ELTIS Case Study

RingGo for the First Great Western Railway

Cobalt Telephone Technologies

Intec 2

Wade Road

Basingstoke

RG24 8NE

01256 869600

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Background

The United Kingdom is a densely populated country in which car usage is prevalent. Owing to the dense urban nature of many of its towns and cities, parking is controlled by local government organisations and is allocated using structured systems of fees and charges as a means to allow fair and equitable allocation of this scarce resource. Typical parking fees vary from 6 Euro per hour in Central London to as little as 0.5 Euro per hour in regional towns and cities. Daily rates can range from 40 Euro to 3 Euro.

In rural areas free parking can still be found by the roadside, but across the UK, car parks within population centres of more than 20,000 people and also motorway service stations, railway car parks and hospital car parks are usually subject to charges.

By far the most common existing way of paying for parking is by the Pay and Display (P&D) method. This involves the motorist purchasing a ticket of fixed duration from an electromechanical machine using coins. This paper ticket is then placed within the windscreen of the vehicle for inspection by a patrolling attendant. The Pay and Display system can be applied to surface car-parks, bays along the sides of streets and also, but less commonly, multi-storey car parks.

Increasingly however the P&D process is proving itself to be unsuited to the needs and realities of modern society.

From the car park owners’ view, the electromechanical machines are expensive to install and maintain, are vulnerable to direct attack and looting. In addition, the costs associated with collection, counting and banking bullion are high and rising.

From a motorist’s point of view the primary drawback is the need to carry significant amounts of coinage in a society that is otherwise increasingly free of that requirement.

This is due to two factors:

  • firstly the use of credit and debit cards has achieved a high level of penetration in the United Kingdom – most economically active individuals own at least one; and
  • secondly, in the UK, the comparatively low level of merchant authorisation charges have meant that plastic is commonly used to undertake low value purchase of the order of 5 Euro. This trend is encouraged by the card issuing companies who are actively marketing against the use of coin.

Combined with the high penetration of mobile phones in the United Kingdom it is easy to see why “cashless parking” is attractive to UK motorists.

Of course, ‘cashless parking’ can in theory be achieved merely by adding credit card reading functionality to a street P&D machine. However, this is a particularly significant capital expense, as almost all existing machines cannot be simply upgraded for ‘Chip & PIN’ they must be replaced. For this reason phone parking is increasingly regarded as the preferable option.

The First Great Western implementation

The Great Western Railway is one of the marvels of the Victorian age. Designed by the famous engineer Brunel, it was constructed to a standard and quality that allowed trains to achieve journey times a century ago that still remain impressive today. The route of the railway and the infrastructure provides the foundations of the regular high-speed service offered today between London and the towns and cities of the West Country.

The decision to implement RingGo phone parking was decided upon by the First Group early in 2006 soon after they retained the rights to operate the ten year franchise early in 2006 under the brand name “First Great Western”. The intent was fourfold:

  • it would be a clear demonstrable deliverable to their passengers showing that the spirit of Brunel remained alive and that boldness and innovation were still the watchwords on the Great Western;
  • it would enhance the ‘total journey experience’ that is now a focus of all rail transport operators;
  • it would save costs;and
  • it would allow the development of bundled ticket and parking offerings

First Great Western charged their car park operator APCOA with the job of implementation. The challenge would be:

  • to be seen to offer the motorists entering Great Western car parks the fastest, simplest and most effective method of paying to park their vehicle ever implemented in the UK;
  • to integrate it with the enforcement system so that the parking attendants would be able to enforce the phone parking system from a single handheld device so as not be slowed down in their duties;and
  • to provide complementary automated telephone and internet payment facilities for fines so that those who chose not to pay, could make amends through the payment of any penalty fines in an efficient and effective automated manner.

All of the above goals were achieved resulting in the largest implementation of mobile phone parking ever undertaken in support of a rail network.

The Solution

The RingGo service.

This market leading RingGo phone payment service offered by Cobalt Telephone Technologies Cobalt is an established provider of Automated Transaction Solutions and is active in several niches of which parking is the largest.

