Contactless payment cards outside London

[mattdickinson]

Reading Buses have finally launched contactless payment card acceptance. It’s used as a method of payment and tickets are still issued.

Stagecoach have extended CPC acceptance from Oxford to Manchester and the North East.

 

[J-2739]

Last year, weekly passes on our Stagecoach buses were instead to be put on smart cards.

Honestly, nothing will beat the simple Oyster system down in the capital.

 

[ooo]

Contactless cards are accepted on the Brislington and Portway Park and Rides in Bristol

 

[radamfi]

It’s used as a method of payment and tickets are still issued.

Which is most regrettable. If a conversation with the driver is still needed then you are missing out on a huge amount of the possible benefit of contactless payment.

 

[philthetube]

Which is most regrettable. If a conversation with the driver is still needed then you are missing out on a huge amount of the possible benefit of contactless payment.

Unless touch on and off is possible unavoidable on most buses due to fare structure.

 

[radamfi]

Unless touch on and off is possible unavoidable on most buses due to fare structure.

So change the fare system or introduce touch off.

The fare system is certainly no excuse for not allowing smartphone ticketing for singles. You could choose route number, origin and destination.

 

[Marc]

So change the fare system or introduce touch off.

touch off will generate huge numbers of penalty fares and probably alienate many casual passengers.

oyster is great to the passenger but the back office required is not sustainable outside the huge subsidy dreamlands of london.

 

[Tetchytyke]

If a conversation with the driver is still needed then you are missing out on a huge amount of the possible benefit of contactless payment.

Are you heck.

The benefit of contactless payment is in not having to have a wallet full of shrapnel. The benefit of contactless payment is in not having the driver having to count out change to everyone buying their weekly ticket on a Monday morning. The time it takes to say where you're going and for them to push a button on the ticket machine is nothing.

 

[Bletchleyite]

touch off will generate huge numbers of penalty fares and probably alienate many casual passengers.

You don't need to complicate it to the extent of penalty fares. Just "charge" the maximum for that route on touching in, and "refund" the difference on touching out.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Are you heck.

The benefit of contactless payment is in not having to have a wallet full of shrapnel. The benefit of contactless payment is in not having the driver having to count out change to everyone buying their weekly ticket on a Monday morning. The time it takes to say where you're going and for them to push a button on the ticket machine is nothing.

It's not nothing, though it certainly does help and it's better to have it in any form than not to.

 

[edwin_m]

You don't need to complicate it to the extent of penalty fares. Just "charge" the maximum for that route on touching in, and "refund" the difference on touching out.

That will still annoy a lot of people if they forget to touch out.

Having said that, Trentbarton have used touching out on the Mango card for several years and don't seem to be having any problems. Trentbarton also accept the Robin Hood card in the Nottingham area, which is a flat fare and touch in only but uses the same reader. Not sure what happens if you touch one on the exit reader!

 

[Bletchleyite]

That will still annoy a lot of people if they forget to touch out.

Well, they can only be annoyed with themselves if it is made clear that it is needed!

 

[Jordeh]

touch off will generate huge numbers of penalty fares and probably alienate many casual passengers.

Perhaps the first time but people will quickly learn. As it has already been mentioned, there's no issues with Trent Barton's touch-on and touch-off system. I think this will eventually become the norm across the majority of bus services outside of London.

The benefit of contactless payment is in not having to have a wallet full of shrapnel. The benefit of contactless payment is in not having the driver having to count out change to everyone buying their weekly ticket on a Monday morning. The time it takes to say where you're going and for them to push a button on the ticket machine is nothing.

I think you underestimate how much time is saved by using contactless/smartcards. Over the course of a journey it will save time which will all help with the reliability of the service.

