TICKETING AND PAYMENT
Smart T here’s been lots of talk about rail franchising lately, but one of the less well
publicised aspects is that of smart ticketing on rail.
For although rail franchising is under review, the smart ticketing requirements are unlikely to change.
The Department for Transport (DfT) sees smart ticketing as one way of helping simplify things for the rail passenger – arguing that a more fl exible ticketing structure could play its part in offering more attractive rail fares and easing overcrowding at peak times.
The benefi t to the operator is that the journey and passenger data collected can also be used to better plan, tailor and market services. And loyalty schemes can be considered as an offshoot.
Smart ticketing was specifi ed in the Rail Command Paper in March last year and has been part of the major rail ticketing and fare review which the Government has been undertaking.
ITSO is very much at the heart of all of this. Although many passengers are probably not aware of it, ITSO is already, or soon will be, a key part of something they use every day when they tap their smartcards on the bus, train, tram or ferry.
Southern Railways is already offering some ITSO-compliant smart ticketing through its smartcard the Key, and sister Go-Ahead company London Midland has a Key pilot underway for season ticket holders.
Southern is also offering Plusbus add-ons in the Brighton and Crawley areas, making life simpler for regular passengers who can just top
30 | rail technology magazine Feb/Mar 13
up one smartcard online for their bus and train journeys.
Stagecoach franchises East Midlands Trains and South West Trains also offer ITSO- compliant smart ticketing on some of their trains through their StagecoachSmart card. This operator also offers a combined train and bus option on smartcards in Basingstoke.
On a much wider scale, the £45m SEFT (South East Flexible Ticketing) project launched last year involves all train operators in the South East, and Transport for London (TfL).
ATOC (the Association of Train Operating Companies) and the DfT are working with them to develop a common technical platform which will be ITSO-compliant. They also need to agree business rules and develop appropriate front and back offi ce IT infrastructure to enable smart ticketing.
The objectives are to make train travel in the South East easier, quicker and more cost- effective for customers, but the systems, once implemented, must also work for operators and take account of franchise changes when they occur.
Meanwhile, TfL continues to move forward with plans to accept ITSO-compliant smart tickets.
As 63% of all rail journeys in the UK start, end, or go through London this is a vital piece of the jigsaw in moving towards the Government’s stated aim of helping deliver the infrastructure ‘to enable most public transport journeys to be undertaken using smart ticketing by December 2014’.
North of the border, ScotRail – which runs 95% of train services in Scotland – has already
ticketing
ITSO chief executive offi cer Lindsay Robertson discusses rail industry progress on implementing new smarter ticketing methods.
issued some 12,000 smartcards to staff and customers, providing a robust testing ground for a wider customer roll-out this year. An initial pilot on the Edinburgh – Falkirk High – Glasgow Queen Street route has been successful.
An investment pot of around £2m has seen the installation and/or upgrade of equipment at 70 stations across the central belt, which will see key season ticket routes – Stirling, Ayrshire, Aberdeen and parts of Strathclyde – switch to smart.
ScotRail recorded 81.1 million passenger journeys in the year to March 2012.
In Wales, the vision for the national GoCymru smartcard, currently being trialled, is that it will eventually be used on all transport modes, including trains (currently run by Arriva).
About ITSO
ITSO Limited was set up by the Department for Transport to be the guardian of the Crown Copyright for the national ITSO IT smart ticketing specifi cation.
This specifi cation is an open specifi cation which is made available free to operators and developers so they can build systems which can ‘talk’ to each other, thereby making national compatibility possible.
ITSO Limited provides the secure management system for the key elements of smart ticketing systems built using the ITSO Specifi cation.
ITSO Limited is a non-profi t distributing member organisation made up of local and national government, transport operators and their suppliers involved in smart ticketing.
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