Britain Leading the way in online integrated travel ticketing

Britain is the first country in Europe offering bus and train travellers an online ‘one-stop-shop’ for purchase of integrated journey tickets. This news was announced today at the ‘Door-to-door by public transport’ conference in London, where Lord Andrew Adonis, recently appointed Secretary of State for Transport, made his first public presentation.

From today a number of transport ticketing websites, including qjump.co.uk and tpexpress.co.uk, offer customers purchasing train tickets the opportunity to add PLUSBUS to their order, enabling them to plan and book a complete door-to-door journey by public transport. Other online train ticket retailing websites, such as thetrainline.com, will start offering PLUSBUS tickets next month, followed by Train Company websites by the autumn.

The conference also saw the launch of ‘Door-to-door by public transport – Improving integration between National Rail and other public transport services’ – a report produced by the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) and Britain’s five largest bus and train operating groups . One of the key recommendations made in the report is to start retailing PLUSBUS tickets online.

Jonathan Radley, Commercial Director of Journey Solutions (the partnership behind PLUSBUS) said: “Offering PLUSBUS tickets online will make it easier and quicker for passengers to plan their journey and buy tickets in one go. Around 13% of National Rail journeys start or finish with a bus journey to or from the rail station, so it makes perfect sense for passengers to be able to buy PLUSBUS at the same time as their train ticket.”

Lord Andrew Adonis, Secretary of State for Transport supports the initiative: "The Government, local transport authorities and transport operators all want to see more passengers travelling on efficient public transport. If we are to achieve this shared goal then we need to put the passenger first - and that means planning, building and modernising our transport system in a way that reflects the realities, and meets the needs, of the door-to-door journeys that they take."

Sir Moir Lockhead, Chief Executive of FirstGroup plc said, “Britain’s bus and train operators have been working more closely together in recent years to improve passengers’ complete journey experience. While public transport is significantly more integrated than it is often given credit for, there remains more that we can do. This report highlights examples of current good-practice and lists a raft of new initiatives that operators are signed-up to implement.”

The report seeks to address the concern that continued growth in rail patronage might start to stall because passengers may have experienced or perceive that they will have difficulty getting to the station at the beginning or from the station at the end of their journey. It makes 25 recommendations designed to further improve travel by public transport, including:

• designing a standard template for the display of bus information at rail stations and displaying posters at over 100 stations;
• a good-practice guide for interchange signage at stations;
• a briefing pack for station staff to use in helping customers complete their journey by bus and tram;
• improved information on the National Rail website about bus and tram services to and from stations;
• better marketing and promotion of PLUSBUS and other integrated ticketing products;
• establishing a new director-level ‘Journey Solutions Partnership’ multi-operator working group, to monitor the implementation of these integration initiatives.

David Mapp, Commercial Director from ATOC concluded: "Train operators are already working closely with bus operators and local authorities across the country to deliver better door-to-door journeys. The report launched today highlights some of these schemes, such as PLUSBUS, and sets out further improvements that will benefit passengers.”

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