Media Release from City of York Council Labour Group
Bus operators met in March and are said to be in agreement with the principle of a cross-ticketing option, but remain unconvinced that such a scheme is needed for York.
Labour has been campaigning for a number of years for cross-ticketing, and its transport spokesperson, Coun. Ruth Potter said further progress needed to be made:
"We welcome further work by council officers on cross-ticketing and any progress to this end is welcome. The best possible solution would be a ‘smart' ticketing option, but we recognise that this will be more costly and take longer to implement.
"In the meantime, working on an inter-ticketing option for certain routes that use more than one operator, such as Poppleton to Stamford Bridge, is better than nothing at all. But we want to see more pressure put on operators, and most notably First York, to work with the council to deliver this more widely".
A ‘smartcard' option in the form of the Yorcard concept, developed by South and West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executives, has been successfully trialled in South Yorkshire over bus and rail services. Such an option is planned to be rolled out across the region in the future, but individual local authorities would still need to negotiate with local operators as to how the necessary technology and a multi-operator bus pass could be implemented.
"There is still a great deal of work to do on smart technology in developing a smartcard solution for York, but the work needs to continue with transport operators in preparation for the time when we are in a position to introduce more innovative transport ticketing options for passengers" said Coun. Potter.
"Many of the assumptions made by this council in terms of traffic growth reduction rely on it, so the council cannot just sit back and wait for that to happen. York is unique and will have its own unique challenges in making smart ticketing such as Yorcard a reality".
