Scotland moves towards whole-country smart and integrated ticketing

TWO major announcements in April 2011 saw Scotland moving forward with plans for a whole-country smart and integrated ticketing system. This follows the publication in March 2011 by the Scottish Government of its Smart and Integrated Ticketing Strategy.

On 13 April, Transport Scotland awarded a contract to Applied Card Technologies (ACT) to replace the national asset management system (AMS-HOPS) for the ITSO-compliant concessionary travel scheme.

This £3.5 million contract is for an initial five-year period, with the option to extend for a further four years.

Two days later, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) announced that it is to establish a joint venture company with Ecebs developing a cashless, multi-modal, multi-operator transport smart media ticketing and payment system and a revenue allocation system. The company will provide this service for Glasgow’s Subway in 2013, well before the city hosts the Commonwealth Games in July 2014.

The Subway currently carries 13 million passengers a year and a scheme to modernise the Subway will include new smart ticketing gates, ticket machines and the back office system to run it.

It is anticipated that the joint venture company system will also be rolled out across other modes of transport, creating seamless travel on bus, rail, Subway and ferry services.

SPT's ZoneCard could also become a smartcard to replace the traditional paper ticket that has successfully joined up journeys in Strathclyde for over 20 years. The scheme is expected to be ITSO-compliant, building on the existing investment in ITSO infrastructure on Scotland’s entire bus and some rail services.

In March, the Scottish Government announced it would be making a ‘substantial contribution’ towards a £300 million major modernisation of the 115-year-old underground system.

SPT Chairman Jonathan Findlay said: "Smartcards have the most benefit where secure, speedy transactions need to be carried out, so where better to start implementing them than the Glasgow Subway where services are frequent and journeys are short?
"It has been proven in many major cities worldwide that a simple, fully-flexible, cashless ticket encourages people to use public transport and reduces their journey time through stations. This announcement shows just how committed we are to achieving that."

So what has been achieved in Scotland so far on the smart ticketing front?

  • There are 1.5 million journeys a day on public transport in Scotland. More than 80% of these journeys are by bus.
  • Some 1.2 million smartcards have been issued for use in the national bus concessionary travel scheme.
  • Following the £40 million roll-out of ITSO smart enabled ticket machines across all operators, it is estimated some £20 million a year is saved through the accurate recording and implementation of concessionary travel, with a fall of some 15 to 20 million journeys claimed by operators.
  • Dumfries & Galloway and Dundee are looking at running enhanced commercial services on the back of the ITSO-compliant concessionary card scheme.
  • Lothian buses are also looking at commercial schemes which could include using the ITSO data for an enhanced customer management system.
  • First ScotRail’s weekly and monthly season ticket customers can now buy and use ITSO-compliant Smartcards at in-station ticketing machines on the Edinburgh to Glasgow route.

Scotland has been at the forefront of smart ticketing for some years, and is now moving forward at a steadier pace. It is now keeping an eye on three major developments in the near future – the work being led by SPT, the findings of the Competition Commission inquiry into local bus services later this year, and the ongoing development of the ITSO Specification and security system. All of these could have major impacts on future strategy.