RingGo is specifically built for the need of the UKparking market. Due to its high population density and intensive use of road transport the UK is generally recognised to be the most advanced country in terms of t its development of parking regimes and systems. As a result RingGo is similarly highly advanced.

Notably it uses a combination of both speech recognition and CLI (Calling Line Identification) to make call durations as short as possible.

The combination of the two makes it possible for a regular user to phone up and park a car using RingGo in less than thirty seconds. This speed means that RingGo becomes quicker, when taking into account the average time to walk to a meter and back, than buying a conventional ticket even if the customer has the correct change.

Notably too,RingGo is accessible to the motorist via a normal telephone number.

The overall combination isperhaps why many customers have responded with unsolicited e-mails of which the ones below are only examples.

Customer Emails

The following emails are typical of many kind comments that have been received from RingGo users:

"Just wanted to say this is the first time I have ever used RingGo and it is a fantastic system. Well done! Makes life much easier when you have to use pay parking”

Mr J. Hinchcliffe - Parked at Maidenhead Forecourt Car Park (1941)

“Hi, having used Ring Go many times now at Bristol Parkway I have to say I am impressed, thank you. Parking is now much easier especially when raining!”

Miss D.Smith – Parked at Bristol Parkway Car Park (1901)

“This is a totally and utterly brilliant concept. Well done, you have reduced the stress of commuting by an order of magnitude!”

Mr D Vachell – Parked at Slough West (1944)

Uptake

The classic uptake that was expected across the First Great Western network is shown by this curve:

This was indeed the case. Of specific interest however is that:

  • even after 12 months the network as a whole is still in Stage 2. The estate is showing not just rising but accelerating rates of level of use. Currently the service is taking over £14000 of payments per day. Nearly 500,000 days of parking have now been booked across a total estate of 11,500 bays which, by their nature are used only once a day.
  • the same pattern applies at individual station level. Like a firework, nothing much happens for a while after the fuse is lit, then suddenly take-up rises strongly. It appears that, despite best and varied efforts, the promotional material only engages early-adopters. It is then seeing or hearing-of fellow passengers using the service that provokes a change in behaviour in the larger body of users.

Learning points regarding the uptake

Re-educating the public is a slow process. Even after a year many customers buttonholed in car parks state they are unaware of the offering. The service does however catch the imagination of some passengers who in turn can become evangelists. The usage becomes viral in that locality, leading to a sudden surge as a particular station reaches “critical mass”. About 45% of stations across the network have “kicked-in”.

Usage pattern

Occasionally leaps in station usage occur. These welcome increases are investigated. Typical causes are failed or vandalised machines. The onset of Winter weather in December 2006 undoubtedly caused a positive general impact. Customers report that they have used the service to avoid getting unnecessarily wet, or to avoid having to wade to machines marooned in the middle of large puddles of water. Security is another key concern. Many individuals do not like the feeling of standing still in a darkened car park with their purse open,in a social situation in which other people can legitimately stand close behind them.

Proportion of repeat users

Cobalt and First Great Western have been tightly monitoring the level of repeat users. Even with rising overall use, if the proportion were found to be low, it would indicate that the service was simply munching through a dissatisfied user base on its way to an eventual collapse in use.

Repeat usage is however currently 82%, which given the levels of growth indicates a staggering core retention rate of over 90%. A programme of structured call-backs to users who have not used the service again in three weeks after a first initial use, showed nothing untoward, just a genuine community of occasional rail users.

The reaction of First Great Western

Quite simply First Great Western in common with all rail operators wanted an efficient facility that delivered a stream of happy rail customers into the station foyer. As Tom Stables the Commercial Director put it, “With increasing numbers of passengers on our trains, there is a lot of pressure on station car parking space. There is little point in providing convenient rail services if your customer starts their journey with an irritating or time-consuming parking experience.”

For FGW, as well as happier travellers, the integrated system offers the opportunity to understand their parking customers better via easily accessible statistics that can be viewed over the web. Powerful reports containing amalgamated data covering when people park, how frequently and for how long is of course very useful in the development of tariffs or targeted marketing campaigns. Tailored reports give crucial customer insights that help operators run an efficient facility and plan for the future.

It is to the credit of APCOA and First Great Western that they chose to be in the vanguard of cashless parking across a whole rail network.

