Smartcard plan for UK public transport

[Rustyrails01]

I found this story on Skynews for a Smartcard for national rail and bus users

Plans are being drawn up to introduce the cards - based on London`s Oyster scheme - for buses,trains and trams. As announced by transport minister Norman Baker

 

[jamesontheroad]

A kick in the teeth for everyone working on their regional smart card systems (eg Yorcard)

 

[142094]

Saw that as well, although I bet it will costs millions (even billions) to implement. Apparently it will reduce the need for people selling tickets at stations etc, although how much of an effect it will have on jobs I have no idea. The same was said about TVMs but you still get large queues at most stations for the staffed counter even when there are TVMs free.

 

[me123]

I know that Scotland already have plans to do this; a trial is currently underway on the Edinburgh-Glasgow route for example. AIUI, they're looking at going towards integrated ticketing, so in the long run it will be something akin to Oyster but on a much larger (geographical) scale.

Given that transport is devolved, I wonder if/how the two systems would coexist. Would there be an overall UK one? Would the Scottish and English cards be compatible with each other?

 

[wibble]

The article is a bit thin on any useful information. It could be referring to ITSO compliant smartcards which, unlike Oyster, could be used anywhere in the UK. Must be a slow news day as the government's been talking about it for several years!

 

[323235]

Well they'd have to improve the fare structure massively, when they eventually get round to implementing this technology UK wide, to get me to switch from paper tickets.

 

[PR1Berske]

The story does seem something of a thin Sunday newspaper filler, maybe someone inside DaFT just needed to justify his wage?

A national e-ticket scheme would be massively expensive. As has been said, if Scotland has its own, would England and Wales require a two-tier version? Would Wales demand its own....erm....e-ticed?

It's an encouraging straw in the wind, just not sure it will come to anything.

 

[Matt Taylor]

SWT has been trialling smartcards for gold card holders but is having a number of technical problems. I would rather see a national scheme paid for by central government, letting each TOC do their own thing will just lead to lots of marginally different systems which will probably not be interchangeable among operators and which will be largely paid for from Dft money anyway.

 

[wibble]

A national e-ticket scheme would be massively expensive. As has been said, if Scotland has its own, would England and Wales require a two-tier version? Would Wales demand its own....erm....e-ticed?

As it's likely to be ITSO compliant, a card issued in Scotland would work with any other ITSO compliant scheme in Engalnd or Wales and vice versa.

One benefit of ITSO is that that local authorities can accurately record the number of people using buses with their concessionary passes and use that data to help determine how much they pay to bus operators.

 

[Mojo]

Might as well make public transport free if you're going to spend more than its operating cost on devising a new way of collecting revenue.

 

[John @ home]

One worrying element is the threat of increased prices with a National smartcard. The 'Insider' column on page 47 of Rail 652 is devoted to a call for an accelerated national introduction of smartcard technology to give "greater revenue yield without controversial headline fare increases" and to tackle a system which "struggles to deal with off-peak or advance journeys that have specific conditions that are difficult or unpopular to enforce".

 

[devon_metro]

An oyster scheme would just be too complicated to implement I suspect. Somewhere like where upon purchase of a ticket it is loaded into a card would work though.

 

[GodAtum]

A news article on this story: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=513767&in_page_id=2

 

[Techniquest]

Quite so. SWT seem to be doing that latter idea on the Weymouth main line, with LM also doing the same sort of idea in the Midlands. I believe you get a card with season tickets of at least a week loaded onto it, then use it in the same manner as an Oyster.

A funky idea, one which I thought would happen eventually some years ago. How it'll play out from here is anyone's guess, but I'd not be surprised to see the system kick off in the next few years across the country.

 

[swt_passenger]

SWT has been trialling smartcards for gold card holders but is having a number of technical problems. I would rather see a national scheme paid for by central government, letting each TOC do their own thing will just lead to lots of marginally different systems which will probably not be interchangeable among operators and which will be largely paid for from Dft money anyway.

SWT's scheme includes 7 day seasons now, at least it definitely does between Basingstoke and Weymouth. Also, AFAICT they aren't 'doing their own thing' but just attempting to make the DfT's pet ITSO system work, just like LM are trying to in the Birmingham area.

None of the TOCs that are currently required to introduce 'smart ticketing' have any option other than ITSO, according to their respective franchise specs.

