Here are some answers on this (link below.)
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm060718/text/60718w1788.htm#column_274WMr. Carmichael: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment he has made of the value for money of the Transport Direct portal.
Dr. Ladyman: The original Business Case for Transport Direct recorded three key value for money measures:
Achieve one million user sessions in the first year of service.
Achieve 10 million user sessions by the end of 2006.
10 per cent. of users reassess their travel habits as a result of the information provided by Transport Direct.
Of these measures:
The one millionth user session was achieved ten months after soft-launch of the service (soft-launched in July 2004, achieved in May 2005)
We are on course to achieve our ten millionth user session by the end of 2006.
Early results of user surveys have indicated that 64 per cent. of those who completed our surveys were considering a change of travel mode preference.
Mr. Carmichael: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment has been made of the impact of the Transport Direct portal on journey decisions, including modal shift.
Dr. Ladyman: The portal service includes a self-completion feedback questionnaire that has been designed to form part of the independent evaluation framework for the portal. The analysis of the first 1,002 forms (December 2005) indicates that:
64 per cent. of users who responded indicated a change of original travel mode preference for at least part of the journey.
In 33 per cent. of cases the respondent had made the journey previously and of these 51 per cent. indicated a change in original mode preference.
Mr. Carmichael: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many visitor hits Transport Direct has received; and what its advertising expenditure has been since it became operational.
Dr. Ladyman: Transport Direct usage is recorded in “user sessions”. A user session is defined as:
“One continuous dialogue with the Transport Direct Portal through one browser window”.”
By the end of June 2006 Transport Direct had recorded 6,055,702 user sessions. The current rate is around 150,000 user sessions per week, viewing an average of seven to eight pages each.
Advertising costs across the Financial Years 2004-05 to 2005-06 were £1,063,000
Mr. Carmichael: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport why the default setting for the cost of car travel on the Transport Direct portal is for fuel costs.
Dr. Ladyman: The portal provides the user with two choices for assessing the costs of car travel. One is ‘fuel costs’; including exceptional costs such as tolls, ferry charges and congestion charges, and the other is ‘total running costs’ which take into account the cost of owning a car.
Transport Direct’s purpose is to give users an impartial series of travel options and to enable them to select choices that meet their needs. Market research strongly indicates that motorists are overwhelmingly interested in seeing information about the ‘point of use’ of costs of their car. Therefore the default is to display the fuel costs and other direct costs. Showing full costs as the default would result in this functionality not being used by the majority of motorists, thus negating any potential effect on their travel choice.
Users do have the option to select an estimate of the total running costs. This is based on advice and information provided by the major motoring organisations and provides a figure which reflects the total cost of motoring, on a per mile basis. If the user chooses this option, then fuel costs, the exceptional costs and the total ownership costs are displayed.
Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how much it cost to construct
www.transportdirect.info; and how much it has cost to operate per month on average.
Dr. Ladyman: The information is as follows:
Construction of
www.transportdirect.info.
Overall Capital spend on the Transport Direct portal Design, Build and Operate (DBO) contract has been as follows:
Costs in millions.
2002-03 1.3
2003-04 9.3
2004-05 9.6
2005-06 7.3
2006-07 0.4
Total to end March 2006 27.9
These figures represent the sums paid to Atos Origin (the DBO contractor) for all aspects of the DBO contract excluding non-Capital elements.
The DBO contract has been just one part of the overall Transport Direct Programme. Whilst the Portal DBO contract cost more than we originally estimated, the overall Programme budget under spent.
Operational costs are in the region of £225,000-£250,000 per calendar month, while data supply costs are in the region of £100,000 per month.
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