ITSO - What is it? How will it work?

[transmanche]

You can't assume there will always be a way of paying the peak rate regardless of the train you use. In the future there may well not be an Anytime fare at all and you simply pay the peak rate only if you travel at peak times.

Exactly, one of the things that ITSO smartcards will allow is the introduction of new pricing regimes, or ticketing products.

Look at the Netherlands with their OV Chipkaart. They've abolished zonal fares and replaced them with a price per km (plus a fixed price of 83c for local transport).

 

[philjo]

How does it know which train I have used? Also, how does it know which class I have used or does the TVM have to swipe the card on the train to say I have used 1st class?

I might pass through the station ticket barriers at a certain time to get to the platform but there may be 2 different services from the station about the same time one of which is currently not valid for off-peak tickets to my destination.

 

[D1009]

Not immediately but I'd have thought it would be a good idea to require Oyster to be compatible in the future.

I have read that one of the main reasons that ITSO hasn't been introduced yet is that it is not compatible with Oyster, but they are having to change it so it is.

Of course one of the main reasons that Oyster has been so successful in London is that the Oyster fares are significantly less than those for tickets sold at stations or bus stops. I doubt whether this will be the case with ITSO on National Rail, but I'd be happy to be proved wrong.

 

[PhilipW]

Presumable like the complete disaster the Oyster has been in London?

The present schemes for the ITSO cards which are to be implemented over the next couple of years will involve facilities similar to those available in London on Oyster and as time goes by additional facilities will be added. Before panicing about the prospect why not wait and see what is offered?

John,
I fully accept that Oyster has been a success in London. I hope too that ITSO is a success.

The point is that I just don't understand how ITSO will work, hence this thread and some simple examples I gave at the start about Southampton to Waterloo fares.

John, can you explain how ITSO will work. I don't know and it appears that no one else who has contributed to this thread knows either. That's the problem. If ITSO is so good then the DfT and all its supporters have a lot of explaining to do.

 

[Lrd]

ITSO will eventually be able to be used across London, it can't at the moment as Oyster doesn't like it but they are working on it, look up 'ITSO on Prestige', Prestige is what Oyster runs on.

My local bus operator (Bluestar in Southampton) have just adopted 'The Key' which is Go-Ahead's attempt at an ITSO smartcard (and is rather good so far). I am able to load multiple products on to the card (either online or from the driver). I started off with a product called 'Multi-trip' which was 20 journeys within the Southampton area and each time I joined the bus it would deduct a journey. I then went ahead and purchased a '30 day pass' and had the two products on the card at the same time. When I joined the bus the driver had to select which product I wanted to use.

I can see this sort of thing happening on the railways (the option to select a product) either by the user going to a TVM, activating a product then going to the gateline to validate it or by doing it all at the gateline.

That's one way I can see it working. I'm sure they will come up with others.

 

[Bald Rick]

P'raps the ITSO software will be on your phone, so you load your products directly to it, and then choose the right one for your journey....

 

[starrymarkb]

P'raps the ITSO software will be on your phone, so you load your products directly to it, and then choose the right one for your journey....

Some High End Android phones do support Near Field Communications which I think is what you are meaning.

For the rest of us I suspect mobile ticketing will remain a Barcode you scan from the screen.

 

[JamesRowden]

The simple solution to the problem with ITSO and return fares is to scrap return fares and to half the price of single tackets. This would be simpler than the present system and would allow greater flexibilty (e.g. allows good value on a triangular route between three destinations).

With modern telecommunication systems a ticket inspector could carry an ITSO reader that would communicate with a central database to check if the card has a valid trip on the particular train and log that the ticket had been used on the train. If the card contained multiple valid tickets, the ticket inspector could ask the passenger which ticket they are using. If there is no signal to the central database at the point in time, the reader could log the ticket and then check it as communication returns. If the passenger was fare evading, the inspector could go back to them.

The process of buying tickets could remain the same as at present apart from the advanatge that you might be able to buy your ticket online and merely input the serial identification number of your card rather than having to pick up tickets at the station or have them posted.

 

[PhilipW]

Exactly, one of the things that ITSO smartcards will allow is the introduction of new pricing regimes, or ticketing products.

All sounds very good in theory, but how is it going to work in practice.

