Is it me or are my eyes blinkered? Do I see things others don’t see? Is there such a disparity between how the industry views itself and the passengers we carry? Is perception and actual poles apart?
I’m talking Cardiff, Wales. Using delays in dispatching Cardiff Bus’ Iff smartcards has given a local journo the opportunity to have a “swipe” at the operator.
The Iff card is the unusual name given to Cardiff Bus’ smartcard rollout. Card-iff. Geddit? Cardiff has offered a free £3 travel credit bonanza per Iff card. That, perhaps, accounts for the large sign up of 30,000. None (or very few) has as yet gone out. Technical problems, you know. You can’t expect the public to understand (and why should they?) but these things come with technical problems built in to the package. Incredibly complicated things, smartcards, with potential to get themselves into knots on the bus and the back office. Expensive in technical and consultancy time, too. Witness Oxford recently.
Awaiting his Iff card, the journalist’s turned his anger towards Cardiff Bus itself.
“Our loathing of public transport isn’t going to be transformed overnight into a passionate love affair (it’d take a lot more than a £3 backhander… for that to happen).”
What’s to loathe in Cardiff? I regard Cardiff Bus as a good operator. It markets itself well, portrays a modern image, is innovative, operates an up-to-date fleet and above all offers decent frequencies. OK, there was the little issue of 2Travel, the OFT and the traffic commissioner. Not that the public will remember much about that. But, otherwise, a stable operation. “And I’m sure that even Cardiff Bus must realise that sliding a smartcard through a machine, instead of handing over a pocket full of small change, isn’t all that’s needed to convince those who have the choice to abandon the car and take the bus.”Leaving aside that this is contactless technology, it’s true, but it will help, significantly. Witness London and even Bournemouth. The government is encouraging smartcards for a number of reasons (though the rules differ in Wales). Smartcards bring multiple advantages for the passenger and operator. Fill up your car and there’s a certain amount of pain at the pump. After that, driving is perceived as “free”. Ditto a smartcard. It gives the customer that sense of freedom.
“I was on a bus in Cambridge recently and was amazed by how bright and cheerful the buses there were.”Well, I was in Cardiff the other day and I was amazed by how bright and cheerful the buses were *there*. Stagecoach also operate in and out of Cardiff, BTW.
“Certainly, the poster in the Cambridge bus encouraging passengers to use a slip on their ticket to vote for their favourite driver may have concentrated his mind.”I’m sure Stagecoach must realise that voting for your fave driver isn’t all that’s needed to convince those who have the choice to abandon the car and take the bus.
“And I want buses to be more frequent than every half hour; I want an integrated transport system, allowing me to travel from my local bus stop to, say, Llandaff North or Pontypridd, on one ticket.”And you’ve got ’em. Most frequencies are high. And there’s a regional ticket, too. Yes, not cheap, but it includes other operators. And £3 for the immediate Cardiff region’s one of the cheapest day tickets available, given Cardiff’s size of 330,000 souls. Smartcards bring with them the potential for interavailability though perhaps not just yet between Cardiff and Newport.
“I suspect Cardiff Bus has to change the whole bus experience before people will give up the safety, warmth and privacy of the car for the communal torture that can be the daily commute.”Profit unwelcome in his own land sort of stuff, this. We all recognise Brighton & Hove as an exemplar, a beacon. Yet, how many do so in the city itself? It’s a blend of everything, from attention to detail, customer focus, the frequency offer… everything. Cardiff Bus’s doing pretty well. It’s changed a lot. But that’s easy for an outsider to see, knowing as he does how bus services range across the cities of Britain.
i Wales Online Iff card article
7 comments:
Nice article. Except it's an Iff card, not an Iif card.
"You can’t expect the public to understand (technical problems)"
Why roll out a product/service in haste that has problems? Surely the IFF card would have been tested rigorously?
