National Smartcard

[Flying Snail]

Why is the concept of a network wide universal smartcard nowhere on the radar?

There are more regional products appearing but no sign of a single card available to use in any location.

Obviously it wouldn't be practical for PAYG travel as the minimum balance would have to be set at £100s but longer distance travel is increasingly based on advance purchase products not walk-up anyway.

It would be a product for loading tickets to it from online and ticket office sales and possibly e-purse purchases. An alternative/replacement to the current raft of mobile/print-at-home/barcode methods as well as a universally available alternative to paper tickets.

A real game changer would be to include other modes, use a single card to provide a consistent platform for single and multi-modal regional tickets. Currently it is a massive PITA for someone to get to grips with the ticketing arrangements in unfamiliar cities or regions, there is no consistency over the formats or validity profiles of ticketing from one region to the next and I believe it is a massive barrier to use for a lot of potential users. If a Rail/Bus/Tram product can be purchased and used in exactly the same way in any location with the zonal, operator and routing information provided in a single format it will be far easier for people to find and use services that currently are hidden behind a wall of badly presented information, incompatible local practices and often visitor-unfriendly ticketing arrangements.

Obviously there would be a massive amount of work needed to achieve that, both infrastructure and informational and it isn't something that could be done overnight but that all we seem to be getting is piecemeal local schemes of varying flavours as well as individual bus companies doing their own thing entirely is pretty pathetic. Isn't proper integration what the information revolution supposedly promised for public transport?

 

[TheAlbanach_]

Would be great to have something similar to the OV-Chipkaart they have in The Netherlands. London at least has it right with oyster/contactless but elsewhere as you said it's only regional cards that aren't integrated. Would be so much easier for the public and tourists to have such a thing.

 

[100andthirty]

The concept of the national smart card was the thinking behind the ITSO standard. The closest, so far, is Transport Scotland's approach to a national (Scotland) card valid on all Scottish transport modes.

The challenge that the OP raises is not so much the smart card as the ticketing products that are loaded onto it. Some places have implemented a smart card but you still have to load ticket products onto it in advance. There is currently little progress, outside London, on providing the simplicity of Pay As You Go. Indeed, I have no idea how such a system might be implemented when there can be several different fares valid on the same train e.g. Anytime, off peak, super off peak and advance, adding first class into the mix and fares valid only if more than one person travels.

Few remember that London used to have point to point fares on the tube and graduated fares on buses. It was the creation of the zone structure in the early 80s that paved the way for automatic fare collection, followed by Oyster and contractless. Even that system has its fair share of complexity, more so since it has been available on National Rail in and around greater London. It succeeds because it's easy to use and customers trust that they will pay a reasonable sum. I can't see how it would be acceptable if someone added to touch in at, say Manchester expecting to travel to London for, say £50, and later find they've been charged, say, £150. That's what I mean when I say that the fares structure need sorting out.

The comm0n factor between London and Scotland is that both their governments and transport agencies recognise and promote public transport as a means of mobility of create economic activity. I am sure that the same is true of the Westminster government at the highest level, but it gets lost in the sheer bureaucracy of it all.

 

[Clip]

Smartcard tech is old hat now. In my eyes there's no point wasting any more money on it.

With the advent of eticketing and NFC then that's the way it should go which is so much cheaper. Though I am well aware there are some on here who will simply not want that foermat so little orange cards will be about for a while yet

 

[Fawkes Cat]

I have no idea how such a system might be implemented when there can be several different fares valid on the same train e.g. Anytime, off peak, super off peak and advance, adding first class into the mix and fares valid only if more than one person travels.

Few remember that London used to have point to point fares on the tube and graduated fares on buses. It was the creation of the zone structure in the early 80s that paved the way for automatic fare collection, followed by Oyster and contractless. Even that system has its fair share of complexity, more so since it has been available on National Rail in and around greater London. It succeeds because it's easy to use and customers trust that they will pay a reasonable sum. I can't see how it would be acceptable if someone added to touch in at, say Manchester expecting to travel to London for, say £50, and later find they've been charged, say, £150

Would a part solution be to have (for any given journey) one walk-up fare (so you know if you just hop on a London - Manchester train with your card that you will pay £150) and all other (cheaper) fares would have to be bought in advance - even if ''Advance" is in the queue for the ticket barrier.

