http://www.newswales.co.uk/?section=Community&F=1&id=12133

Tim tells you Wales traffic answers

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A cheeky but friendly character named Tim, who speaks Welsh and English, has been appointed to give the Welsh public traffic information.

PTI Cymru, the public transport information service in Wales, today introduced Traveline Tim at The National Waterfront Museum in Swansea.

Traveline Tim is friendly, fun and rather cheeky character created to deliver the new 0871 200 22 33 number message. He is currently featuring in promotions on Real Radio and at railway stations across Wales.

[...]

Supported by the Welsh Assembly Government, PTI Cymru operates various public transport information services in Wales. These include the Traveline Cymru telephone information service and website and a text service that will send bus times to your mobile phone.

PTI Cymru also provides Modus personalised journey plans, providing people in a business or organisation with a free plan detailing how they can travel to work using public transport.

A Welsh Assembly Government spokesperson said:

Traveline Cymru is a real boon for bus travellers since its launch seven years ago. Introducing a cheeky chappy called Traveline Tim will widely publicise the change of phone number and services provided.

[...]

Traveline Cymru is a national organisation with a bilingual call centre in Porthmadog, Gwynedd. The call centre is open from 7am to 10pm daily on 0871 200 22 33, calls cost 10p per minute plus connection charge from a BT landline, other networks and mobiles may vary, (ie cost you a fortune).
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Talk about exploiting the public!

Thankfully, in West Yorkshire (Metro) and South Yorkshire (SYPTE) they gladly publicise their own geographic numbers rather than Traveline's rip-off 0870 (now 0871) number.

jgxenite wrote on Aug 1^st, 2007 at 10:47pm:

Talk about exploiting the public! Thankfully, in West Yorkshire (Metro) and South Yorkshire (SYPTE) they gladly publicise their own geographic numbers rather than Traveline's rip-off 0870 (now 0871) number.

I complained to Traveline some time back. The arrogant idiot who replied said, more or less, why bother calling when you can use the web site. Great customer service there then. He also stated that it was his understanding that all 087 numbers could be called from overseas.

Public exploitation is rampant in the treasure island of the United Kingdom.

The use of 0871 for travel queries really is obscene.

idb wrote on Aug 1^st, 2007 at 11:34pm:

I complained to Traveline some time back. The arrogant idiot who replied said, more or less, why bother calling when you can use the web site. Great customer service there then. He also stated that it was his understanding that all 087 numbers could be called from overseas. Public exploitation is rampant in the treasure island of the United Kingdom. The use of 0871 for travel queries really is obscene.

I think it is more obscene that Traveline is profiting from the calls to PTEs, when the vast majority of them gladly publicise a "local" number for calling them. Why should Traveline be getting money that really the PTE should be earning? Does any of this "profit" go back to the PTEs? Probably not... just lining the pockets of Traveline executives I suspect.

Quote:

Does any of this "profit" go back to the PTEs? Probably not... just lining the pockets of Traveline executives I suspect.

We ought to be able to discover this through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Yes, this really is outrageous. What galls about it is that they are now advertising the number and giving it all this "traveline tim" branding. That must be expensive but worth the increased revenue. In other words what started out as an anomaly in the British telecoms network, namely non-geographic numbers masquerading as geographic ones, has now given rise to a new "product", in other words, a new opportunity to increase private wealth. In this case, the "product" diminishes the public benefit. It functions to transfer wealth from the public part of public transport to a private interest, and it does so in the form of a regressive tax on a service which is intended to help the poor. The implication is, "Yes, we've provided public transport, but only the rich are entitled to find out when they run." In fact, the very poor won't even have internet, so traveline tim is just another grinning orwellian slap-in-the-face for the most humble and hard-pressed.

What is the solution? Ofcom seems not to care. But they are accountable to the public. Maybe it really IS time to ask for an audit through the public accounts committee.

longusername wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2007 at 8:28am:

Quote: Does any of this "profit" go back to the PTEs? Probably not... just lining the pockets of Traveline executives I suspect. We ought to be able to discover this through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Yes, this really is outrageous. What galls about it is that they are now advertising the number and giving it all this "traveline tim" branding. That must be expensive but worth the increased revenue. In other words what started out as an anomaly in the British telecoms network, namely non-geographic numbers masquerading as geographic ones, has now given rise to a new "product", in other words, a new opportunity to increase private wealth. In this case, the "product" diminishes the public benefit. It functions to transfer wealth from the public part of public transport to a private interest, and it does so in the form of a regressive tax on a service which is intended to help the poor. The implication is, "Yes, we've provided public transport, but only the rich are entitled to find out when they run." In fact, the very poor won't even have internet, so traveline tim is just another grinning orwellian slap-in-the-face for the most humble and hard-pressed. What is the solution? Ofcom seems not to care. But they are accountable to the public. Maybe it really IS time to ask for an audit through the public accounts committee.

If you follow this thread:
http://www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?num=1137354186/6#6
you can review correspondence between me and Traveline Scotland about 9 months ago. The bottom line is they admitted that the then 0870 numbers produced a surplus but that it was used to offset the costs paid by the operators.

As others observed, this misses the point that providing public transport information should be a cost absorbed by the operators as 10p/min phone calls (by their own admission the average call length is 100 seconds) represent an unfair tax on low-income groups who represent the bulk of passengers.

However Traveline is an organisation bsed on commercial principles and would argue that it has no social remit. For this to change would require local or national government intervention

Indeed. It would seem there is no point arguing with traveline as the the only agument they ought to listen to if they are a profit-making organisation is one which appeals to their profit motive. If we can show, for example, that using geographical numbers will increase their sales to an extent which will more than offset additional costs, then we might start getting somewhere.

On the other hand, if we want to make a public interest argument, who can we appeal to for a hearing? How can we get our voices heard most effectively by people who are in  positions of public responsibility for this issue?

Sorry if these elementary questions have been answered before but government seems to be a very complex institution. I know about Ofcom, but they seem toothless and negligent. Is there any general agreement on the best way to proceed from there?

longusername wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2007 at 1:54pm:

Indeed. It would seem there is no point arguing with traveline as the the only agument they ought to listen to if they are a profit-making organisation is one which appeals to their profit motive. If we can show, for example, that using geographical numbers will increase their sales to an extent which will more than offset additional costs, then we might start getting somewhere. On the other hand, if we want to make a public interest argument, who can we appeal to for a hearing? How can we get our voices heard most effectively by people who are in  positions of public responsibility for this issue? Sorry if these elementary questions have been answered before but government seems to be a very complex institution. I know about Ofcom, but they seem toothless and negligent. Is there any general agreement on the best way to proceed from there?

It's one for MPs, MSPs, MWAs you can send them mails at:
http://www.writetothem.com/