How will it work with my example that I quoted at the beginning of the thread. I make a Return journey from Southampton to Waterloo. How will it calculate the price on each leg and how will I know what I have been charged. Unless the ITSO promoters can explain all this in simple terms to the public, the system will never take off.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

With modern telecommunication systems a ticket inspector could carry an ITSO reader that would communicate with a central database to check if the card has a valid trip on the particular train and log that the ticket had been used on the train. If the card contained multiple valid tickets, the ticket inspector could ask the passenger which ticket they are using. If there is no signal to the central database at the point in time, the reader could log the ticket and then check it as communication returns. If the passenger was fare evading, the inspector could go back to them.

I'm rather intrigued by this post and can't quite grasp what it is telling us about ITSO or the UK's new smart-card system for rail tickets.

You use the word 'could' in all 4 of your sentences and don't know what you mean by 'could' in any of those 4 situations.
Is this an informed desription of your understanding of how ITSO will be implemented? In which case 'could' is an option available to staff and/or passengers.
Is it a personal speculation in a concept of your own devising? In which case 'could' is an element of your concept which may or may not be implemented in a physical system if you were contracted to supply it.
Or is it something you have derived from fragments of other systems?

I must say that I'm strugging to correlate your description with the system as I understand it. I'm not even persuaded that the contracted system is/will be ITSO compatible, it wasn't specified in the pre-tender documents. Do you know otherwise?

 

[transmanche]

All sounds very good in theory, but how is it going to work in practice.

Ask the Dutch, They make it work.

How will it work with my example that I quoted at the beginning of the thread. I make a Return journey from Southampton to Waterloo. How will it calculate the price on each leg and how will I know what I have been charged. Unless the ITSO promoters can explain all this in simple terms to the public, the system will never take off.

You seem to be thinking of an Oyster PAYG-type system. And you're also assuming that in the future there will be such a thing as a specific return fare, or that the products you mentioned will still exist. Well the truth is that nobody knows yet, but I'm sure that there will be consultations on various ideas.

As for notifying you what you've been charged. Well if there was a PAYG-type system, it's likely that the amount would be shown on the ticket gate - and you'd be able to check it at TVMs and online.

What you can probably bet on is that it'll be a phased introduction when first introduced it will be for season tickets only (direct replacement for paper tickets) and then probably for loading single journey point-to-point tickets (either purchased at the station, TVM or online - again a direct replacement for paper tickets).

And after then, that's the time you might see new/innovative fare structures.

So lots of questions to be answered, but it will develop in stages. (Just look how Oyster has developed over the past few years.) So it's far too early to say "it'll never work".

 

[John55]

All sounds very good in theory, but how is it going to work in practice.

How will it work with my example that I quoted at the beginning of the thread. I make a Return journey from Southampton to Waterloo. How will it calculate the price on each leg and how will I know what I have been charged. Unless the ITSO promoters can explain all this in simple terms to the public, the system will never take off.

I think you are making assumptions which may not be borne out in reality. Your assumption is that operators will use PAYG to collect revenue for long distance journeys. I don't know if that will be the case. I believe it may be possible for example to make a journey from say Blackheath to West Kirby using PAYG for the local journeys at both ends and a ticket loaded onto the card for the Euston to Lime St journey or equally another combination of tickets loaded onto the card.

I have no more knowledge than given by reading the available information but there is a consultation launched today into what the future of rail ticketing is to be on the national network. When the dust has settled from that we may find the concept of Advance, Anytime and Off-peak tickets has changed. In fact to take full advantage of the opportunities available with smartcards it is quite probable that the existing ticketing structure will go. But don't ask me what will replace it.

As lewisday in post 35 points out the ITSO spec allows rather more kinds of product to be loaded onto the card and in the future operators will be able to take advantage of that to offer lots of things to customers. The key is flexibility which is why the oyster concept was not taken forward outside London because the nature of Oyster is more limited.. Oyster is now relatively old having grown out of the Hong Kong Octopus card.

Of course if you read the current Modern Railways it is quite likely you will do it all on a bank card anyway!

I think it is really wait and see for at least a couple of years. The ITSO card for Merseyside (Walrus) is due to be implemented for season tickets and PAYG by sometime in 2013 (and there are probably others i don't know about). When that level of functionality is proved I expect things will move forward. The big three long distance franchises are coming up for renewal/replacement so progress on this sort of thing will not be very fast. Once West Coast, East Coast and GWML have new franchisees I expect progress will be much faster.