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

An oyster scheme would just be too complicated to implement I suspect. Somewhere like where upon purchase of a ticket it is loaded into a card would work though.

You have to differentiate between the two separate modes of TfL's Oyster system. Oyster started out with Travelcard seasons only. Seasons on a National Rail smartcard would be just as easy, no problems there other than kitting out staff to be able to read/check them.

A few years later Oyster added pay as you go, (PAYG) functionality. It is this idea of stored credit that would be incredibly difficult on NR, as you suggest, unless it was confined to discrete local areas.

AIUI a national smartcard on the ITSO principles could contain, say, a Tyne Wear Metro PAYG stored credit for use in that area, as well as a separate stored credit for TfL Oyster, maybe even a hypothetical South Hants scheme. Whether or not they could share the same cash I don't know - probably not, as basically the stored credit value goes straight to the Metro or TfL or whatever when you load it, although it can be refunded if not used.

What you'll never see, as far as I can work out is a means of touching in at Southampton Central, and out at Tynemouth, having travelled via London, with a correct fare for the time of day being calculated 'on the fly'. For that journey you'd have to pay up front - and there'd need to be some processing done to make that prepaid ticket overide any local schemes that you happen to pass through en route. Hope that makes sense...

 

[paul1609]

Well they'd have to improve the fare structure massively, when they eventually get round to implementing this technology UK wide, to get me to switch from paper tickets.

The scheme in the southeast sees all off peak paper tickets withdrawn. You'll only be able to buy anytime paper tickets by around 2013.

 

[Matt Taylor]

SWT's scheme includes 7 day seasons now, at least it definitely does between Basingstoke and Weymouth. Also, AFAICT they aren't 'doing their own thing' but just attempting to make the DfT's pet ITSO system work, just like LM are trying to in the Birmingham area.

I really hope it works but I understand it has been far more problematic than first envisaged.

 

[swt_passenger]

The scheme in the southeast sees all off peak paper tickets withdrawn. You'll only be able to buy anytime paper tickets by around 2013.

Define Southeast in this context. Are you suggesting this because of what happened with offpeak fares in the London zones? IMO it isn't scaleable across the Southeast generally for the reasons I suggested earlier...

 

[142094]

The Metro should be getting its own smart ticketing with NESTI coming into effect when the new ticket machines and barriers are installed.

Someone mentioned Yorcard, thought this was a trial only and finished a few years back?

 

[jon0844]

Might as well make public transport free if you're going to spend more than its operating cost on devising a new way of collecting revenue.

I disagree. Such moves would likely change the way we do ticketing forever. So, in the long run, it's not a wasted investment.

Smartcards would make so much more sense to fix all of the ticketing anomalies we have now. That's if they were actually fixed (which I am sure they would not, at least at first).

I also think that for national rail services, you'd have the smartcard as the ticket but could buy a ticket by paying cash/card at a TVM or ticket window and simply load that ticket on to the card - rather than have a card with a high value loaded on it. I can't imagine you having enough on a card to buy a first class, open, ticket but could see you simply having the smartcard AS your ticket to present. It could/would contain much more data for tracking purposes and verification, as well as being traceable/blockable if lost.

 

[Techniquest]

I also think that for national rail services, you'd have the smartcard as the ticket but could buy a ticket by paying cash/card at a TVM or ticket window and simply load that ticket on to the card - rather than have a card with a high value loaded on it. I can't imagine you having enough on a card to buy a first class, open, ticket but could see you simply having the smartcard AS your ticket to present. It could/would contain much more data for tracking purposes and verification, as well as being traceable/blockable if lost.

SWT currently do things a bit like that now with their smartcard thing, judging from the poster about it at Weymouth I saw on Saturday. You either got your season ticket put on it by the ticket office or used the TVMs to get your ticket and touch the smartcard onto the reader, much in the same way as you would do with an Oyster.

I agree that would be the best way to do NR tickets on a smartcard system. Find the fare you want on a TVM, touch the card against the reader device and away you go. When the gripper comes round, you'd present the card for them to touch against a portable reader. Seems simple enough, and although expensive to get all set up (I daresay the Oyster system was expensive too), it seems a good way to go for the future.

Just as long as you don't have the idiotic problems that you get with Oyster that is! I'd certainly be willing to give a nationwide smartcard system a try.