The 36 by Harrogate Buses allows contactless for payment and also issues a ticket.
http://www.harrogatebus.co.uk/news?newsID=1702

KinchBus are trialing it with selected customers on the Derby-Leicester SkyLink (featuring touch-on and touch-off)

 

[philthetube]

Slightly off topic but all electronic ticket machines seem really slow, going back 30 years I could load 70 passengers on a leyland national using an Almex far quicker than busses load now, and these were all cash fares, no returns, no season tickets,etc.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Slightly off topic but all electronic ticket machines seem really slow, going back 30 years I could load 70 passengers on a leyland national using an Almex far quicker than busses load now, and these were all cash fares, no returns, no season tickets,etc.

True on the railway as well - APTIS was really quick, newer systems are really slow.

Thermal printers also seem to be inferior to the old matrix ones in performance and robustness terms.

 

[matt_world2004]

touch off will generate huge numbers of penalty fares and probably alienate many casual passengers.

oyster is great to the passenger but the back office required is not sustainable outside the huge subsidy dreamlands of london.

Maybe once oyster is back office compatible bus companies outside London should aproach tfl for oyster ticketing on their routes. The bus company gets a ready made ticketing solution and Tfl gets revenue for licencing out their oyster technology.

 

[Jordeh]

Maybe once oyster is back office compatible bus companies outside London should aproach tfl for oyster ticketing on their routes. The bus company gets a ready made ticketing solution and Tfl gets revenue for licencing out their oyster technology.

Oyster's on the way out, it's all about contactless in London now and soon enough the rest of the country too I suspect.

ITSO Smartcards will still have a place for season tickets, concessionary fares etc and have been successfully set up by a lot of operators outside of London.

 

[jon0844]

I wish Herts County Council would take an interest in smart ticketing and CPC acceptance.

Have a ITSO complaint smartcard for not just pensioners, but for season ticket holders, then allow CPC for paying for normal fares (with printed tickets issued).

HCC has backed an m-ticket solution that is awful. Hardly an operators use it, those that do have not loaded a fraction of their fares on to it, and it's open to fraud due to pathetic security. What's more, now my son has to pay to travel, I can't use m-tickets as I would need to have two accounts and two phones, as you can only activate one ticket at a time. As such, I could avoid having to worry about cash for myself - but then need to pay for my son.

It's a frankly laughable solution, and I am amazed HCC dares advertise and promote it. It's barely fit for purpose, except for a small number of people who travel alone and travel on a bus where there's an available ticket. And even them, you can't pay for just one trip - you need to buy them in packs. Often a minimum of 5 or 10 journeys.

 

[radamfi]

Perhaps the first time but people will quickly learn. As it has already been mentioned, there's no issues with Trent Barton's touch-on and touch-off system. I think this will eventually become the norm across the majority of bus services outside of London.

First have been accepting contactless payment on its buses across England using touch in touch out since the end of 2012

http://www.eurotransportmagazine.co...ment-in-groundbreaking-bus-ticket-technology/

FirstGroup, the UK’s largest bus and rail operator, today revealed it is to invest £27m in revolutionary new ticketing technology for its 5,000 strong bus fleet in England, outside London.

The company intends to be the first bus operator outside London to offer customers ‘touch in touch out’ contactless payment. The new ticket machines, designed to read contactless debit or credit cards, in addition to ITSO smartcards such as concessionary bus passes, will be introduced to buses from the autumn and will initially allow customers with an ITSO smartcard to touch in. Contactless bank cards will be accepted across England from late 2012.

First’s new ticketing system will act much like London’s Oyster Card; customers will simply ‘touch in’ and ‘touch out’ using their debit or credit card, taking less than a second, and avoiding the need to carry the correct change. The system will also allow FirstGroup to offer a range of tickets including capping the daily fare. But unlike Oyster customers won’t need to carry an additional card or worry about pre-payment or topping up. Customers using the contactless cards will simply see the cost of the fare deducted from their bank or credit card balance.

In 2017, there really should be little need for driver ticket selling. There are enough technologies available now. The driver can still sell tickets for the tiny minority who don't have a phone or card but for the most part, you should be able to get on, show or validate, and sit down without wasting any more time.