In recent times, Cardiff has countinuously tinkered about with its bus operation. Work began on a new bus station but was shelved after one stand was demolished. Over a year later, a new plan to redevelop the existing stands was hatched, involving little more than a cosmetic makeover. The remainder will suffer the same fate shortly.
While this work has been ongoing (work, well, er nothing happened for well over a year), many of the city's buses have been departing from various alternative stops within a few minutes walk from the bus station, resulting in mass confusion. Bus stops have now been given codes and each stop has comprehensive information and a map as to which services and destinations are served by the stops. From experience however, many passengers, especially the more elderly ones, just wander around confused, hoping to stumble upon a stop that serves their needs.
While work is being carried out in the station, service information about stand changes has been shocking. I've missed a bus on a Sunday as there was no information that it was now leaving from a different stop (resulting in me using the train and paying extra as I wasn't prepared to wait another 2 hours). I've also seen sheets advertising stand changes being attached to the wrong stands.
I don't blame Cardiff bus for this, but there has been a lot of criticism of the whole bus operation in the city over the last couple of years. Now there's a problem with its smartcards. I'm not surprised at all and I suspect there are many others who will just think such a cock up as being par for the course for a Cardiff bus innovation. The council (in my eyes) have been mainly responsible for much of the chaos in the city centre itself but most people won't distinguish between the two. A shame for Cardiff Bus as its service is very good.
And there’s a regional ticket, too. Yes, not cheap, but it includes other operators.
£7 for a day or £22 for a week and usuable on just about any bus in South East Wales (it's a pity First wouldn't come on board with it as I'd have no reason to use a train).
The problem is that if you live in a suburb on the outskirts of Cardiff and want to go to another that isn't served by Cardiff bus, then expect to at least double your £3 all day fare. Take a journey between Radyr and Tongwynlais. Less than 2 miles as the crow flies. It would take 5 minutes in a car. To do the journey by bus would take an hour, would require a change of bus in the city centre, and cost over £6. The journey would be far quicker by train and bus but would still cost the same. I'm not suggesting that there would ever be much demand for a journey between the place. It does highlight a problem where spending £6 to travel to a destination only a couple of miles away is utterly ridiculous. I'm pretty sure that similar situations arise country wide!
I fear that, like it or not, the journalist's perception of bus travel is shared by a significant proportion of the general public. He, and they, may be ill-informed in certain respects - but is that necessarily his/their fault? The perceptions may be coloured by a minority of cases that do not represent the norm, but we all know that bad news always gets more coverage than good news, and that people remember the few bad experiences, but forget the good ones. And you cannot really blame him for wanting his fellow travellers to be 'sober, polite and considerate' - I would like that as well.
To be fair to the bus operators, I suspect that they actually do pretty well most of the time, but that there is a 'hard core' of motorists with similar opinions to this journalist, and bus operators need to consider how, if at all, they are going to reach those people and, perhaps, change their perceptions. Maybe it is not possible at all, with conventional bus services - buses rely on having a relatively large number of people travelling together to be cost-effective - and not everybody likes being with a lot of other people.
Eric's instance regarding Radyr may be an example. When I lived in Cardiff in the mid-70s, the service to Radyr seemed rather curious - a few isolated journeys on the Western Welsh service from Cardiff to Creigiau/Church Village operated via Radyr, although most of those were on Saturday evenings, apart from one or two during the daytime. I suppose this might theoretically have offered an opportunity to reach Tongwynlais via connection near Taffs Well, but the service was too infrequent to be of any value. Other than that I think there was a daytime midibus service from Cardiff Bus, which was (I believe) at that time a relatively recent innovation; and the regular train service. One can only presume that there was simply not enough demand to justify a better level of service - and, if not in those days of generous subsidies, then it would not seem so surprising if that was also the case today. It is not reasonable to expect a service if there simply is not an economic level of custom (or potential custom) on a particular route - apart from being unprofitable, it is also not good for an operator's green credentials to be running too many empty buses. People do notice that sort of thing!
