Smart ticketing situation

[Oscar]

How are the prospects currently for a further roll-out of ITSO smart ticketing? Which rail and bus companies now have ITSO readers and what are they being used for? I heard a few years ago that there was rivalry between the Department for Transport which was promoting ITSO and Transport for London which has its Oyster product. What are the technical issues with ITSO which make it inferior to Oyster according to many people? Should the Department for Transport continue to push for an ITSO roll out?

The latest ITSO newsletter is here.

 

[d1672]

Can anyone tell me why every company wants its own itso card. Why can one card not do all ?
Thomas

 

[yorkie]

Can anyone tell me why every company wants its own itso card. Why can one card not do all ?
Thomas

Do you have a source for that?

Do any Companies want ITSO cards, or are the only Companies issuing ITSO cards those who are required to do so as part of their franchise terms, set by the DfT?

I was under the impression is it the DfT who want the mess we're getting ourselves in?

 

[jon0844]

Any company can have its own card, but I'd have made sure that there was a recognised logo and branding to make it clear that it was available for use on ALL trains (at some point) and possibly other modes of transport.

So far there's often a small ITSO logo, but it's not very clear.

When TfL eventually goes ITSO, it will keep the Oyster name I'm sure - so that will cause even more confusion as by then, you'd presumably be able to use an Oyster card on the national rail network.

The DfT really has made a mess of the whole thing, and it's crazy that it's so disjointed and even the TOCs that have introduced it still don't seem to push it hard enough, as TfL did with Oyster.

I'm still a firm supporter of smartcards in principle, but not the way things are progressing. God knows, there's little chance of anything else clever happening, like downloading tickets to your phone (via NFC) and tapping in/out with a phone, or interacting with TVMs to download tickets or buy tickets you've pre-selected on the app (complete with payment being made via your phone, allowing the use of any card, PayPal, deducting prepay credit with your TOC or whatever).

 

[Panda]

Can anyone tell me why every company wants its own itso card. Why can one card not do all ?
Thomas

I don't think all the TOC's want their own ITSO cards, rather that they are obliged to implement it as part of their franchise agreements.

The design of ITSO is such that you would want to have your own ITSO products as that would be the only way that you would get hold of your own data. TOCs would have a hard time getting hold of their own data if they did not retail their own ITSO products.

When TfL eventually goes ITSO, it will keep the Oyster name I'm sure - so that will cause even more confusion as by then, you'd presumably be able to use an Oyster card on the national rail network.

As it stands at the moment, the chance of TfL moving to ITSO is between zero and nothing. The move is towards using an Oyster-like card and using the technology it developed for contactless in the back office. ITSO is entirely non-compatible with this approach and it would mean another implementation of the same thing which already exists for Oyster and contactless (at the moment, it only has to accept ITSO on routes coming into London, not implement the entire scheme).

 

[Olympian]

Can anyone tell me why every company wants its own itso card. Why can one card not do all ?
Thomas

Technically, an ITSO card can hold ITSO products from any ITSO scheme so there's in theory there's no need for each company to issue its own card so long as they all issue their own ITSO products so they get their own data as Panda says.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

So far there's often a small ITSO logo, but it's not very clear.

Actually it's supposedly mandatory that the ITSO logo should be displayed on every single ITSO card!

 

[MikeWh]

As it stands at the moment, the chance of TfL moving to ITSO is between zero and nothing. The move is towards using an Oyster-like card and using the technology it developed for contactless in the back office. ITSO is entirely non-compatible with this approach and it would mean another implementation of the same thing which already exists for Oyster and contactless (at the moment, it only has to accept ITSO on routes coming into London, not implement the entire scheme).

I agree with this apart from the bit in brackets. ITSO cards issued by Southern and C2C can both contain travelcards which work every gate, validator and bus in the zonal area.

 

[jon0844]

Technically, an ITSO card can hold ITSO products from any ITSO scheme so there's in theory there's no need for each company to issue its own card so long as they all issue their own ITSO products so they get their own data as Panda says.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Actually it's supposedly mandatory that the ITSO logo should be displayed on every single ITSO card!

Bad wording on my part. Yes, there's always the logo - but I meant sometimes it's very small and, also, not immediately obvious that the ITSO bit is significant.

I think there needs to be a bit more joined up thinking, so ITSO cards have a unified style, with certain elements that can be customised by each issuer.

Rather like credit cards have certain elements that are 'fixed' and standard.

 

[button_boxer]

Technically, an ITSO card can hold ITSO products from any ITSO scheme so there's in theory there's no need for each company to issue its own card so long as they all issue their own ITSO products so they get their own data as Panda says.

While that should be the case in theory, the practice seems rather different. This post in 2013 is from someone who had a StagecoachSmart card issued by a train company (SWT or EMT) and found Stagecoach wouldn't let them load Stagecoach bus tickets on to the same card, only onto a different (but identically branded) one issued by the bus division of Stagecoach...

 

[Olympian]

While that should be the case in theory, the practice seems rather different. This post in 2013 is from someone who had a StagecoachSmart card issued by a train company (SWT or EMT) and found Stagecoach wouldn't let them load Stagecoach bus tickets on to the same card, only onto a different (but identically branded) one issued by the bus division of Stagecoach...

Unfortunately that's often the case, and doesn't then make the most of the common standard that ITSO supposedly offers. If you look at an ITSO card number starting 633597 then the 4 digits after that is the card owner, and several schemes restrict product loading such that their products can only be added to their own cards. I suspect that Stagecoach even do this between bus (0127) and rail (0119 for East Midlands Trains).

 

[button_boxer]

Unfortunately that's often the case, and doesn't then make the most of the common standard that ITSO supposedly offers. If you look at an ITSO card number starting 633597 then the 4 digits after that is the card owner, and several schemes restrict product loading such that their products can only be added to their own cards. I suspect that Stagecoach even do this between bus (0127) and rail (0119 for East Midlands Trains).

Leading to rather Python-esque conversations like

"I'm trying to load this ticket onto my StagecoachSmart card but the machine won't let me, any idea why?"
"Because it's not a StagecoachSmart card, it's a StagecoachSmart card. You can't load smart tickets onto a StagecoachSmart card, you will need to get a StagecoachSmart card instead..."

 

[maniacmartin]

Everyone wants to be king of the castle. The DfT should have been more firm at the start on having true cross-compatibility with the same logo dominating the front of the card, no matter who issued the card.

You gotta love the free market, right?

 

[yorkie]

Some of us have seen this coming, it's of no surprise to us!