ITSO Smartcard contactless tickets

[Wallsendmag]

I believe SWR are introducing something similar to KeyGo

 

[Belperpete]

It automatically calculates an overall cheapest fare at the end of the day, unlike Oyster which calculates immediately as a completed journey.

Checking on their website, I see that it does take account of break of journey. The big problems are that it doesn't take railcard discounts, and the limited geographical area it covers. Even when I lived in Croydon, most of my journeys would not have been covered. Not covering the tube means that most of my trips to London would not have been covered, for example.

This piecemeal approach to introducing ITSO cards is going to be a real headache. A significant number of journeys involve more than one operator, and most journeys to London don't end at the mainline terminus but carry on by tube or bus. What is needed is a national card that can be used on all operators.

 

[ThameslinkUser]

The big problems are that it doesn't take railcard discounts, and the limited geographical area it covers....... Not covering the tube means that most of my trips to London would not have been covered, for example.

As you say, there are definitely some problems that need to be fixed with it. However, for those that solely use GTR and need no discounts, this will be perfect.

This piecemeal approach to introducing ITSO cards is going to be a real headache. A significant number of journeys involve more than one operator, and most journeys to London don't end at the mainline terminus but carry on by tube or bus. What is needed is a national card that can be used on all operators.

GTR have at least got PAYG working in some form, which is better than most. Perhaps a similar form to KeyGo, with automatic, end-of-day calculations should be, as you say, rolled out nationwide.

 

[alistairlees]

Checking on their website, I see that it does take account of break of journey. The big problems are that it doesn't take railcard discounts, and the limited geographical area it covers. Even when I lived in Croydon, most of my journeys would not have been covered. Not covering the tube means that most of my trips to London would not have been covered, for example.

This piecemeal approach to introducing ITSO cards is going to be a real headache. A significant number of journeys involve more than one operator, and most journeys to London don't end at the mainline terminus but carry on by tube or bus. What is needed is a national card that can be used on all operators.

Tickets on ITSO cards are basically interoperable now. The problem you are describing is for pay as you go, for which ITSO cards can be used, but is not actually a problem with ITSO cards themselves.

 

[Envy123]

Alas I don't think one can tap and go between Guildford and Haywards Heath. I guess it is my fault for wanting to use mutiple train operating companies!

Nope, keyGo is only for journeys within the GTR area. One of the disadvantages. Another one is you can’t have group discounts or have railcard discounts.

Does it cope well with break of journey, or does it charge you as separate journeys like Oyster does?

It processes the journeys at the end of the day and charges you the cheapest fare. I broke my journey at Hadley Wood then went to Farringdon, and was charged the Anytime Day Return from Huntingdon to Farringdon.

I even started short on my return journey at Finsbury Park on Friday and it charged me correctly.

 

[Belperpete]

Nope, keyGo is only for journeys within the GTR area. One of the disadvantages. Another one is you can’t have group discounts or have railcard discounts.




It processes the journeys at the end of the day and charges you the cheapest fare. I broke my journey at Hadley Wood then went to Farringdon, and was charged the Anytime Day Return from Huntingdon to Farringdon.

I even started short on my return journey at Finsbury Park on Friday and it charged me correctly.

So what happens if you break journey overnight, as you are allowed to do with the return portion of off-peak returns? Completing your journey within a month is allowed, and making other journeys in the interim.

 

[mattdickinson]

I believe SWR are introducing something similar to KeyGo

SWR Tap2Go has been available for some time for journeys outside London.

 

[Envy123]

So what happens if you break journey overnight, as you are allowed to do with the return portion of off-peak returns? Completing your journey within a month is allowed, and making other journeys in the interim.

No, it only does Day Singles and Returns.

 

[Belperpete]

No, it only does Day Singles and Returns.

Their website doesn't make that clear. Are day tickets the only types of fare available within the GTR boundary?

 

[Envy123]

Their website doesn't make that clear. Are day tickets the only types of fare available within the GTR boundary?

Yeah, it isn’t clear at all about period returns. But I know how it works as I’ve been using it for a few months.

The transactions are calculated the next morning and it charges your registered card with the equivalent day ticket. It only focuses on that one day and doesn’t come back to previous days.

Now, if singles were half the price of returns, this wouldn’t be an issue. But with the current fare structure, it’s cheaper to use paper if you want to do a period return.

 

[island]

But the challenge is if anyone uses through ticketing for example, they don't touch in at a SE station but get a revenue check on a GTR train or another TOC that requires a tap in and get accused of fare evasion.

And what if you join a GTR train at a SE station, such as Stone Crossing, which does not have validators? Or take SE from somewhere like Dumpton Park to Rainham and change onto Thameslink? The lack of consistency is not going to improve passenger experience...

