TICKETING & FARE COLLECTION
Go-Ahead has been one of the pioneers of smart ticketing, with its ITSO-compliant smartcard product, ‘the key’, being rolled out across its rail and bus operations. RTM spoke to one of the people driving the roll-out, Go-Ahead Group technology and procurement director Dave Lynch.
E
nabling multi-modal journeys on a single card is one of the main aims of ‘the key’,
the smartcard being piloted by Go-Ahead on parts of its London Midland and Southern franchises, but also many of its bus operations. The rapid progress in the roll-out of the tech- nology has already seen the company receiving a National Transport Award for ‘excellence in technology’.
Go-Ahead Group technology and procurement director Dave Lynch spoke to RTM about the next steps for ‘the key’ on rail.
He said: “We’ve got quite sophisticated plans on Southern to go further, but we are depend- ent on the roll-out of ITSO on Prestige Plus. There are two roll-outs of that software that we’re waiting for – one in December 2012, which will allow for more exciting products to be used outside of London, so we’re looking at carnet stored-value and pay-as-you-go type products that you can use outside of London. That roll-out is committed, contractually, by Cubic to TfL.
“The really important milestone is December 2013, which is the widening of that same soft- ware onto the TfL estate, which ensures we’ve got a proper customer proposition for all TOCs facing London or on routes coming in and out of London. That will mean that we can launch our carnet-based and pay-as-you-go based products across the network.
“The other exciting thing is the Government’s proposed funding of the closing of the ‘London circle’, as I call it. South Eastern is talking, within the ATOC framework, to the DfT about launching on high-speed at the first
available opportunity. That gives us some quite exciting opportunities, because despite those limitations until December 2013, high-speed doesn’t have any ‘Oysterisation’ on it so we can open up the high-speed route to carnet and pay-as-you-go style travelling in early 2013. That is quite positive from our point of view.”
RTM asked Lynch to what extent the move to smart ticketing is seen as an opportunity by the industry – and to what extend an obligation forced upon it. Some commentators have noted that operators not already committed to explore smart ticketing as part of their franchise agreements are hardly rushing to invest in new technology.
But Lynch said: “In any regulated marketplace, which rail is, there have to be pioneers. Our- selves and Stagecoach won the franchises with a commitment to this. But people across the industry – having sat in various ATOC forums recently, I know this – are certainly waking up to the fact that smart ticketing is here.
“People mistakenly think that ITSO is a technology, and its not, it’s a standard. For me, the big difference between bus and rail is in bus we are the masters of our own destiny, and so we decide what products we bring in, whether it’s a mobile, whether it’s a card, whether it’s EMV credit card style, that we bring in; whereas in rail, we do have to work with a joined-up strategy, and that whilst it’s very good for the customers on London Midland and Southern, it needs to work across franchise boundaries as well.
“That’s why I’m quite excited that the rest of the industry is being drawn in, and the
pace of change now, with the DfT working in partnership. People are all interested in new technology, but this gives them opportunity to look at getting rid of the magnetic stripe ticket at some point. Look at the airline industry and e-ticketing; in five years it removed a lot of the cost and it improved the travellers’ lot, all in a very short space of time and with 300 members having to say ‘yes’. Rail’s on the cusp of a very exciting era where, providing it works together with all the regulatory bodies, we can both take cost out and provide innovative new travel products for the customers.”
He notes that although a lot of the current debate is around smartcards,
the future
may actually be mobile products, or EMV technology using bank cards, or, most likely, a mixture.
He said: “We want to give all our customers, be they infrequent or regular travellers, a means to understand the fare structures better, to get better value for money, and to adopt whichever technology is appropriate for them.”
Lynch recently asked Brighton University busi- ness students whether they’d prefer in future to carry a travel smartcard or use their phones to travel, and a third preferred the card option.
He said: “The was quite surprising, but those respondees would prefer a card over a mobile phone to buy rail and bus tickets in the future, because when they went out enjoying them- selves over the weekend, they didn’t want to take a very expensive mobile phone with them. As in most areas of life, we want to give people choice, and we want to make the railway and fares more understandable.
“The facts and figures from our bus launch show that if you simplify activity, simplify product structures and give people a choice and help them understand it, they will come. They enjoy the card. It’s a card now, but we’ve launched mobile on buses, and we intend to bring mobile into rail. And we’ll watch quite keenly how the cred- it card EMV idea is taken up by TfL. We’re keen to see technologies that work and we’ve no doubt there’s space for multiple technologies.”
Dave Lynch FOR MORE INFORMATION
www.go-ahead.com/responsibility/smart- ticketing.aspx
rail technology magazine Feb/Mar 12 | 39
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