Membership of the National Smart Ticketing Advisory Board

Get Glasgow Moving

I'm writing on behalf of Get Glasgow Moving - a volunteer-run campaign for a world-class, fully-integrated & accessible, publicly-owned & accountable, public transport network for everyone in our region.

We now have have more than 11,000 supporters across the region. We hope you can accept this as a response to your recent consultation on Membership of the National Smart Ticketing Advisory Board, which we have just been made aware of (please forward this on to the relevant team ASAP).

Progress on Smart ticketing in Scotland has been painfully slow, an embarrassment to the country you could say. Whilst Transport for London rolled out its Oystercard in 2003, 18 years later there is no equivalent for the Glasgow region and passengers have to negotiate a confusing and expensive array of options from all the different private bus companies, train operators, alongside SPT's Subway smartcard to try to get around town. This is a massive barrier to encouraging more public transport use, and exploits the poorest in our city who cannot afford cars.

It is shameful that Transport Scotland have presided over this dire situation for so long, and have allowed the private bus companies to have far too much power in negotiations - the main cause of this delay. Transport for London is a powerful public body for the Greater London region which regulates the bus network to deliver a fully-integrated and affordable service for Londoners. A bus fare in London is still just £1.55, and you can 'hop' to as many other buses as you like within an hour for that price. Meanwhile in Glasgow, a single on privatised First Buses is £2.50 and much more if you need to go into the surround region, or change to another operator.

Delivering a integrated smart card is not rocket science. All that is needed is to curb the power and competing interests of the private bus companies and to tell them exactly what ticketing system they must operate. This can be done by regional transport authorities (in our case SPT) being properly funded and re-empowered to be able to do their job properly, and to run our public transport networks in the public interest (like Transport for London does) and with main intention of getting more people on board to slash carbon emissions and take cars of the road.

If SPT were supported financially and practically by Transport Scotland, they could utilise the new powers in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019, to re-regulate the private bus companies through a regional 'franchising' framework. This is what Greater Manchester has now committed to do. And it will mean that all money coming through the farebox on all public transport will now go to the transport authority, which is what is needed to implement integrated ticketing and offer a hopper fare or daily price cap.

Following on from this, if Transport Scotland still feels a 'National Smart Ticketing Advisory Board' talking shop is necessary, then it must be composed entirely of people who will act in the public/environmental interest - ensuring that the policy helps achieve Scotland's climate targets, tackles poverty and inequality and meets obligations under in the Fairer Scotland Duty. This would of course include representatives of volunteer-run membership organisations like Get Glasgow Moving, and experts from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Poverty and Inequality Commission, Friends of the Earth Scotland, Stop Climate Chaos etc.

Private bus companies must no longer rule the show. Since deregulation, they have presided over a massive decline in services, fare increases above inflation and huge drops in patronage, especially in Glasgow. This era must come to end. Public transport gets vast sums of public subsidy (private bus companies receive more that £300 million per year public money). They are supposedly providing us with public services - so they need to be told exactly how to provide these on our terms. Or else, we simply need to withdraw the subsidy and run the bus network in house under public ownership.

We look forward to your response and to our invitation to join the 'National Smart Ticketing Advisory Board' in due course.