 

[717001]

Nope, keyGo is only for journeys within the GTR area. One of the disadvantages. Another one is you can’t have group discounts or have railcard discounts.

GTR are working on allowing railcard discounts on KeyGo - hopefully ready later this year.

 

[Envy123]

GTR are working on allowing railcard discounts on KeyGo - hopefully ready later this year.

That sounds great.

Now if only they managed to work things out with LNER to have it extended to Peterborough, but easier said than done, unless different gatelines are used for different TOC services.

 

[Haywain]

That sounds great.

Now if only they managed to work things out with LNER to have it extended to Peterborough, but easier said than done, unless different gatelines are used for different TOC services.

If GTR removed their dedicated fares for that flow there wouldn’t be a problem, other than GTR needing to pay for any alteration to the gating software.

 

[Hadders]

If GTR removed their dedicated fares for that flow there wouldn’t be a problem, other than GTR needing to pay for any alteration to the gating software.

Removal of the dedicated GTR fares between Peterborough and London wouldn't be in anyone's interests....

 

[Wallsendmag]

If GTR removed their dedicated fares for that flow there wouldn’t be a problem, other than GTR needing to pay for any alteration to the gating software.

Well Northern are paying for changes to our gatelines so I can't see why that would be a problem

 

[KingJ]

Good Evening,
Up until now I've avoided the TOCs smartcards due to challenges and difficulties that were being reported on twitter, here and general rumblings of commuters on trains.
Today I got what I expecting to be a spam email from SouthEastern, it wasn't, it was very informative and talking up "The Key" smartcard, the single and return usage that'll be usable across the UK on all TOCs, the way once its delivered you can load tickets onto the card with you mobile phone via NFC (Near Field Communication) and their On Track app.
Which got me thinking, am I to now get one will it work for me, it'll not end up with a season ticket on it even though it can, and it'll only hold standard single and return tickets, it won't hold an advance ticket it won't hold any rover tickets and is difficult to deal with when your routing changes because it suggests you have to call cust serv to fix routing issues to tickets and can't be changed by a revenue/guard/train manager or a ticket office.

Does anyone else have any concerns or reasons why you wouldn't sign up and genuinely does every TOC have the smartcard pads, and do all of them follow the rules of usage regarding tapping in or out etc

To give my own experience, i've been a user of Southeastern's 'Key' smartcard since 2017. Initially, I used to it hold an annual season - compared to a paper season, the durability was far better and I didn't have to worry about it getting mangled in the barriers, getting demagnetized etc. It was more convenient too as I didn't have to fiddle with extracting a paper ticket from my wallet, I could just slap the card on the reader and be done.

After my work patterns changed and using daily fares made more sense, I continued to use the smartcard to hold daily fares. Initially, these could only be loaded at ticket machines - providing just a very minor benefit over paper tickets in that it took perhaps a couple of seconds less to purchase the ticket given it didn't need to be printed, and that I didn't have to fiddle with outbound/return portions of a paper ticket at the barrier - just tap through.

When their mobile app was updated to support purchasing and loading via the phone, I entirely switched to this. I would normally buy the ticket as I was walking to the station, load it on to my smartcard right away and tap through. This saved me from having to queue at the ticket machine - which quite often saved me several minutes each time!

(Technically you can't buy a ticket to load on to the smartcard from your phone if it's within 2 hours of your selected train - which is meant allow sufficient time for the ticket to be made available on the barrier readers if you were to 'collect' it there. However, since you can load it instantly on a smartphone this delay is a bit moot - so instead I deliberately select a train 2 hours in the future and buy the appropriate fare for the time i'm actually travelling. It's still a walk up fare, so as long as i've bought the right peak/offpeak fare, the actual train I select when buying a ticket is irrelevant!)

It did seems to suggest by tapping the card on you phone it'd show all tickets stored and details again via the app

This is correct. As the smartcard follows the ITSO standard, you can also use any other compatible app to read it. This includes Rambus's Smart Ticket Checker app which exposes quite a bit of detail.

Otherwise it would show as unused and a refund could be obtained, or the return portion could be used numerous times.

This shouldn't be possible. Tapping at either end will 'activate' the return portion, and even then if it's a day fare the return portion has a time limitation on it. For example, in this screenshot you can see that the return portion of my ticket was 'checked in' (i.e. started) and 'validated' (i.e. ended) at the same time. This is because I didn't tap in on my return, but when I tapped out it correctly recognised that I have returned to my origin station and closed off the ticket.



In theory, had you not tapped in at either end on your return journey and you were able to re-do that leg on the same day you could re-use the ticket but that is quite the corner case!

