shambles. Was somebody in the DfT
franchise offer taking a power nap during the meeting?

Will the requirement to include Oyster compatability now be extended on
a franchise by franchise basis on all franchises that offer through
ticketing to London. If so why does the DfT not insist on the system
being used on say buses and trams in Manchester, Sheffield or
Nottingham - no point in investing in two incompatable systems? As they
say why take 2 bottles into the shower?

On 24 Sep 2006 05:54:29 -0700, "Bob"
wrote:

http://www.inthenews.co.uk/money/news/transport/stagecoach-retains-south-western-franchise-$452553.htm
[snip]

Two questions
If Stagecoach have had to agree to boost the number of seats at the
peak by 20/21% - how come the same provisions were not applied to FCC
thuis leading to the Thameslink shambles. Was somebody in the DfT
franchise offer taking a power nap during the meeting?

A guess but the new Desiros paid for by the DfT have to be used for
something. It also seems the Alstom 458s can be modified to be kept in
service. SWT would therefore *appear* to have a surplus of trains that
can be deployed for peak service. Not requiring SWT to run these trains
would put the DfT in a tight spot as to why it funded extra trains if
the old timetable and train lengths were good enough.

Will the requirement to include Oyster compatability now be extended on
a franchise by franchise basis on all franchises that offer through
ticketing to London. If so why does the DfT not insist on the system
being used on say buses and trams in Manchester, Sheffield or
Nottingham - no point in investing in two incompatable systems? As they
say why take 2 bottles into the shower?

There are two aspects to this. One is to get Oyster retailed via all TOC
outlets in London - the DfT has agreed this will be done and TfL will
pay for the installation and equipment costs. TOCs pay running costs.
This should roll out from now to 2008/9. Where franchises are coming up
for renewal then DfT have done the sensible thing and mandated
implementation of London area Oyster in the appropriate franchises.
Interestingly SWT seem to be saying they will adopt it across their
franchise which to my mind makes sense. The latest Modern Railways also
includes a letter from the MD of C2C which mentions that they are in
discussion in pushing Oyster retailing beyond their few London area
stations into the Essex.

The second aspect is that DfT have required TfL to move towards ITSO
compliance with Oyster. ITSO is the national smartcard application and
schemes are being worked on in various areas. Once Oyster is ITSO
compatible then in theory you have interworking. ITSO is an "open" spec
AIUI while Oyster is more restricted but can be licensed. There has been
huge opposition, primarily from the TOCs, to being "locked in" to Oyster
and the scheme's supplier (Transys) in the London area never mind
beyond. It therefore makes more commercial sense to push for ITSO
compliance as it offers a more competitive market place for equipment
and support systems. The main point, though, is that Oyster is up and
running while I can't think of an ITSO scheme that is working to even
10% of the scale of Oyster.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Bob wrote:
If Stagecoach have had to agree to boost the number of seats at the
peak by 20/21% - how come the same provisions were not applied to FCC
thuis leading to the Thameslink shambles.

Goodness knows. At the last Q&A session with FCC, Elaine Holt pointed
out that they have no requirement to provide any new trains during
their franchise period. As the 13 trains they need for the Thameslink
branch are currently with Southern, they have pretty much said there's
nothing they can do. The DfT are left trying to sort something out, but
why wasn't there any requirement to build new rolling stock during the
next 9 years? The 313s, 317s and 319s will all be rather old by then!!
Even the 365s will be falling apart.

I guess the answer is money. FCC will be paying the Government money,
and new rolling stock would reduce this (ignoring the investment in
jobs, had it been possible to build stock in the UK). FCC keeps quoting
the £52m of investment, but that doesn't sound like much over the
franchise term.

Will the requirement to include Oyster compatability now be extended on
a franchise by franchise basis on all franchises that offer through
ticketing to London. If so why does the DfT not insist on the system
being used on say buses and trams in Manchester, Sheffield or
Nottingham - no point in investing in two incompatable systems? As they
say why take 2 bottles into the shower?

I hope that one day there will be a UK wide (maybe even Europe wide)
smart card system for ticketing. There's no physical reason for this
not happening, but you can be sure that there are many political
reasons!

If commuter services are moved to a zone based pricing system and
Oyster, or a proper international standard system, is introduced
throughout the southeast, it's a start. If things are done properly, it
should be relatively easy to update the hardware to accept other types
of card in the future so we're not stuck with something completely
non-standard (as Oyster appears to be).

I hope SWT are going to buy and install equipment that can be upgraded
easily!

Jonathan

In message . com, at
05:54:29 on Sun, 24 Sep 2006, Bob
remarked:
Will the requirement to include Oyster compatability now be extended on
a franchise by franchise basis on all franchises that offer through
ticketing to London. If so why does the DfT not insist on the system
being used on say buses and trams in Manchester, Sheffield or
Nottingham - no point in investing in two incompatable systems?

I wasn't aware that I could buy a through ticket from a Nottingham tram
stop to London, but the use of the same smartcard for both "Oyster" and
the Nottingham City Transport schemes would mean I had one less to
carry. Although Nottingham has yet to enable its smartcard for the
trams, I think - if it was something simple like giving all the
conductors readers you'd have thought they'd have done it by now.
--
Roland Perry

In message . com, at
07:06:32 on Sun, 24 Sep 2006, jonmorris remarked:
I hope that one day there will be a UK wide (maybe even Europe wide)
smart card system for ticketing. There's no physical reason for this
not happening, but you can be sure that there are many political
reasons!