Arguably we should be pushing for mobile ticketing rather than smartcards/bank cards as it is as quick or even quicker to show the phone to the driver than validating a card and mobile ticketing is compatible with more fare systems. Anything that a driver or ticket office can sell should be possible to buy on a phone. Smartcards/bank cards are probably more appropriate when the same ticket is required for ticket barriers, and where high volumes of passengers need to go through those barriers, such as on the London Underground.

 

[Jordeh]

First have been accepting contactless payment on its buses across England using touch in touch out since the end of 2012

http://www.eurotransportmagazine.co...ment-in-groundbreaking-bus-ticket-technology/



In 2017, there really should be little need for driver ticket selling. There are enough technologies available now. The driver can still sell tickets for the tiny minority who don't have a phone or card but for the most part, you should be able to get on, show or validate, and sit down without wasting any more time.

Arguably we should be pushing for mobile ticketing rather than smartcards/bank cards as it is as quick or even quicker to show the phone to the driver than validating a card and mobile ticketing is compatible with more fare systems. Anything that a driver or ticket office can sell should be possible to buy on a phone. Smartcards/bank cards are probably more appropriate when the same ticket is required for ticket barriers, and where high volumes of passengers need to go through those barriers, such as on the London Underground.

That article from 2011 is all very well but First still has not implemented contactless touch-on and touch-off throughout its network.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That article from 2011 is all very well but First still has not implemented contactless touch-on and touch-off throughout its network.

First are very good at bluster, and not very good at sticking to things, so this doesn't really surprise me.

Despite being lackadaisical about almost everything else, Arriva have had mobile ticketing across the UK since featurephones rather than smartphones were the norm!

 

[radamfi]

That article from 2011 is all very well but First still has not implemented contactless touch-on and touch-off throughout its network.

They went to the trouble of buying compatible ticket machines but did they even have any intention of implementing contactless payment? What is crazy is that hardly anyone remembers this spectacular failure. If a public authority had failed to deliver on such a scale there would be widespread criticism, and rightly so.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I'm no Luddite, but I don't see the appeal of m-ticketing. I use Arriva's m-ticket app when I need to pay by card, but I'd rather have a proper ticket, or at the very least a Smartcard. Arriva North East have 47 different types of ticket listed on their app, and then on top of that each of those different types of ticket has an adult, child and student version and then on top of that there is a daily, weekly and 4-weekly version for each of those. 300+ different ticket options on an app is just madness.

Touch on/off works ok with single tickets, or where daily and weekly capping is in place. For anything else, I really don't see the point of trying to re-invent the wheel.

 

[radamfi]

With smartcards/bank cards, the passenger doesn't need to know their end destination when he gets on. They also enable daily or weekly capping. However, some operators require tickets to be pre-loaded onto smartcards in advance, sometimes using an overnight batch process. That isn't necessary with a mobile ticket. A ticket can be bought on the phone and used immediately. Mobile tickets are also good for tourists who don't need to worry about picking up a card somewhere and they can install the app and buy tickets at their leisure before the trip, and simply activate just before use. Mobile tickets also don't require the operator to install smartcard readers and distribute cards.

 

[Tetchytyke]

With smartcards/bank cards, the passenger doesn't need to know their end destination when he gets on.

I can't remember the last time I got on a bus and didn't know where I wanted to get off.

As for everything else, printing a bit of paper as proof of travel seems as handy as anything else to me. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned.

m-ticketing relies on a) someone having a smartphone and b) it working and being fully charged. It's not a bad way of expanding ticketing options, but I'd hate to see it become the default way of buying a ticket.

"Dayrider please" *touches CPC on reader* *pulls ticket out of machine* is hardly the most difficult thing in the world. The driver having to repeatedly count change from a tenner is what slows things down.

