Smartcard for the entire rail and other transit network

[W&C]

I mean, ticketing is a mess right now.

After all, we have quite the few rail smartcards here: (source Wikipedia but I can't be bothered to check all the data for myself)

• ScotRail - Smartcard*
• Avanti - Smartcard*
• c2c - Smart*
• Chiltern - Smartcard*
• CrossCountry - Smartcard*
• EMR - Smartcard*
• GX - The Key
• Greater Anglia - Smart Card
• GWR - Touch*
• Great Northern - The Key
• LNER - Smartcard*
• LNWR - Smartcard*
• Overground - Oyster
• Merseyrail - MetroSmart
• Northern - Smart*
• SWR - Touch*
• Southern - The Key
• Southeastern - The Key
• TfL Rail - Oyster
• Thameslink - The Key
• TransPennine - Smart*
• TfW - Smartcard*
• WMR - Swift

* Not the same Smartcard as others with the same name

Yep, that's a lot. Sure, there is some interoperability, but this is just stupidly complex. What would your solution be? One single smartcard? Regional smartcards? Keep it as it is?

I personally think that a national card would be the best option, but I'd be fairly happy with regional cards.

 

[YorksLad12]

In theory, as they're all ITSO cards you could load a product from, say, Northern on a TPE card; or from South Yorkshire PTE on a West Yorkshire Card. In practice, I've never tried it; I'd imagine if my valid West Yorkshire day ticket was loaded onto a Soith Yorkshire card, and the machine couldn't read it, it would be fault for trying to be clever.

It feels as if each card somehow knows which products can be loaded onto it (possibly with a creator ID or suchlike) - but yes, a national smartcard which could double up as an over-60s or YP Railcard would be ideal for me.

 

[W&C]

In theory, as they're all ITSO cards you could load a product from, say, Northern on a TPE card; or from South Yorkshire PTE on a West Yorkshire Card. In practice, I've never tried it; I'd imagine if my valid West Yorkshire day ticket was loaded onto a Soith Yorkshire card, and the machine couldn't read it, it would be fault for trying to be clever.

It feels as if each card somehow knows which products can be loaded onto it (possibly with a creator ID or suchlike) - but yes, a national smartcard which could double up as an over-60s or YP Railcard would be ideal for me.

A smartcard doubling as a railcard would be great! Almost like how it works on TfL services with the Senior/Disabled/Youth Railcards.

 

[haggishunter]

A smartcard doubling as a railcard would be great! Almost like how it works on TfL services with the Senior/Disabled/Youth Railcards.

Which is the case with the Highland Rail Card which is a Smart card only product now - think I’m on four renewals of it on my ScotRail smart card.

I’ve used the thing overseas to load metro tickets onto, but the ITSO cards are designed to work offline - they are therefore more complex and temperamental. It could take hours for a smart card ticket to appear for uploading to a card, which defeats the purpose!

In someways smart cards have been overtaken by contactless payment methods and phone tech. I’ve not put a ticket on my ScotRail smartcard since the app started providing mobile tickets widely.

Looking at the SPT area around Glasgow, the lack of integration is a shambles, the card readers on the subway can’t do contactless, neither could the TVMs. There really needs to be a tap and go contactless system across Greater Glasgow and Edinburgh area that works as contactless within the Oyster zone. As an example you can only buy the roundabout ticket from ScotRail, but only on paper and it’s valid on, but doesn’t open subway ticket gates - so you’ve to find a manned ticket office on the subway, show the ScotRail ticket and get a subway one!

It’s one example that begs the question, why wasn’t the Oyster tech and it’s contactless systems rolled out more widely?

 

[zcacmxi]

A bit late to this one.. I regularly over past 6 month use a SouthEastern ITSO smart to make a journey from my home SouthEastern Station via Waterloo East and Waterloo onto a SouthWestern train and out at the destination Southwestern station.

I load an Anytime Return for the entire journey and confirm it's loaded via the NationalRail app. What I find is that the ticket opens the gates at the SouthEastern station and Waterloo/East, but ~50% of the time I have a problem at the barrier at the destination Southwestern station where the barrier rejects / bleeps red.