 

[Wallsendmag]

It's coming.

 

[paddington]

The OP specifically said that PAYG is not practical so not sure why all replies so far are discussing PAYG.

I don't see the point of having a smartcard in the way that is described. If you still need to buy tickets, why not just get them as tickets instead of having an additional step of loading them onto a smartcard? If there is no ticket machine the same problem occurs. Will guards be able to sell smartcard tickets on board, and how is this different to just printing out a paper ticket (apart from saving trees)?

Having a smartcard rather than a flimsy paper ticket is a good idea for season tickets, since they need to be accompanied by a photo anyway.

The OV-Chipkaart works because NL is small and the entire country (I believe) has the same distance- and time-based fare structure. Something similar in Great Britain would mean no more fun with loopholes, difficulties with split ticketing (especially in combination with season/rover products), difficulties with break of journey, and no way to confirm that any restrictions have been programmed completely as intended.

The solution has already been posted many times on this forum - tickets are just entries in a database and a record locator can be printed on paper at home or at a station, or displayed on a device. Entries can be created on a train and uploaded over the train's wifi, or at the next wifi-available station.

 

[Hadders]

Would a part solution be to have (for any given journey) one walk-up fare (so you know if you just hop on a London - Manchester train with your card that you will pay £150) and all other (cheaper) fares would have to be bought in advance - even if ''Advance" is in the queue for the ticket barrier.

What would the fare be for London-Manchester? If we're talking singles the current Anytime Single is £169. The Off Peak Single is £85.90 (arguable £43.45 if using the SVH fare).

There's either going to be a massive increase in price for off peak travel which would not be acceptable for passengers or the train companies are going to lose revenue which would need to be made up from elsewhere (either Government subsidy (not likely) or increased fares generally).

That's before you get on to train loadings...

 

[yorksrob]

Unless it has the functionality of a universal national railcard, I don't see the point.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's coming.

If it is, it'll be outdated before it even gets here.

True e-ticketing is the future.

 

[WatcherZero]

They use the same systems.

The NFC on your phone still requires the smartcard reader on the ticketgate and the smartcards computer backend processing tickets, payments and accounts to function. They aren't separate technologies they are simply different packaging.

 

[alistairlees]

As a few people have pointed out, the issue is with the fares structure, not the medium (just because it's called a "smartcard" doesn't mean it actually is "smart").

It could be mandated to have the same zonal fares structure (like in London) in every major city region (or PTE, perhaps). Then you could have travelcard-like tickets, including buses and trams as well as trains, for journeys made to those places, allowing people to travel about without worrying about more tickets. You could do all that on paper (if you really wanted to).

If you want to go one step further, then you can use contactless (NFC) to have a PAYG model. This works best in urban areas where you can cap the daily amount and can make simple statements like "not valid in 1st class" or "not valid on x trains". PAYG can be done with a branded regional specific card, or just with your bank card.

Provided everything has the same back office (or decent communication between different back offices), then you can link these things up and sell through products too.

One day tickets really will be in the cloud, but that day is not here yet. The next step is a mixture of barcode tickets on long distance journeys (though they could be fulfilled to a smartcard too) and PAYG on smartcard or EMV locally.

Getting the whole thing to work well is as much a function of fares structure reform as it is of the medium though.

 

[alistairlees]

They use the same systems.

The NFC on your phone still requires the smartcard reader on the ticketgate and the smartcards computer backend processing tickets, payments and accounts to function. They aren't separate technologies they are simply different packaging.

NFC on a phone is of course the same as NFC on a card. A barcode on a phone (or piece of paper) are of course entirely separate (in terms of infrastructure) from NFC.

 

[infobleep]

Do any of the rail companies, outside of London, offer NFC technology from people's mobiles? For example can one get a mobile app version of the Key?

 

[alistairlees]

Do any of the rail companies, outside of London, offer NFC technology from people's mobiles? For example can one get a mobile app version of the Key?

No, though this sort of thing is likely soon(ish)

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Getting the whole thing to work well is as much a function of fares structure reform as it is of the medium though.