 

[Bletchleyite]

From hearing "Dayrider, please" to the driver pressing the buttons does take a couple of seconds. Doesn't sound like much, but remember that the addition of hustle alarms to 507s added 2 minutes to Ormskirk-Liverpool train running times - small things add up when they happen often.

 

[BBC]

First are very good at bluster, and not very good at sticking to things, so this doesn't really surprise me.

Despite being lackadaisical about almost everything else, Arriva have had mobile ticketing across the UK since featurephones rather than smartphones were the norm!

Finally being rolled out ! Well in Bristol anyway....

 

[radamfi]

I can't remember the last time I got on a bus and didn't know where I wanted to get off.

Something might happen during the trip that means you decide to go somewhere else, or go back to where you came from. It is a fairly niche requirement but can be handy occasionally.

As for everything else, printing a bit of paper as proof of travel seems as handy as anything else to me. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned.

I think having a ticket on my phone is more of a physical presence. You may have read about Neil's experience on a London bus where the inspector didn't have a record of his touch in. It was resolved within a day or so but there would have been certainly no question whatsoever if he could have presented the ticket on the phone.

"Dayrider please" *touches CPC on reader* *pulls ticket out of machine* is hardly the most difficult thing in the world. The driver having to repeatedly count change from a tenner is what slows things down.

I don't have a problem with contactless being used as a backup option for buying a paper ticket for people who don't have a smartcard or mobile ticket. But simply touching a card onto a reader or showing a phone to a driver is even quicker. So it makes sense for buying on the bus, even using contactless, to cost more than the same ticket bought using an app or by touching in.

If the only time saving of contactless payment is the change giving, then you could argue that it is little better (in terms of time saving) than paying by exact fare on an exact fare bus. I would concede that there might be some time saving between locating the bank card compared to finding exact change. Issuing a ticket using contactless or without giving change does take a few seconds whereas showing the app at the driver is virtually instant. Just look at the Nottingham thread. The new NCT fares have app singles at a lower price than cash singles. NCT don't give change.

 

[Robertj21a]

First are very good at bluster, and not very good at sticking to things, so this doesn't really surprise me.

Despite being lackadaisical about almost everything else, Arriva have had mobile ticketing across the UK since featurephones rather than smartphones were the norm!

Yes, I'm surprised that Arriva don't blow their own trumpet much more over this. It seems very popular - and fast. Once loaded it also works off-line.

 

[jon0844]

I can't remember the last time I got on a bus and didn't know where I wanted to get off.

As for everything else, printing a bit of paper as proof of travel seems as handy as anything else to me. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned.

m-ticketing relies on a) someone having a smartphone and b) it working and being fully charged. It's not a bad way of expanding ticketing options, but I'd hate to see it become the default way of buying a ticket.

"Dayrider please" *touches CPC on reader* *pulls ticket out of machine* is hardly the most difficult thing in the world. The driver having to repeatedly count change from a tenner is what slows things down.

CPCs are just a means of payment, so could be implemented within a matter of weeks if the industry wanted to (or councils forced them to). I expect a number of buses have ticket machines that may just need a software update to work, as they already have NFC card readers.

Smartcards are better for regular travellers, and we have a standard that should also be easy to support. ITSO is behind the national bus pass scheme, so again - same as CPC acceptance.

There are still people who like barcode/m-tickets. The rail industry still like barcodes and seem to be going down this route, perhaps because smartcards on the railway are so ridiculously disorganised, and that's always an option - but you then need a decent app that's easy to use and able to do things like work out what ticket you need (the HCC app doesn't, you need to know) and handle multiple passengers or groups.

CPCs solve the problem with multiple tickets. Ask the driver who will tell you, sell whatever tickets you need and give a TOTAL price. Tap and done. I doubt many bus fares for a group would top £30, and even that can be solved with Android/Apple Pay where there's no real limit - as long as you use your finger to unlock the phone just before paying.