---

Now i'm not going to claim smartcards are without flaws - I have run in to a few issues whilst using them over the years, some of which are documented elsewhere on this forum. However, these issues have reduced over time (i've always made sure to report any issues through to the TOC to resolve) and I personally find them more reliable and quicker to use than paper tickets. A smartcard based ticket is now my primary choice, and i'll only use a paper ticket if a smartcard ticket is not available on the route I want to take.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Not all returns are day tickets though

 

[Haywain]

Removal of the dedicated GTR fares between Peterborough and London wouldn't be in anyone's interests....

It would be in LNER’s interest!

 

[Metal_gee_man]

To give my own experience, i've been a user of Southeastern's 'Key' smartcard since 2017. Initially, I used to it hold an annual season - compared to a paper season, the durability was far better and I didn't have to worry about it getting mangled in the barriers, getting demagnetized etc. It was more convenient too as I didn't have to fiddle with extracting a paper ticket from my wallet, I could just slap the card on the reader and be done.

After my work patterns changed and using daily fares made more sense, I continued to use the smartcard to hold daily fares. Initially, these could only be loaded at ticket machines - providing just a very minor benefit over paper tickets in that it took perhaps a couple of seconds less to purchase the ticket given it didn't need to be printed, and that I didn't have to fiddle with outbound/return portions of a paper ticket at the barrier - just tap through.

When their mobile app was updated to support purchasing and loading via the phone, I entirely switched to this. I would normally buy the ticket as I was walking to the station, load it on to my smartcard right away and tap through. This saved me from having to queue at the ticket machine - which quite often saved me several minutes each time!

(Technically you can't buy a ticket to load on to the smartcard from your phone if it's within 2 hours of your selected train - which is meant allow sufficient time for the ticket to be made available on the barrier readers if you were to 'collect' it there. However, since you can load it instantly on a smartphone this delay is a bit moot - so instead I deliberately select a train 2 hours in the future and buy the appropriate fare for the time i'm actually travelling. It's still a walk up fare, so as long as i've bought the right peak/offpeak fare, the actual train I select when buying a ticket is irrelevant!)



This is correct. As the smartcard follows the ITSO standard, you can also use any other compatible app to read it. This includes Rambus's Smart Ticket Checker app which exposes quite a bit of detail.



This shouldn't be possible. Tapping at either end will 'activate' the return portion, and even then if it's a day fare the return portion has a time limitation on it. For example, in this screenshot you can see that the return portion of my ticket was 'checked in' (i.e. started) and 'validated' (i.e. ended) at the same time. This is because I didn't tap in on my return, but when I tapped out it correctly recognised that I have returned to my origin station and closed off the ticket.

View attachment 80619

In theory, had you not tapped in at either end on your return journey and you were able to re-do that leg on the same day you could re-use the ticket but that is quite the corner case!

---

Now i'm not going to claim smartcards are without flaws - I have run in to a few issues whilst using them over the years, some of which are documented elsewhere on this forum. However, these issues have reduced over time (i've always made sure to report any issues through to the TOC to resolve) and I personally find them more reliable and quicker to use than paper tickets. A smartcard based ticket is now my primary choice, and i'll only use a paper ticket if a smartcard ticket is not available on the route I want to take.

Thank you so much for that, just one question do you use it primarily in the SE area or do you use it across multiple TOCs because that'll be the deal breaker for me, I can find myself using 3 TOCs SE, LNER and Northern/TPE to some Yorkshire destinations!

 

[KingJ]

Thank you so much for that, just one question do you use it primarily in the SE area or do you use it across multiple TOCs because that'll be the deal breaker for me, I can find myself using 3 TOCs SE, LNER and Northern/TPE to some Yorkshire destinations!

Primarily within the SE area, but also on TfL services (bus/tube etc) and GTR (Southern/Thameslink).

I'm not sure if you'll be able to use it for through fares on LNER and other TOCs that are somewhat distant from SE's region just yet - last time I checked several months ago, I was not offered smartcard fares for journeys between SE and LNER stations (specifically up to York!). It seems to be a gradual process to make interoperable fares available unfortunately, so my previous longer-distance journeys have all been paper-ticket based.

 

[Metal_gee_man]

Primarily within the SE area, but also on TfL services (bus/tube etc) and GTR (Southern/Thameslink).

I'm not sure if you'll be able to use it for through fares on LNER and other TOCs that are somewhat distant from SE's region just yet - last time I checked several months ago, I was not offered smartcard fares for journeys between SE and LNER stations (specifically up to York!). It seems to be a gradual process to make interoperable fares available unfortunately, so my previous longer-distance journeys have all been paper-ticket based.

I've just trying the app and seeing where the Key will work, it won't work on advances, and it won't work at stations not part of the GOVIA group, so it's fine in SE, Southern, Thameslink & Great Northern operated stations but it won't work at Peterborough even though its served by Thameslink.