Sounds like one of those big public sector IT projects that fails to be
implemented properly. I'm quite impressed [1] at the way Oyster (and
separately the Congestion Charge) have been implemented over London, but
rolling it out to hundreds of provincial cities and deregulated bus
companies seems a little ambitious.

[1] As far as it goes. The inability to access my data via the web is a
bit of a let down; and things like having to nominate one specific
station for certain transactions has let me down in the past (when my
plans changed and I didn't go anywhere near that station after all -
something that's more likely to happen for an out-of-towner perhaps).
--
Roland Perry

In article . com,
"jonmorris" wrote:

I hope that one day there will be a UK wide (maybe even Europe wide)
smart card system for ticketing. There's no physical reason for this
not happening, but you can be sure that there are many political
reasons!

Could this have a negative effect on pricing, though? I may not be
understanding the finer details of the Oyster system (down here in the
south London suburbs, there's no use for the cards) but I would have
thought such a system would involve standardised prices... ie reducing
the range of sub-Saver prices for tickets bought well in advance.


Adrian

--
http://www.spaghetti-factory.co.uk
http://www.custom-transcription.com

Roland Perry wrote:
Sounds like one of those big public sector IT projects that fails to be
implemented properly. I'm quite impressed [1] at the way Oyster (and
separately the Congestion Charge) have been implemented over London, but
rolling it out to hundreds of provincial cities and deregulated bus
companies seems a little ambitious.

Yes, I agree but we have a pretty standard ticketing system on the
railway at the moment. Most buses use the same, old, ticketing system -
so at one time, they all got them from the same supplier/s. Some have
taken the iniative to go a step further, but that isn't the way to go
as it becomes confusing for anyone other than regulars or those
travelling long distances and mixing different ticket types and
procedures.

If every company could buy a working system 'off the shelf' then it
wouldn't be that much a problem to do. You don't have one person
(especially not a Government) trying to install it on buses, tubes,
trains, coaches etc - you have a recognised standard, then any number
of companies can produce the equipment to work with it. Every operator
can brand their own smartcards, but they are still interchangeable.

If the card system held credit, like Oyster, you could operate a simple
pay as you go system on anything - and why wouldn't that work abroad?
Well, apart from the currency conversion issue until we get the Euro.
Such a system could even be rolled out to taxis. Whoever debits the
card gets the money (less a commission fee) rather like a credit or
debit card (but unlike those, you can swipe in/out at gates etc).

Effectively, it becomes an e-cash system. Funnily enough, Oyster had
visions of their card working for loads of things - which presumably
fell down when it became clear that outside of the transport industry,
there probably wasn't much interest in installing the equipment.

Jonathan

[1] As far as it goes. The inability to access my data via the web is a
bit of a let down; and things like having to nominate one specific
station for certain transactions has let me down in the past (when my
plans changed and I didn't go anywhere near that station after all -
something that's more likely to happen for an out-of-towner perhaps).

The system isn't perfect, and may not replace cash or credit cards (in
fact, I hope not), but a simple PAYG system that can also hold season
tickets and other tickets is a good idea - especially if it is accepted
in many places. I have no idea how much the reader/writer equipment
costs, but in the future it may well be the case that you can get one
for home.

Adrian Clark wrote:
Could this have a negative effect on pricing, though? I may not be
understanding the finer details of the Oyster system (down here in the
south London suburbs, there's no use for the cards) but I would have
thought such a system would involve standardised prices... ie reducing
the range of sub-Saver prices for tickets bought well in advance.

Certainly a change. No doubt with some negative aspects, as this would
be inevitable.

There are plans, or maybe just suggestions, to introduce a zone system
on national rail services into London. I don't know how this will
affect pricing on trains but it could well be a good thing. Let's be
positive!

It would certainly benefit anyone coming in from a long distance to
zone 1, e.g. Cambridge as you may well find you can travel the same
distance in another direction (assuming the zones are radial and not in
sections like north, northeast, south etc). It's going to be
interesting to see if any changes do happen as I can think of a few
potential problems. I am sure many other people can too.

Jonathan

In article .com,
"jonmorris" wrote:

There are plans, or maybe just suggestions, to introduce a zone system
on national rail services into London. I don't know how this will
affect pricing on trains but it could well be a good thing. Let's be
positive!

Now that would certainly be interesting, and closer to a proper "per
mile" pricing system. I'd love to see First Great Western's response to
something like that... "Yes, we know London to Swindon is only 80 miles,
but they're premium miles"


Adrian

--
http://www.spaghetti-factory.co.uk
http://www.custom-transcription.com

Roland Perry wrote:

Sounds like one of those big public sector IT projects that fails to be
implemented properly. I'm quite impressed [1] at the way Oyster (and
separately the Congestion Charge) have been implemented over London, but
rolling it out to hundreds of provincial cities and deregulated bus
companies seems a little ambitious.

It's a project that would probably be better run by the banks as a
national smart-card micropayments system. Such a thing would be very
useful indeed - like the Dutch ChipKnip or the German Geldkarte.

Incidentally, Oyster is (in part) an EDS project...

Neil