Among the policy announcements that was supposed to temper our disappointment at the 2030 target climate target being abandoned was one that the Scottish Government “will explore a new national integrated ticketing system for public transport in Scotland.” This is a great idea. As it was the last several times it has been promised by politicians.
In 2003 I went to WWF meeting in a very rural spot in the centre of the Netherlands. At a large train station in the west of the country, I was able to buy a ticket to reach the village I was heading for. This ticket covered an express train, a local train and a taxi for the final few miles. Marvellous.
This kind of integrated ticketing for public transport had already been promised at the UK level by Labour in 1995. When they came to power, John Prescott published a transport strategy in 1997, which included this commitment.
Transport Minister, Stewart Stevenson promised the same for Scotland in 2008. When Nicola Sturgeon was Infrastructure Secretary, she promised something similar in 2012. When he was Transport Minister Humza Yousaf published a 2018 delivery plan on smart and integrated ticketing.
An undated page on Transport Scotland’s website talks up the benefits of integrated ticketing. It says the work is funded by an EU grant. Which ran out a year and half ago. If you follow the link to updates on progress, there are none.
There is a new Smart Ticketing Advisory Panel, which met for the first time in November last year, welcomed by yet another Transport Minister.
All of this effort has so far led to almost nothing. ScotRail have been trying. Their plus bus ticket lets you take the train somewhere and then use the buses in that town or city. In Glasgow it applies on the three main bus companies yet it does not include the subway, even though this is in public ownership. ScotRail also have a Rail and Sail ticket which lets you take the train and then a ferry, but it doesn’t include any onward bus you might need to get, for instance on Mull from Craignure to Tobermory.
Even within a single public transport mode things don’t join up. Do you have a ticket to London on a Lumo train? It doesn’t work on an LNER train. If you’re late getting to London and that means you’ve missed your Eurostar connection, tough luck. Because no-one can sell you a ticket from Edinburgh to say Paris, Eurostar has no obligation to put you on an alternative train if you turn up late because your UK train was delayed.
30 years ago trains and ferries were integrated. If your train was running late getting to Stranraer the ferry to Northern Ireland would wait for you. Now you get the train to Ayr and a bus to Cairnryan and you may well see your ferry off in the distance down the lock.
Now we are going to try integrated ticketing again.
How hard can it be to make this work ? In many European countries integrated ticketing is the norm. We run ScotRail, we even own some of the buses. And it may surprise you to know that around 50% of the cost of every bus journey in Scotland is paid for by public money, yet we seem to have no control over the companies that run the buses.
When everything was based on paper tickets, perhaps things were harder, but now it’s all smartcards and booking in advance on the Internet, it ought to be dead simple.
And of course we already know how to do most of it because anyone young enough or old enough to have a National Entitlement card can already travel on pretty much any bus or coach anywhere in Scotland. And If you live in the right place this may also apply to Edinburgh’s trams, Glasgow’s subway or ferries to the Isles.
We already have the information service Traveline Scotland, which can tell you about, for instance, the tram, train, bus and ferry journey from my home to Stornoway. It just can’t sell you a ticket to make this journey.
About 20 years ago I was at an SNP conference roundtable meeting I probably wasn’t supposed to be at with the Transport Minister of the day and representatives of the bus industry who assured the Minister they would have cracked joined up ticketing across the bus companies in Glasgow within the year. Of course this didn’t happen. It was clear to see that the problem is that the transport companies can’t be bothered and politicians haven’t been strong enough to stand up to them and make it happen.
So forgive me for being cynical, exploring a new national integrated ticketing system seems most likely to end where all the previous attempts at exploring such a thing have ended – in total failure. Come on, prove me wrong.
A version of this article was published in the Scotsman newspaper on 24th April 2024.