It seems faffy, ITSO should be Nationwide compatible...

 

[infobleep]

Primarily within the SE area, but also on TfL services (bus/tube etc) and GTR (Southern/Thameslink).

I'm not sure if you'll be able to use it for through fares on LNER and other TOCs that are somewhat distant from SE's region just yet - last time I checked several months ago, I was not offered smartcard fares for journeys between SE and LNER stations (specifically up to York!). It seems to be a gradual process to make interoperable fares available unfortunately, so my previous longer-distance journeys have all been paper-ticket based.

This is why my SWR Touch Smart card hasn't been used yet. Every journey hasn't needed a season ticket and has involved mutiple TOCs.

I did buy a season ticket but I think I'd only get it on thr smart card if I purchased it online. I didn't do that. I went into the station.

 

[Hadders]

It would be in LNER’s interest!

Maybe, but LNER would risk their trains being swamped by Peterborough passengers, meaning an uncomfortable journey for passengers

 

[Haywain]

Maybe, but LNER would risk their trains being swamped by Peterborough passengers, meaning an uncomfortable journey for passengers

That risk is outside of LNER’s control though, as the fare setter. And prior to lockdown those trains were already pretty much swamped.

 

[Envy123]

That risk is outside of LNER’s control though, as the fare setter. And prior to lockdown those trains were already pretty much swamped.

Even at off-peak times? If I will not likely get a seat at Peterborough after 9am, I think I will just stick to where I am, instead of some of the towns or villages around P'bo.

 

[GaryMcEwan]

In Scotland, you can now put almost any operators tickets on an ITSO Smartcard. It doesn't matter who issued it. I use my Stagecoach smartcard for both them, Scotrail ticket and the Subway.

 

[infobleep]

Is there any TOC that can excess a smartcard held ticket?

Having recently got hold of a Touch smartcard, following, in my opinion, a misleading South Western Railway advert on LBC, I decided I might as well use it. Having now done so, I thought relay my experiences.

In my opinion the advert didn't clearly state the range of tickets that could be bought online was rather limited. Anyway I filed a complaint with Advertising Standards Authority. Let's see if they agree.

The first ticket was a Guildford to Richmond super off peak return. I wasn't sure if I'd return in the evening peak or not but I could excess it, if I did. Why buy something you might not need when you can buy it later if you do. As it turned out I didn't travel back under gone 21:00 so the super off peak ticket was the right one.

I found it slower to purchase than a paper ticket as I had to press ITSO first and tap my card twice. Maybe that was due to it being a newish process for me to follow and in fact it's no slower with regular use, given no tickers need to be printed.

It might be faster using the SWR app but as the app is rubbish, in that it doesn't allow you to buy point to point tickets online, nor add a via point, it's a mote point.

The wide gate was slow to open on the way out but on my return journey I found the standard size gate reasonably fast. So the overall experience was OK but nothing special.

Today I was going from Guildford to Motspur Park on a super off peak ticket and I decided to buy my second ticket using the Touch smartcard. This time I purchased the not via Clapham Junction ticket, as I wished to take the hourly service direct service, which is faster than the more expensive via Clapham Junction service. There is also a possibity I might be travelling back during the peak but again I could just excess the ticket. Well so I thought.

I was very close to the departure time when buying the ticket and I ended up just missing the 11:28 train. In normal times it would be a twice hourly service and as I was just aiming for the first super off peak train, I'd have left 30 minutes earlier than I did today.

As I couldn't wait until 12:28 for the next direct train, I decided to get on the fast train to Clapham Junction and sort out the excess there, before my next connecting train.

Alas dispute having new ticketing software at Clapham Junction, on tablets too, the ticket office staff have no ability to read the Touch smartcards and thus couldn't do the excess at. So I got on my connecting train, having not paid the excess. Both times I was just led through the ticket barriers by showing my card. Perhaps they can't read the cards either.

I intend to travel back via the direct route and if it so happens I leave during the evening peak, I will probably find I can't pay the excess at Guildford either.

I guess now the government are taking the revenue hit, it's less of an issue for SWR. However the problem was going to occur regardless it seems.

As for next planned journey after this. Well that will be on paper as they don't smart ticketing from Guildford to my next destination, in any form what so ever and I'm not even travelling into London.

 

[Envy123]

You can excess a smartcard ticket or season ticket, if they have their own PAYG.

The Key allows you to travel beyond the validity of your ticket, as long as the station is in the KeyGo area. You get charged from the last station where your original ticket ends.

 

[Hadders]

I'm not defending smartcards but do bear in mind that excesses, even for paper tickets, are notoriously hard to obtain so this may well be an issue about staff not able or willing to issue excesses rather than an issue about whether excesses can be obtained for tickets held on a smartcard.