Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Green Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

11. What progress his Department has made on collecting and interpreting data gathered by smart ticketing schemes.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

13. What progress his Department has made on implementing smart ticketing schemes.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

We are making good progress on implementing smart ticketing across transport modes and across England. On railways, some train operators are already using smartcard and barcode technology; all our major cities have smart ticketing schemes; and we have committed £150 million to support the vision of “Oyster for the north”.

[Chris Green]

I thank the Minister for that answer. Devolution to Greater Manchester includes plans to introduce a multimodal smart ticketing scheme. Will she assure me that from the outset travel data will be collected and interpreted so that further improvements can be made to Greater Manchester’s public transport system?

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend is right to point out the importance of gathering data and how great it is that this devolution agenda is working for passengers in Manchester. I agree with him about the importance of data and I will certainly make my views known to Transport for Greater Manchester, which is responsible for introducing these schemes.