Had my IFF card today and I'm flabbergasted. If the idea of a travel smartcard is to improve loading times, make it easier for passengers to purchase tickets, and create less waste paper, then this is set to fail on all levels.
You can load up to £50 on the card in multiples of £5. Where? On the bus or their centre in Wood Street. That's it. You then get a receipt. If you want to buy a single ticket, a day to go or week to go, it takes the money off the card, then issues you with a receipt.
Take a day to go ticket. The old method was
1. Ask driver for ticket
2. Place £3 in cash vault thingy
3. Take ticket
Now, if you haven't got any funds on the card the method now is
1. Ask driver for £5 top up
2. Place £5 in vault
3. Take receipt
4. Ask driver for day to go
5. Place card on reader
6. Take 2nd receipt for ticket
I find it incredible that they've managed to create a system that could create up to double the amount of waste paper and take longer than the original idea of paying cash and taking a ticket.
The next ridiculous thing is that only the day to go, weekly, monthly and yearly tickets are held on the IFF card. Other tickets, such as all of the Barry tickets, aren't actually loaded onto the card. Instead you get a normal ticket for those, plus the receipt for the transaction. There are plans to introduce these at a later date, along with online facilities to topping up and checking a balance.
Crazy system.
Eric said...
"If the idea of a travel smartcard is to improve loading times, make it easier for passengers to purchase tickets, and create less waste paper, then this is set to fail on all levels."
Eric, my cynicism leads me to wonder if that is the purpose of the smartcard, or is it, perhaps, more related to the operator's financial benefit? With this system, one transaction will undoubtedly be slower than usual; but for that inconvenience, the operator receives income in advance of providing the service (good for cash flow) - and potentially several subsequent transactions will be at least no slower than previously, and possibly quicker. If the passenger pays £10, and uses that for three day tickets, then one transaction will be slower, two will be as quick as before. So there may be a net benefit to overall boarding time. Also, the operator uses its own 'sales outlets' so does not have to pay commission to other sellers.
The reality of commercial operation is that there has to be a 'bottom line' benefit for any innovation of this nature.
Re RC169
Some good points there that I agree with.
I beg to differ regarding loading times. There's no way that scanning a card on a machine and waiting for a receipt to print is quicker than showing a day or weekly ticket etc to a driver. As Cardiff bus operate an exact fare policy, scanning a card and waiting for a receipt would take the same time as shoving the cash in a vault and waiting for a ticket. It's not as if drivers spend time giving change.
I suspect that you are partly right that getting money up front is a reason for introducing the IFF card. I've also heard that Cardiff bus has had problems with counterfeit tickets over recent months and maybe that could well be part of the reason for launching the card too. The only problem is that Cardiff bus accept Network rider tickets which are issued by many independants and the forgers will simply switch to them.
Eric said...
"There's no way that scanning a card on a machine and waiting for a receipt to print is quicker than showing a day or weekly ticket etc to a driver."
I would agree entirely that, when the passenger already has the ticket, simply showing it to the driver would be quicker than scanning it (and producing a receipt). My earlier comments related to the point where the passenger purchases the day or weekly ticket - presumably on the first bus they use on that particular day or week. I would imagine that the requirement for day/weekly tickets to be scanned for every journey undertaken arises for revenue protection purposes. I would think that scanning is more reliable than relying on the driver seeing the date, etc clearly on every occasion. Drivers - please don't be offended - it's human nature, and there have been studies that have shown that security personnel at airports may actually miss a gun in a suitcase after they have been staring at the scanner for twenty minutes!
If the scanner also has to produce a receipt for the journey, even if the ticket has been purchased on an earlier bus, that would be odd. Is that the case with the Cardiff system? If so, it seems slightly excessive as you say - the receipt at the time of purchase should surely be sufficient. The scan should ensure that the journey is recorded for the operator's statistics, without the need for an additional piece of paper. Using the day/weekly ticket for a journey will not reduce the 'credit' on the ticket, so a receipt then would seem entirely unnecessary.
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