[actually, really x-posted to uk.transport.london this time!]
[originally posted on uk.railway]
[apols for the electronic disturbances, pls reply to this post]
On Jun 26, 10:16*pm, ticketyboo wrote:
Having now heard from someone who has had the Stagecoach statements
explained to him, the reasoning behind the report that "Further
disputes concern the DfT's alleged failure to implement Smartcard
technology, leaving the company £40m-£80m out of pocket, according to
Stagecoach" has become clear. It seems that those numbers were in the
Business Plan that was accepted by DfT when awarding the SWT
franchise. The claim is that having IoP implemented by the start of
2009 was material to Stagecoach's operation of the franchise, because
their Business Plan says that having through ticketing between SWP and
TfL would, over the life of the franchise from 2009 onward, bring new
business of between £40M and £80M. DfT, it is said, by awarding the
franchise with that Business Plan, was committed to delivering IoP on
time.
Now in (I think) December 2007, Bob Linnard of DfT giving verbal
evidence to the Commons Transport Select Committee (then run by the
now sadly late lamented Mrs Dunwoody) was asked if he was certain that
IoP would be delivered in 2 years (i.e. by end 2009). He was not
absolutely certain, but thought that it would happen. What planet was
he on?
So Stagecoach have called in m'learned friends because they want
compensating for the missing revenue.
Meanwhile, in today's Modern Railways, Roger Ford has (in an article
presumably written a couple of weeks ago) first explained how DfT also
got their money sums wrong and then failed to allow time for all the
parties to get the contracts together for the real IoP. There I
remember a document that entered the public domain - it is the report
on some early tests of adapting Oyster equipment to accept ITSO cards.
It is 'ITSO Oyster Interoperability - Closing down the technical work
packages', available at
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/scienceres...otherresearch/
The document is dated April 06, and it admits that the researchers (PA
Consulting and MVA) were over-optimistic about the time taken to get
all the parties to work together on just a little test.
The SWT franchise document found at
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/passe.../current/sswt/
is dated Sept 2006.
So the warning signs were there before the SWT franchise was signed.
Most interesting, thank you for posting that.
I've found the relevant minutes of the Commons Transport Select Cttee
in December '07 - the exchange to which you refer proceeded as
follows:
---quote---
Q503 Chairman: Mr Linnard, how long do you think it will be before
ITSO and Oyster are completely compatible?
Mr Linnard: I would not like to give a prediction of exactly when, but
we would hope broadly within a couple of years.
Q504 Clive Efford: Is that because of the roll out of the equipment
or because train operating companies will not agree to it?
Mr Linnard: First of all there has to be the completion of the study
into the way we are integrating it. There then has to be negotiation
between the department and TfL and its suppliers. That is obviously
not entirely possible to predict.
[...continues...]
---/quote---
Source:
http://www.publications.parliament.u...ect/cmtran/84/...
I don't want to be accused of quoting stuff out of context, so I'll
make clear that there were many questions about Oyster and ITSO
interoperability issues during that session with Tom Harris MP (then
PUSS for Transport) and Bob Linnard of DfT Rail (click on the green
"Contents" button at the bottom for an overview of the evidence
sessions on that day).