Summary

Rarely has a new parking service so clearly captured the imagination of the travelling public. The RingGo users of First Great Western seem to be not just enthusiasts,but evangelists. In over 60 towns and cities across the UK it is changing the way motorists go about their daily lives.

But to make cashless parking more than an occasional purchase, it has to be faster than coins, offer 21st century service (eg. online VAT receipts, not a glove box of old tickets), and, in areas of greatest demand, a targeted cheaper product. With demand for car parking spaces – and the prices for parking – moving ever higher, requiring motorists to have a pocketful of coins is simply no longer a viable solution. For rail operators and others, making parking for their customers simpler, safer and more directly linked with the journey itself is an opportunity that others will grasp.

Since the introduction of RingGo to the whole First Great Western rail network several other major long term contracts for RingGo have been awarded. Notably by the London Borough of Lewisham, the London Borough of Southwarkand the London Borough of Hounslow,this latter being the largest mobile-phone parking implementation in London.

Nonetheless no other implementation has yet been quite so ambitious in terms of its integration and execution.

Appendix 1 How RingGo Works

The RingGo cashless parking system was specifically created for the UK market to provide the fastest service and the highest levels of convenience. There are no coins, no tickets, and no queues.

After parking at a car park offering RingGo (see Appendix 2 for a full listing), the motorist makes a short phone call on their mobile. During that call they give the four digit car park location number, and their vehicle and payment card details. When they phone again, however, RingGo recognises their mobile number and fast-tracks the call, assuming the customer may wish to park the same car at the same location. If that’s not the case, the user can enter an alternative vehicle or car park.

Cutting edge speech recognition software is used to capture the details of the car (registration, make, colour), while keypad input is used as a more secure method of sending payment data. For those wishing to reclaim their costs, VAT receipts are available online.

Despite the lack of a paper ticket, parking attendants are able to check whether vehicles have paid using handheld devices. These can be specialised Nokia mobile phones which are quick and easy to use for enforcement and, of course, have the added benefit of making and receiving phone calls. An alternative now being used by First Great Western is an integrated enforcement handheld from Spur Information Solutions. This indicates to the attendant which vehicles are validly parked through RingGo, while also providing the functionality for conventional enforcement through the issue of fines.

The cost charged by RingGo to First Great Western is 20p for each booking. However First Great Westernhas chosen to absorb that cost. This makes it cost neutral to the motorist in comparison to other means of payment such as cash. SMS texts can be requested as a reminder that the session is coming to an end, and the customer then has the innovative option of extending their parking with a further call from wherever they are.

Appendix 2 Stations in scope

Barnstaple Station / Bath Spa Station
Bourne End Station / Bristol Parkway Station
BristolTemple Meads Station / Burnham Station
Castle Cary Station / Charlbury Station
Cheltenham Spa Station / Chippenham Station
Cholsey Station / Crowthorne Station
Dawlish Station / Didcot Parkway Station
Evesham Station / Exeter Central Station
Exeter St Davids Station / Goring & Streatley Station
Hayes & Harlington Station / Henley On Thames Station
Kemble Station / Keynsham Station
Kingham Station / Langley Station
Looe Station / Maidenhead Station
Moreton In Marsh Station / Mortimer Station
Newbury Station / Newquay Station
Newton Abbot Station / North CampStation
Paignton Station / Pangbourne Station
Penzance Station / Pewsey Station
Plymouth Station / Redruth Station
Romsey Station / Slough Station
St Austell Station / St Erth Station
Stroud Station / Swindon Station
Taplow Station / Taunton Station
Teignmouth Station / Thatcham Station
Theale Station / Tilehurst Station
Tiverton Parkway Station / Torquay Station
Totnes Station / Trowbridge Station
Truro Station / Twyford Station
Warminster Station / West Drayton Station
Westbury Station / Yate Station
Yatton Station

Appendix 3Example of supporting FGW poster campaigns


Appendix 4 Coverage in Modern Railways

This feature in Modern Railways, the leading international magazine for the railway industry, made specific mention of RingGo in its lead feature coverage of First Group’s win of the First Great Western Railway franchise in late 2006.

Appendix 5 Main signage (Swindon station before and after)

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