I suspect that this is the key point that is not properly understood by all those, mostly London-based, politicians clamouring for wider smartcard use. Given how quickly Oyster became popular with users in London it should be obvious that a national scheme would already have been rolled out if it was an easy thing to achieve. But it most definitely isn't!

 

[Wallsendmag]

If it is, it'll be outdated before it even gets here.

True e-ticketing is the future.

we know that already

 

[mallard]

The objective of the introduction of smartcards/"e"-tickets/"m"-tickets/print-at-home/etc. has nothing to do with customer convinience. It's simply a method of introducing "TOC-only" fares which are no cheaper than the ordinary "any TOC" tickets and can be introduced by the "dominant" TOC (who aren't allowed to introduce ordinary "TOC-only" tickets). By not sharing revenue with other TOCs on the route via ORCATS (as laughable as that relic of the 1980s is in this century), they're more profitable.

It's the basic "pay the same, get less" principle; same fare, less frequent/comfortable services. More profit for the dominant TOC.

 

[swaldman]

SWR had introduced a smartcard system the last time I was down that way. You have a card, but before travelling you have to "load" a ticket onto it at a machine or a ticket office.

From the customer's PoV, I can't see any point in it whatsoever (except season ticket holders, simply because the card is more robust than a bit of paper going through a machine every day for a year)

To address the comparison with the Dutch Chipkaart: As others have pointed out their fares are much simpler[1], but also cheaper[2]. The minimum balance on the card to be allowed to board a train is €25, which I guess must be enough to cover all, or at least most, possible journeys. I've certainly never paid more than that to travel most of the way across the country.

[1] maybe something we should aspire to, but that's a different conversation.
[2] ditto. And presumably partly - but not entirely - due to the country being small.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

The objective of the introduction of smartcards/"e"-tickets/"m"-tickets/print-at-home/etc. has nothing to do with customer convinience. It's simply a method of introducing "TOC-only" fares which are no cheaper than the ordinary "any TOC" tickets and can be introduced by the "dominant" TOC (who aren't allowed to introduce ordinary "TOC-only" tickets). By not sharing revenue with other TOCs on the route via ORCATS (as laughable as that relic of the 1980s is in this century), they're more profitable.

It's the basic "pay the same, get less" principle; same fare, less frequent/comfortable services. More profit for the dominant TOC.

Any examples of this...?

 

[mallard]

Any examples of this...?

Pretty much all smartcards (with the obvious exception of Oyster) are TOC-specific. The fares charged are the same as for non-TOC-specific paper tickets.

Scotrail smartcards are only valid on Scotrail services, with the exception of season tickets on smartcards.
SWR smartcards are not valid on other TOCs outside of the London Zones, with the exception of CrossCountry services between Bournemouth and Basingstoke.
GTR's "Key" is only valid on GTR services outside London.
(etc. etc.)

Additionally, only the TOC that runs the stations has the power to install the card readers, program the barriers, etc. obviously for their cards only.

Take a look at the list of various smartcards on Wikipedia (probably not up-to-date). What an absolute mess.

 

[alistairlees]

Pretty much all smartcards (with the obvious exception of Oyster) are TOC-specific. The fares charged are the same as for non-TOC-specific paper tickets.

Scotrail smartcards are only valid on Scotrail services, with the exception of season tickets on smartcards.
SWR smartcards are not valid on other TOCs outside of the London Zones, with the exception of CrossCountry services between Bournemouth and Basingstoke.
GTR's "Key" is only valid on GTR services outside London.
(etc. etc.)

Additionally, only the TOC that runs the stations has the power to install the card readers, program the barriers, etc. obviously for their cards only.

Take a look at the list of various smartcards on Wikipedia (probably not up-to-date). What an absolute mess.

My Southeastern smartcard (for a season) is quite happily valid on Southern services too. What have been difficulties in implementation, and are not the long term intention, you incorrectly read as attempts to diminish rights. That's not the intention at all.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

The objective of the introduction of smartcards/"e"-tickets/"m"-tickets/print-at-home/etc. has nothing to do with customer convinience. It's simply a method of introducing "TOC-only" fares which are no cheaper than the ordinary "any TOC" tickets and can be introduced by the "dominant" TOC (who aren't allowed to introduce ordinary "TOC-only" tickets). By not sharing revenue with other TOCs on the route via ORCATS (as laughable as that relic of the 1980s is in this century), they're more profitable.