 

[34D]

With modern telecommunication systems a ticket inspector could carry an ITSO reader that would communicate with a central database to check if the card has a valid trip on the particular train and log that the ticket had been used on the train.

My understanding is that the product is contained on the card itself, so the first part of your proposal is unnecessary.

Re the second part, the way around this could be as you describe, or (like the current oyster arrangement for London Buses) where the on-bus machines are synchronised nightly when back at the depot (I think this is how they work-never fully understood).

Apart from buses (mainly ENCTS passes) is ITSO actually in use for rail passengers anywhere?

 

[JamesRowden]

I'm rather intrigued by this post and can't quite grasp what it is telling us about ITSO or the UK's new smart-card system for rail tickets.

You use the word 'could' in all 4 of your sentences and don't know what you mean by 'could' in any of those 4 situations.
Is this an informed desription of your understanding of how ITSO will be implemented? In which case 'could' is an option available to staff and/or passengers.
Is it a personal speculation in a concept of your own devising? In which case 'could' is an element of your concept which may or may not be implemented in a physical system if you were contracted to supply it.
Or is it something you have derived from fragments of other systems?

I must say that I'm strugging to correlate your description with the system as I understand it. I'm not even persuaded that the contracted system is/will be ITSO compatible, it wasn't specified in the pre-tender documents. Do you know otherwise?

It is my idea of how the ITSO card could be used to replace rail tickets. All of the technology in my decription already exists in the form of bus passes and basic mobile phones. The inclusion of the word 'could' is simply because it is up to the government as to how they implement their plans.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

My understanding is that the product is contained on the card itself, so the first part of your proposal is unnecessary.

Re the second part, the way around this could be as you describe, or (like the current oyster arrangement for London Buses) where the on-bus machines are synchronised nightly when back at the depot (I think this is how they work-never fully understood).

Apart from buses (mainly ENCTS passes) is ITSO actually in use for rail passengers anywhere?

ITSO cards have been on trial on the Southern route between Brighton and Seaford.

 

[WatcherZero]

Either do your purchasing of tickets online, no need to pickup from a machine/ticket office or have them mailed as the moment you make the transaction its on the card in your wallet.

The other thing is using a ticket machine at your local station, you enter destination and it tells you price. Instead of putting in money or a credit card and pin you just touch your ITSO card to the reader and bang your tickets been loaded and the money debited from the bank account associated with your card (or in some cases monthly billing to 'settle' your account balance). Like Oyster making multiple journeys blind it will be able to work out a weekly/season ticket or whatever would be cheaper and credit you back the saving, you will always be billed the cheapest valid ticket price.

 

[Clip]

Either do your purchasing of tickets online, no need to pickup from a machine/ticket office or have them mailed as the moment you make the transaction its on the card in your wallet.
.

Or you could even do it so you purchase at home and then have a TOD system so you just touch your card on a reader before the gateline which then places the ticket you have purchased onto the card and off you go.

 

[Rhydgaled]

So it wouldn't be possible to install a reader on the train?

Should be possible, I'm fairly sure the All Wales Concessionary Travel Pass (OAP/Disabled bus pass) is an ITSO system, and readers are therefore on nearly all the buses in Wales. The pass is valid on some rail services if you live in the right county too, so I assume ATW have ITSO readers on those lines already.

What do the Concessionary Travel Passes do when they are scanned, do they track the holder's bus usage? If not, what was the point of replacing an un-inteligent card with a smart-card?

 

[Lrd]

Apart from buses (mainly ENCTS passes) is ITSO actually in use for rail passengers anywhere?

1. SWT 'Stagecoach Smart' (Been around for a while now)
3. EMT 'Stagecoach Smart'
5. LM 'The Key'
7. SN 'The Key'

What do the Concessionary Travel Passes do when they are scanned, do they track the holder's bus usage? If not, what was the point of replacing an un-inteligent card with a smart-card?

Supposedly easier for the bus companies to claim back money from the councils, and I suppose stops drivers "adding on" extra journeys.

