FAQ

What is ITSO?

ITSO's initial role was to create a specification or 'industry standard' to make interoperable smartcards a reality. Supported by the Department for Transport and with members that include bus operators, train companies, suppliers to the industry and local authorities, ITSO aims to revolutionise the use of smartcards in transport .

What does ITSO stand for?

Name ITSO is not an abbreviation and does not stand for anything .

To be precise, ITSO stands for ITSO.You can look at it the same way as at Visa card: Visa doesn't mean "visa"; it is a brand and the name of the card.

At the dawn of the existence the organisation was called Integrated Transport Smartcards Organisation, and that is where ITSO came from.

Some 2 years ago the definition was abandoned, as the scope of activity has overgrown just transport, and the smartcard has been replaced with Customer Media (Eurospeak), as the media may be embedded into key-fobs, phones and still work just like a smart card. And now ITSO is just ITSO.

What does the ITSO specification cover?

The specification for interoperable contactless smartcards that ITSO has developed covers the entire system - smartcard, point-of-sale/service, back office, data formats, data transfer, and security architecture .

How is security ensured?

An ITSO Secure Application Module (ISAM) sits in all ITSO-compliant point-of-sale equipment and ticket franking terminals. The ISAM handles key management as well as certification and validation of card data and transaction data and ensures all data transactions reach the intended recipient without being 'lost' or tampered with.

How does ITSO benefit transport authorities?

Transport authorities using smartcards instead of card passes and permits will find it much easier to manage their various fare schemes.

Also, because the ITSO system provides genuine interoperability, operators will no longer be tied to a particular supplier of card reading equipment. This means they'll have more choice and be able to 'mix and match' system elements from different suppliers. And should they need to change their ticket machines, they can do so without having to replace the entire system.

Also, because the ITSO solution is smartcard-based, transport operators can eliminate the need to handle cash, cut down on fraud and reduce the time taken to pick up passengers.

And armed with accurate and up-to-date information, operators will be able to target their marketing and promotional efforts - as well as their services - much more accurately and effectively. This data will also make it easier to distribute revenues fairly in multi-operator ticketing schemes .

Finally, the ITSO 'industry standard' makes it possible for transport authorities to introduce electronic purses, loyalty and reward schemes, and much more .

How will the public benefit?

Passengers will benefit by having tickets that are re-usable, make travelling much easier and are genuinely interoperable, ie they can be used on buses, trains and other forms of transport. Passengers can also be confident that ITSO-compliant smartcards provide an extremely high level of security that dramatically reduces the likelihood of fraud.

Is ITSO better than a proprietary scheme?

ITSO offers many advantages over a proprietary smartcard ticketing scheme - in particular, flexibility and versatility for the operator and convenience for the passenger .

Is ITSO only for transport?

No. While many local authorities are already using ITSO in their concessionary travel schemes, they are looking to add other applications and create multi-purpose 'citizen cards'. These can then be used in leisure applications, libraries, