First and Stagecoach are national companies. They buy in bulk. The majority of their operating area's use the same ticketing unit, so they can buy large quantities. It's also the same software on every single unit, it's a plug and play affair, any updates can be done and every unit can be updated wirelessly and quickly.
What's also different about Lothian is the ticketing system is on a completely separate wireless network, meaning there's now three networks on every bus (ticketing, WiFi 1 and WiFi 2), this has taken time to install and test too. having a separate network allows everything to be standalone meaning if theres an issue with WiFi, the ticketing network is still up and vice versa.
Lothian wanted to be sure they had the right product. Re-Coverage etc. We don't want to be at a point where we're turning people away because the ticket machines cant get a signal, it has to be perfect from day one.
if you've used one of the contactless units on Skylin, Airlink, ECB or LCB you'll notice that transactions are very close. Alot of time has been spent on making it quicker, making the whole system seamless, right down to fare caping etc.
If people arent happy, they can goto their councillor and complain however, contactless payments arent a human right, they are not imminently required. The services where they are most likely to need them, Air/Skylink (tourists) ECB/LCB (to win over or keep customers), EBB (not so much contactless, but card payments) (tourists again) already have them and have been used as a testbed for the entire fleet.
When it arrives, it will be perfect, because all the tests have been done and all the possibilities have been tried. The company even had to hire in specialists and create a new department for ongoing maintenance and use, its taken time for a reason.
Costs have been kept down by using a familiar system for drivers, so training costs are down. The only cost is infrastructure, and its a big one.
Not to mention the data base buying built. Their building a database in a room at one of the depots i believe which will be the brain of the system.