The staff at barrier send me to the ticket office where they take one look at the 'foreign card', and say it's not accepted and try to sell me a ticket.. They make no effort to check it etc.

It seems to me the implementation of ITSO / interoperability at SouthWestern barriers as well as the training of station staff is lacking. If I had the time I'd save myself the hassle and buy a paper ticket from TM. Loading Smart from home is more convenient though.
I am trying to work with Southwestern, getting them the error code from barrier and helping explain my case to ticket office. But I shouldn't have to do this..

 

[Brush 4]

As long as there remains a choice and paper tickets are still available, paid for by debit card or cash. Consumer choice is supposedly the name of the game.

 

[Hadders]

I don't see the point of a smartcard to hold tickets, other than season tickets. Barcodes (i.e. etickets) should be the way forward for 'normal' single or return tickets. These can be printed on paper (either at the station or at home) or shown on an electronic device.

 

[miklcct]

I don't see the point of a smartcard to hold tickets, other than season tickets. Barcodes (i.e. etickets) should be the way forward for 'normal' single or return tickets. These can be printed on paper (either at the station or at home) or shown on an electronic device.

A smartcard should also be used as a medium of a stored-value facility for pay as you go travel, and to store day tickets as well.

 

[stuu]

The solution is contactless for local journeys and then a GBR national app for longer journeys where advances are available. Someone will be along to say "what about people without phones?". What proportion of people who want a smart card of any sort don't have a phone?

 

[Hadders]

A smartcard should also be used as a medium of a stored-value facility for pay as you go travel, and to store day tickets as well.

Yes, I should have added that in urban areas contactless or stored credit on a smartcard (e.g. oyster) should be used, but not necessarily to store tickets as that just complictes things.

Some will say what about one day travelcards but these really are on their way out.

 

[Nova1]

The Midlands situation is a little complicated currently

For season tickets outside of the Transport for West Midlands ticketing area, you basically need to use another TOCs Smartcard, as WMR won't sell these tickets onto smart cards outside of the TfWM area. But inside the area you need a Swift card for those tickets. I have a season ticket for travel on West Midlands Railway services but it is outside of the Swift area so I have been buying the ticket from Chiltern and issued onto a Chiltern Smartcard

 

[Bletchleyite]

A smartcard doubling as a railcard would be great! Almost like how it works on TfL services with the Senior/Disabled/Youth Railcards.

I did actually expect the way Railcards would go would be for them to be ITSO cards and only valid with products loaded onto the card. No scope to forget it then.

It seems they've gone completely the opposite way...

 

[miklcct]

I did actually expect the way Railcards would go would be for them to be ITSO cards and only valid with products loaded onto the card. No scope to forget it then.

It seems they've gone completely the opposite way...

Then how will the card deal with multiple single / returns valid on the same day, but with different overlapping validity?

 

[Nick Ashwell]

Then how will the card deal with multiple single / returns valid on the same day, but with different overlapping validity?

The card doesn't need to. Smart cards do zero data processing as such and are really just storage mediums. It's however very easy to analyse different lines in a table of data and output the valid one based on location and/or time.

 

[JonathanH]

It's however very easy to analyse different lines in a table of data and output the valid one based on location and/or time.

Not if they overlap.

 

[tomuk]

Then how will the card deal with multiple single / returns valid on the same day, but with different overlapping validity?

What do you mean by overlapping validity?

 

[JonathanH]

What do you mean by overlapping validity?

You might have the return portion of a period return on your smartcard as well as a day return for the same route and want to keep the period return portion for another day.

 

[miklcct]

What do you mean by overlapping validity?

A Poole - Bournemouth return and a Bournemouth - Branksome return for the same day loaded into a smartcard, with the intention to make Poole - Bournemouth - Branksome - Bournemouth - Poole journey in a day.

 

[tomuk]

You might have the return portion of a period return on your smartcard as well as a day return for the same route and want to keep the period return portion for another day.

So for example you could have travelled Manchester to Cardiff on an Anytime Return and within the month be travelling Cardiff to Newport on a CDR? I assume the guard when checking the card could see both tickets and only 'clip' the CDR?