 

[WatcherZero]

Should be possible, I'm fairly sure the All Wales Concessionary Travel Pass (OAP/Disabled bus pass) is an ITSO system, and readers are therefore on nearly all the buses in Wales. The pass is valid on some rail services if you live in the right county too, so I assume ATW have ITSO readers on those lines already.

What do the Concessionary Travel Passes do when they are scanned, do they track the holder's bus usage? If not, what was the point of replacing an un-inteligent card with a smart-card?

They track entitlement, ensuring the card holder has a valid right and its not a forgery or their not from a another region.

Also going back a bit to avoid misinterpretation for anyone who didnt know, its Oyster that is being made compatible with ITSO through replacing all Oyster readers with dual use readers and eventually cards being issued with ITSO chips rather than Oyster chips rather than ITSO being made compatible with Oyster. ITSO is the national standard, Oyster is the anomaly (and technologically inferior in all regards except card reading speed being a few fractions of a second faster since its less information transmitted).

 

[Jonny]

1. SWT 'Stagecoach Smart' (Been around for a while now)
3. EMT 'Stagecoach Smart'
5. LM 'The Key'
7. SN 'The Key'

The Key - as also seen advertised on Go Ahead group buses. One 'benefit' is that passengers can then be spied upon more than before. As to whether that's a good thing, cue debate re: whether that's a good thing or not.

 

[PhilipW]

I live in Hampshire. I don't have a season ticket and I don't make the same train journey on a regular basis. I probably make about 3 to 4 return train journies a month, either locally, to London or occasionally further afield. This may not seem like a lot of travel but is probably quite a lot as compared to the population as a whole.

I am struggling to see what benefit ITSO and Smartcards could possibly be to me. Perhaps I am not the target audience and they are not intended for me.
If that is so, the DfT and ITSO supporters are going to struggle to sell the idea of Smartcards to the country as a whole.

 

[Greenback]

I live in Hampshire. I don't have a season ticket and I don't make the same train journey on a regular basis. I probably make about 3 to 4 return train journies a month, either locally, to London or occasionally further afield. This may not seem like a lot of travel but is probably quite a lot as compared to the population as a whole.

I am struggling to see what benefit ITSO and Smartcards could possibly be to me. Perhaps I am not the target audience and they are not intended for me.
If that is so, the DfT and ITSO supporters are going to struggle to sell the idea of Smartcards to the country as a whole.

I have my concerns about smartcards, some of which have already been mentioned by others in this thread, but until we know exactly what form they will take it's difficult to put forward a coherent argument that highlights the negatives.

I would prefer to see a card that acts more like a debit or credit card than the Oyster model. As you rightly say, the vast majority of the population outside of London and other large cities use rail relatively infrequently, and the idea that you would have to pay and then store a large amount of money on a card in readiness to make a long journey is not one that I personally find very appealing.

I would also like to see a facility included whereby the user is informed of the price of the journey they are making, or have just made, at the time, rather than having to check online to see what they have been charged.

Could someone enlighten me on how the OV Chipkaart works in the Netherlands? Is it pre pay, and is the holder aware of the fare for their journey at the point of payment?

 

[John55]

I have my concerns about smartcards, some of which have already been mentioned by others in this thread, but until we know exactly what form they will take it's difficult to put forward a coherent argument that highlights the negatives.

I would prefer to see a card that acts more like a debit or credit card than the Oyster model. As you rightly say, the vast majority of the population outside of London and other large cities use rail relatively infrequently, and the idea that you would have to pay and then store a large amount of money on a card in readiness to make a long journey is not one that I personally find very appealing.

I would also like to see a facility included whereby the user is informed of the price of the journey they are making, or have just made, at the time, rather than having to check online to see what they have been charged.

Could someone enlighten me on how the OV Chipkaart works in the Netherlands? Is it pre pay, and is the holder aware of the fare for their journey at the point of payment?

http://www.htm.net/Documenten/travellingwiththeovchipkaart.pdf

 

[Greenback]

Thanks for the link. It demonstrates the sort of changes in ticketing (and thinking) that would be required if a similar scheme were to be successful here.

 

[OwlMan]

Another problem is that SmartCard technology will improve over the next few years.
When the powers to be get round to sorting out a national scheme ITSO will probably be outdated (like Oyster is now) and a new type of card available.
The DfT/ATOC will only able to change the fare structure (which will be needed if full use is to be made of a smartcard system) after all the current franchises have expired, any franchise that is now agreed hopefully allows for the terms to be amended if the fare & ticketing system is changed.