It's the basic "pay the same, get less" principle; same fare, less frequent/comfortable services. More profit for the dominant TOC.

Pretty much all smartcards (with the obvious exception of Oyster) are TOC-specific. The fares charged are the same as for non-TOC-specific paper tickets.

Scotrail smartcards are only valid on Scotrail services, with the exception of season tickets on smartcards.
SWR smartcards are not valid on other TOCs outside of the London Zones, with the exception of CrossCountry services between Bournemouth and Basingstoke.
GTR's "Key" is only valid on GTR services outside London.
(etc. etc.)

Additionally, only the TOC that runs the stations has the power to install the card readers, program the barriers, etc. obviously for their cards only.

Take a look at the list of various smartcards on Wikipedia (probably not up-to-date). What an absolute mess.

But your interpretation is not entirely logical. So long as TOC-only smartcards are accurately described as having limitations when sold to a customer then customers still have a choice. Certainly it means that the convenience of using a smartcard is restricted to those customers whose journeys are with just a single TOC. But that is still a significant number. And it can make life a lot easier for season ticket holders.

The real problem is the way the DfT is only mandating the introduction of smartcard availability on a TOC by TOC basis as and when franchises are relet. What should have happened is the declaration of a single date for all TOCs to be smartcard ready without any reference to franchise changeovers. Given that ITSO was available as a single standard for use across the network (and other places away from the railway) this could have been done had there been the political will to do so. However it would have meant declaring such a "smartcard day" some years in advance and the politcians wanted a quick win by foisting them on franchises as they came up for renewal rather than waiting longer for a better outcome. It is no wonder the current situation is a mess. Politicians really are not the best people to make such technical decisions.

 

[yorkie]

Pretty much all smartcards (with the obvious exception of Oyster) are TOC-specific. The fares charged are the same as for non-TOC-specific paper tickets.

While it is true that some staff attempt to claim this, and it is also true that passengers have been mistreated on numerous occasions (some reported here), the above statement is not actually true, as this would be unlawful.

Smart cards themselves are mediums. What matters is the product (fare) you have loaded onto that medium.

The validity of fares is completely removed from the ability (or otherwise) of staff to read the medium on which they are held.

All train companies on which the fare is valid on, are compelled to accept that fare.

The following principle applies:

"What counts is the message, not the medium."

It is no wonder the current situation is a mess

It very much is a mess, and a very expensive one at that.

 

[mallard]

While it is true that some staff attempt to claim this, and it is also true that passengers have been mistreated on numerous occasions (some reported here), the above statement is not actually true, as this would be unlawful.

"Unlawful" means nothing to the rail industry (unless it's the passenger behaving unlawfully). The "rules" applied by the railway on a daily basis are entirely detached from the law, the published terms and conditions, etc. and are generally kept secret and/or made up on the spot under the guise of "company policy", "that only applies to these kinds of tickets", etc. etc.

The issuers of smartcards (and some other non-traditional ticket mediums) have clearly stated that tickets issued on them have additional TOC-based restrictions. If that's unlawful then some public body should seek to prosecute (it's not as though there's any lack of evidence), becuase nothing short of that will change the situation. It's a shame that there is no public body with any remit to protect passengers' rights on the railway. ("Passenger Focus" was "refocussed" away from passengers, vague promises of an ombudsman have yet to materialise and an obudsman funded by the railway industry itself is unlikely to be sufficiently impartial).

Even if it is the case that these additional restrictions are "unlawful" or unenforcable, they will be (and as you note; are) used to extract "penalties" and generally intimidate the travelling public. Those that are confident of the legal situation and stand their ground may well find themselves "winning" (after suffering through months of stress and hours of unpaid effort in self-defence), but that's always going to be a minority. TOCs won't admit to any wrongdoing and any refunds/compensation issued is always a "goodwill gesture".