TICKETING
Just as paper has given way to PCs, and cash to cards, it was only a matter of time before paper rail tickets came under scrutiny, saysGraeme Macfarlan of ScotRail.
E
lectronic tickets are nothing new in the transport industry, with low-cost airlines in particular har-
nessing technology to cut the cost of issu- ing tickets.
But smart cards are different. In the UK almost all smart cards are produced to an agreed industry standard – ITSO – which means they are interoperable among transports providers in the UK.
I’m proud that ScotRail has been at the forefront of developments in the UK. We now have some 500 customers using smart cards as part of a pilot project to test the cards and equipment on one of our flag- ship Scottish routes – Edinburgh Waverley to Glasgow Queen Street via Falkirk High.
It’s been much more complex than we’d imagined at the outset, and we’ve had to overcome many technical obstacles, but three years on, we have a stable, scal- able platform on which to grow. We’re the first within the rail industry to operate a scheme of this size.
In the beginning
The project began in 2008 when First suc- cessfully extended its ScotRail franchise to run Scottish rail services until 2014. As part of that agreement with Transport Scotland, we secured funding to run a pilot scheme that would allow us to:
· increase our understanding of smart cards and develop the business case for full smart card implementation across ScotRail in future years;
· influence the development of smart card standards and guidelines within the rail industry; and
· understand who our customers are and what their travel patterns are.
We see the main benefit to customers as being increased convenience. The ‘end to
60 | rail technology magazine Feb/Mar 11
end’ journey experience is faster as they don’t need to visit booking offices and they can also pass through ticket gates more quickly. Renewing a season ticket with a ScotRail SmartCard is simple and custom- ers have peace of mind that, should they lose their card, it can quickly be disabled, making it useless to anyone who finds it.
The benefit for ScotRail is a closer under- standing of our customers and what their travel patterns are, so we can in the future offer a wider range of products specific to their needs. And, of course, the ability of our SmartCards to reduce fraud is an im- portant factor.
The pilot
We selected our most popular and high- profile commuter route for the pilot, the Edinburgh Waverley to Glasgow Queen Street line. Participating stations are Glasgow Queen Street, Croy, Falkirk High, Polmont, Linlithgow, Haymarket and Edinburgh Waverley.
A phased approach to our SmartCard in- troduction was important, given that we were using brand new technology. The first step was a staff trial. Around 70 staff tested all aspects of the journey: opening gates, checking in and out of the station via mobile and platform validators. This involved robust testing – over 700 differ- ent pieces of functionality were tested.
In May 2010 we began customer trials, continuing the ‘softly softly’ approach, initially open only to weekly season ticket holders, before widening out to include monthly season ticket holders.
At first we posted application packs to our customers’ homes for them to fill in and submit a photo. However, via non- adopter research we discovered this two- stage application process was a barrier for many people – too time consuming - so in January we launched an online facility which simplified the process and made it easier for customers to obtain a SmartCard. This has resulted in faster take-up. To put this into context, before the online appli- cation facility was launched we were aver-
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112