Lyons, G. and Harman, R. (2002) The UK public transport indus- try ...

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effective operation of services; others are centred on the delivery of improved information to the customer. Because many organisations are involved in the passenger transport industry, the complexity of information flows has increased, with a multitude of different (sometimes competing) systems serving different tasks, dealing with different data formats from different sources. The difficulties in obtaining, managing and interpreting data from a dispersed number of sources is a much more formidable challenge than the telecommunications systems used as delivery mechanisms. The latter are not unique to transport and in many cases off-the-shelf IT solutions (such as those to set up a telephone call-centre operation) are already available. A large number of bespoke information systems exist or are under development within the public transport industry. The following paragraphs concentrate on key national information systems initiatives as an indication of the progress being made in integrated multi operator / multi-modal information systems’ development. 4.1 National Rail Enquiry Service Public transport users are concerned with getting from their origin to their destination as conveniently as possible. Convenience includes the acquisition of travel information for planning a journey. To expect travellers to negotiate an industry of multiple players and associated information sources would amount to huge inconvenience to the customer. Early in the railway privatisation era, it was appreciated that passengers needed to have a cohesive, comprehensive and independent contact point for travel information and that it was in the joint interest of the Train Operating Companies (TOCs) to develop this, acting together through the aegis of the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC). This led to the development of the National Railway Enquiry Service (NRES) - a single point of contact telephone information service involving a network of call centres. NRES provides timetable 13
and fares information. Not without its problems initially, this has come to prove an accepted contact point for many rail travellers and has generated extra business for the TOCs. The service was launched in 1997. In 1999 it handled some 60 million calls compared to 52 million in 1998 and 37 million in 1997. During the four days of the September 2000 fuel crisis in the UK NRES handled one million calls a day (ATOC, 2000). 4.2 Rail Journey Information Service Alongside NRES, the individual TOCs have been developing their own information systems at different rates. The Rail Journey Information Service (RJIS) project seeks to take forward all TOCs together, with a development that has a primary aim of improving 'the booking office experience' for staff and customers. To provide a customer with a ticket for the cheapest fare between an origin and a destination station requires access to information on timetables, fares, routing, reservations and quotas. Prior to privatisation a ticket was valid on any reasonable route since all ticket sales revenue eventually made its way to British Rail. In the privatised industry different TOCs operate on different routes. Passengers do not purchase a ticket specific to a particular TOC, and therefore a mechanism is required to ensure that ticket sales revenue can be fairly distributed between the TOCs. This is based on the routing guide which also determines for which routes a particular ticket is valid. The RJIS project is concerned, in essence, with marshalling a diversity of separate and bespoke databases and systems required in a booking office such that they can be used in an integrated way via a single point of enquiry. Development of RJIS is being carried out by Rail Settlement Plan Ltd (RSP), a wholly owned subsidiary of ATOC responsible for management of fares and ticket sales and distribution of ticket sales income to the TOCs. RJIS is a 10-year Private Finance Initiative type project (PFI is a mechanism whereby private interests provide capital funding in 14
Page 1 and 2: Lyons, G. and Harman, R. (2002) The
Page 3 and 4: an essential component of success f
Page 5 and 6: transport industry can still appear
Page 7 and 8: (i) multi-modal interests and (ii)
Page 9 and 10: information system. In contrast, ra
Page 11 and 12: and passenger facilities. They are
Page 13: In March 2001 the Highways Agency a
Page 17 and 18: 4.3 PTI2000 In its Transport White
Page 19 and 20: There are about 50,000 settlements
Page 21 and 22: 5. STAKEHOLDER ISSUES TO CONSIDER G
Page 23 and 24: those travelling by an unfamiliar r
Page 25 and 26: example, the NRES telephone line. P
Page 27 and 28: consolidated data to provide a tota
Page 29 and 30: apparent ease of linking data sets
Page 31 and 32: Netherlands (Witbreuk, 2000). Gover
Page 33 and 34: The views expressed in this paper a
Page 35 and 36: Slevin, R. (1997). Presenting Local
Page 37: Figure 3. RJIS Presentation Applica

Lyons, G. and Harman, R. (2002) The UK public transport indus- try ...

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