 

[googolplex]

It would be interesting to see if they follow TfL's lead and use MiFare classic chips in the smartcards. I believe the later MiFare classic chips still have ITSO accreditation.

If they do, I can see extensive fraudulent travel. Various researchers have looked at the MiFare classic chips as used with Oyster, and discovered the encryption can be broken very easily with a computer and ~£100 worth of equipment.
TfL will typically kill a cloned Oystercard (along with the legitimate one) automatically during the overnight processing, not sure about what happens with people changing the PAYG balance.
Of course with National Rail the reward for hackers is much greater - instead of obtaining £5 odd worth of travel in a 24 hour period, you could easily manage £2-300 (first class between distant destinations) as the ticket details would be stored on the card, and so could be fabricated.
Even with just season tickets stored on the cards, there could be a decent day's travel to be had if one were to clone a card.

 

[WatcherZero]

I have three things to add to this debate.

ITSO is a public standard, a development standards organisation set up by the PTE's and some companies for interoperability, the 1st gen Oyster cards were a seperate system but the readers and most of the cards have now been mostly upgraded to recognise ITSO.

The PTE's have all been developing ITSO cards for roughly 2012-2014 introduction for the last decade, this process was sped up early this year when Labour introduced a two year £20m grant (£1m p/a to each PTE) to fund setting the systems up and doing trials. Theres also been a lose national aim of introducing them by 2020 or so, this is what the Conservatives have announced their changing this weekend, bringing it forward to a non-set but likely 2014-2016 date.

The National system the Tories are talking about is simply a prepaid cash card for purchasing tickets from ticket machines or online, it would then store the ticket so that it could be checked enroute. This would complement the PTE's seperate systems which would offer Oyster style touch in touch out smart ticketing of routes as well as concessionary fares entitlement and as it would all be ITSO these could be used nationally as well. That could mean you have a card for each PTE area you frequent (though they will likely require that you live/work/learn within the PTE area to recieve one and associated concessionary fares).

I dont know the status of the other PTE's implementation plans but here in GM there was an ITSO trial for the last couple of years in Bolton with a 'Citizen Card' that you like a library card/ID card but could also purchase things in local shops. That trials now finished and the first proper implementation launches at the end of this month with a GM wide ITSO Children and Young Peoples card. To be elligible you have to be 11-16 and live or learn at a GM school, this photo id then allows you purchase cheaper than standard child fares on Bus/Rail/Tram and used as a proof of entitlement to yellow bus drivers. It will become mandatory for elligibility of reduced fares from next May. One of the main design features of the card is its a privilige not an entitlement so it can be remotley deactivated (next time you use a smart card reader) for bad behaviour. Touch in touch out is still under development, the new tram ticket machines are upgradable with a modular reader, most buses in the county have them already as bus companies have been voluntarily replacing ticket machines with ITSO compliant ones as their naturally renewed nationally but particularly in PTE areas. A phased introduction for Trams-Buses-Trains is scheduled to start in latter part of next year.

 

[jon0844]

It's good to see that there is some progress, but I do hope that any system we get may start off simple but has the scope to offer more intelligent ticketing/pricing, loyalty discounts etc.

 

[googolplex]

The Scottish have a similar thing with the "National Entitlement Card", which uses ITSO compliant smart cards. They are issued to all school students IIRC, as well as some university students and those eligible for concessionary bus travel. I think they are also given when applying for access to public services such as libraries.
They can be used at swimming pools, libraries etc. They also store any concessionary bus entitlement - nearly all buses now have the readers integrated into their ticket machines.
The cards are issued by each local authority, but to a set design and format (presumably with the smart card data as well).

 

[radamfi]

The Netherlands, after a long struggle, seem to have more or less rolled out smartcards to almost the whole bus and rail network in the country. See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OV-chipkaart
http://www.ov-chipkaart.nl/?taal=en

Unlike the UK, they are mostly intended for pay as you go travellers although some areas have implemented season tickets using the OV-chipkaart. Some areas have already stopped using paper tickets. Usage on buses is relatively easy. You pay €4 as soon as you get on and when you get off your fare is adjusted to the right fare for the distance travelled. But on rail the deposit is a hefty €20 so you need to have €20 on the card before you make any rail trip. That covers the price of the most expensive single fare in the country.

Given the fares in the UK, I can't see how a deposit based pay as you go system could be implemented as the maximum single fare is several hundred pounds.