Scotsman bulletin Wednesday 29 January
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00:00Hello, and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Wednesday. My name's
00:12Dale Miller. I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman, and I'm joined by our Transport Correspondent
00:17Alastair Dalton. Alastair coming to us live from Glasgow Central Station, and we'll talk
00:24about exactly why shortly, but the front page of today's Scotsman firstly. And we are led
00:31on Lorna Slater's defence of the doomed deposit return scheme. A judge yesterday gave BIFA,
00:39which is the waste management company that was charged with delivering the scheme, the
00:44go-ahead to press ahead with a £160 million claim case against the Scottish Government.
00:51BIFA is obviously claiming it invested money in the scheme that it lost on assurances,
00:59including from Lorna Slater, who is the Scottish Greens co-convener and was the minister charged
01:05with trying to deliver the scheme at the time. As we know, a Scotland-only scheme got axed and
01:11delayed and has now been incorporated into wider plans for a UK-wide scheme. Many people will have
01:18seen the beginnings of deposit return facilities going up outside supermarkets near them. It
01:26should be delivered at some point, but as a UK scheme now, so watch the space for that legal
01:31case. Also an exclusive in the wing there that I'm going to talk with Alastair about now. Alastair,
01:38and it's a new initiative from ScotRail, effectively an app. Can you talk us through
01:43what it does, because you've been trialling it personally as well?
01:48Yeah, so Scotsman was able to reveal this morning that ScotRail has now published this new app to
01:54make train travel simpler, easier, rather than having to buy a ticket before you board, either a
02:02ticket machine, ticket office or on the ScotRail app. This new technology
02:10in it recognises where you are and follows you during the journey and
02:20challenges you for the trip you've made. It's a little bit like tap on, tap off on some Glasgow
02:28buses and elsewhere, where the app recognises the station you're boarding the train, you just
02:34confirm that. It tracks you through the journey and you then tap to confirm your
02:43end point. As part of the process, it generates a barcode on your phone so that enables you to
02:51get through ticket gates at a station where they have them or be used by ticket inspectors. So a
02:58much simpler process and then you automatically get filled and ScotRail will say they'll charge
03:03you the lowest, the best fare for the journey so you don't need to worry about the price of the
03:08ticket. Alistair, that convenience is obviously the selling point. Having used it yourself,
03:15does it make a big difference to your travel? Yeah, I had always found it easier to buy a
03:24ticket, a ticket machine, it just took a few seconds. But this way, as you're walking into
03:29the station, you're doing that process, you're not having to stop or queue, you're not having to
03:33fiddle with your ScotRail app on your phone and buy a ticket. So I found that a real boost.
03:42It is a different way of travelling, there's a couple of things I certainly had to watch out for.
03:47One was to remember to tap off at the end of your journey, because mentally as I went through a
03:53ticket gate, one of the big stages, I thought well that's me finished, I don't need to do anything
03:57else, but you do need to confirm your arrival station. And the other thing is that although
04:04the app from now covers about two-thirds of the area where most passenger journeys of ScotRail
04:11take place, so pretty much the central belt, Edinburgh to Glasgow main line and so on,
04:16but there are limits. So it doesn't go beyond Falkirk to the north, it doesn't go east of
04:23Edinburgh. And I was travelling to Alloa and found myself outside the app area, which I hadn't
04:30checked, I should have done, and I got a 25 pound fine. Now during the trial that was refunded,
04:36I'm not sure what will happen if you use the app and you stray outside its borders.
04:41So look at the map on our story on our website and you'll see where you can use it.
04:47Now Alastair, this is a key point. I'm speaking as someone that lives in Fife myself,
04:54relatively close to Edinburgh, but it's a facility that I may have used
04:59and I'm not able to. Is there any indication for Scotland that when they roll it out more widely,
05:05there are significant population bases both in Fife and the Scottish borders?
05:09Well I think, if I understood your question right, that their plan is to extend the app perhaps to
05:22the whole of the network. I would imagine the key fringes of the central belt where the vast majority
05:28of passengers travel, so Fife is an obvious one, to Borders line from Edinburgh and then east to
05:35North Berwick. Those two would be the obvious next steps, but certainly the whole west coast
05:40network as far as Ayr, Helensburgh is covered. So I think it's a question of time to expand that.
05:49They've been testing it for the last few months. I've been testing it since
05:54August and just as an example, this I'm at Central Station as you mentioned, so it's
05:58recognised where I am and if I was to start a journey, I simply tap on that blue screen and
06:04that would get me going. And just lastly, Alastair, I know there's been surveys over the
06:10past 12 months. You've covered this by key bodies about value for money. Is this part of any greater
06:17plans that you're aware of from ScotRail about increasing train use and trying to offer this
06:23value for money? Indeed, not only has the peak fares trial been scrapped, so almost doubling of
06:34fares on some routes at busiest times, but also there was one of the biggest fare increases for
06:42years last year, so there was this large increase and that has put people off. There has been a
06:49decline in some months in travel. ScotRail said this app isn't primarily to boost passenger
06:56numbers, but just to make it easier, more convenient, more attractive way to travel.
07:02That way they start more people who try train travel.
07:08Thanks Alastair for talking us through that. You can read both the news story with all the
07:12details of the app and a first person piece from Alastair Dalton, who has been one of the select
07:18people trialling the app over recent months about how he's found the experience, the positives and
07:24a couple of small negatives that he mentioned there as well, but certainly technology that will
07:30be of use to a lot of commuters and travellers across the train network. You can read all the
07:35latest transport coverage from Alastair and more widely at scotsman.com by going to the transport
07:42tab, which is in the navigation bar, and please follow us on Facebook, Blue Sky X and Instagram
07:49and pick up a copy of the paper tomorrow. We'll have all the details from Rachel Reeve's
07:54keynote speech today, including details of that mooted third runway at Heathrow and whether the
08:01UK Labor government are committing to that. Thanks to you Alastair for joining us from location.
08:06Thanks everyone else for tuning in.