Peter

 

[ian959]

All sounds very good in theory, but how is it going to work in practice.

How will it work with my example that I quoted at the beginning of the thread. I make a Return journey from Southampton to Waterloo. How will it calculate the price on each leg and how will I know what I have been charged. Unless the ITSO promoters can explain all this in simple terms to the public, the system will never take off.

The simplest way of showing how it would work is using the system we have locally.

You swipe the card going into the station, you swipe the card at the end of your journey, then the system says okay 1 journey worth $2.00. The next time your travel the system says that okay this is a second journey within the allowable time so this journey will be only $0.00 as the maximum fare for the time period is $2.00.

If you keep on travelling, the system knows that the cheapest fare is an all day rover so the maximum fare charged is $7.00. The Smartcard system basically calculates how ever the system is set up but for our local system it works out the cheapest total fares for any 24 hour period and that is what you are charged. Each time you complete a journey it tells you the fare you are being charged, so you always know where you are at with the costs. If you are doing a ADR then any journeys over $7.00 simply show $0.00 as the fare.

Ours is a PAYG system but could just as easily be a debit charge system.

ITSO should see a serious change in the way fares are charged, so there is no point trying to equate the current myriad of peak/off-peak/whatever fares with what might exist in five years time. I would suspect by then it will be a simple point to point fare system based on a single mileage rate like the Dutch system with possibly a distinction between peak time fares and off peak time fares, but more than likely the concept of peak and off peak will disappear too.

 

[Zoe]

more than likely the concept of peak and off peak will disappear too.

I doubt it as there would likely be serious overcrowding issues. Also on long distance routes advance fares are widely used.

 

[John55]

I doubt it as there would likely be serious overcrowding issues. Also on long distance routes advance fares are widely used.

Can I suggest you read yesterdays consultation papers on railway fares and ticketing.

In 3/5 years time it may be every train service has a different price. Or like many urban areas in the UK there is one fare and a day rover as on most urban buses. Or something completely different. Getting away from paper ticketing allows many new ideas to be tried.

It was interesting to see in the material issued with the consultations yesterday that more journeys on the national network are already made with Oyster than with tickets bought from ticket offices and indeed how few tickets now are sold over the counter.

 

[Zoe]

The point is that one set price based on distance regardless of the train you travel on as suggested above by is unlikely to be the option selected.

 

[jon0844]

Smart ticketing has so many possible options, with price capping, discounts for regular travel, loyalty rewards, promotions and so on.

A smartcard could either hold a ticket paid for by other means and stored on the card, or deduct from a credit held on the card. It should be able to cope with both.

Season tickets can be loaded, or a card can automatically discount fares if you're a jobseeker, student etc. Cards could have photos on the card itself and be checked by RPIs as normal. Cards would be registered and could easily be killed if lost or stolen, or abused by users.

Ticketing would have to change radically, but don't we all want that anyway? The current setup is a total mess for all but the simplest routes where there may only be one TOC. For a lot of people, it's a nightmare.

Smartcards could also be managed by touching the card against your NFC enabled phone (or laptop/computer in the future) so you can keep check of what's on the card, instead of having to go to a TVM or ask a member of staff.

There are so many possibilities and it also makes things easy, and painless, for irregular passengers.

Sure, there will be winners and losers with any changes to ticketing - but I think that regular users can still benefit as they'll get discounts over time. A plain annual season ticket no longer suits me as most of my trips into town are now off-peak, and not every day. It means I am now paying the full price every time (well, with a slight discount using the carnet scheme, but that's a PITA!).

Edit: As for pricing set by distance, that's still possible - but with a premium levied for certain services (such as Intercity services). Trains could have readers (as well as held by staff) and penalty fares or other surcharges could exist if you boarded such a premium service. In Amsterdam, you have a premium for the faster trains and I'm sure that works with their smartcards.

To get people to voluntarily scan their card on a train to validate their ticket, for example, you might give some form of loyalty points from that operator. All of these ideas are limited only by imagination as any system could do any of that - but whether it will is another matter, but will come down to the people who decide on what to implement.