Overall I think as we are 'in the know' we can easily shoot down any proposed new ticketing scheme with various edge cases but moving to a regional oyster/contactless system with advances and day singles for Inter-Regional/City journeys. And a near eradication of TOC only fares to only those InterRegional/City routes where there is a difference in offering ie Avanti West Coast (fasts) vs LNW/WMR (slows) maybe by 'class' AWC is First and Premium, LNWR is Standard.

 

[Haywain]

I assume the guard when checking the card could see both tickets and only 'clip' the CDR?

And which ticket does the automatic ticket gate clip?

 

[tomuk]

And which ticket does the automatic ticket gate clip?

The one with the shortest validity? What happens now? Which operators allow you to load non weekly/seasonal tickets onto smartcards officially?

 

[stuu]

And which ticket does the automatic ticket gate clip?

This is where an app is much more useful than a smart card, as you can choose the ticket to present. Deals with a lot of edge cases like this

 

[AM9]

The solution is contactless for local journeys and then a GBR national app for longer journeys where advances are available. Someone will be along to say "what about people without phones?". What proportion of people who want a smart card of any sort don't have a phone?

If that is limited to people who 'want' a smart card then fair enough, but if a smart card becomes the only type of ticket available as some seem to suggest then there would be a considerable number of passengers who neither have nor want a smartphone. "What about people without phones?" should be 'what about people without smartphones?', - there are plenty of people who are quite happy with a simple device for making voice calls and maybe the odd text message, so a basic mobile for under £20 is perfectly adequate.

 

[paul1609]

A bit late to this one.. I regularly over past 6 month use a SouthEastern ITSO smart to make a journey from my home SouthEastern Station via Waterloo East and Waterloo onto a SouthWestern train and out at the destination Southwestern station.

I load an Anytime Return for the entire journey and confirm it's loaded via the NationalRail app. What I find is that the ticket opens the gates at the SouthEastern station and Waterloo/East, but ~50% of the time I have a problem at the barrier at the destination Southwestern station where the barrier rejects / bleeps red.

The staff at barrier send me to the ticket office where they take one look at the 'foreign card', and say it's not accepted and try to sell me a ticket.. They make no effort to check it etc.

It seems to me the implementation of ITSO / interoperability at SouthWestern barriers as well as the training of station staff is lacking. If I had the time I'd save myself the hassle and buy a paper ticket from TM. Loading Smart from home is more convenient though.
I am trying to work with Southwestern, getting them the error code from barrier and helping explain my case to ticket office. But I shouldn't have to do this..

For some reason that I don't understand Southern ETickets never seem to be able to operate the gates at Southwestern stations either!

 

[tomuk]

If that is limited to people who 'want' a smart card then fair enough, but if a smart card becomes the only type of ticket available as some seem to suggest then there would be a considerable number of passengers who neither have nor want a smartphone. "What about people without phones?" should be 'what about people without smartphones?', - there are plenty of people who are quite happy with a simple device for making voice calls and maybe the odd text message, so a basic mobile for under £20 is perfectly adequate.

Printed barcode e-tickets or disposable smart card.

 

[JonathanH]

disposable smart card

If the problem with magnetic strip tickets is that they can't be easily recycled and are costly to manufacture a disposable smart card sounds even worse.

 

[AM9]

Printed barcode e-tickets or disposable smart card.

Will printed barcode tickets work on LU?

 

[JonathanH]

Will printed barcode tickets work on LU?

No. Not without someone paying for optical readers, and even that assumes TfL want them installed.

 

[AM9]

No. Not without someone paying for optical readers, and even that assumes TfL want them installed.

Then the prospect for cross-ticketing through London is doomed. Is that something that the DfT is likely to endorse?

 

[JonathanH]

Then the prospect for cross-ticketing through London is doomed. Is that something that the DfT is likely to endorse?

PAYG (with its mixed mode premium) will account for a lot of cross-London travel from the area around London so it may just be the longer-distance fares.

A reasonable number of cross London journeys can be made using Thameslink.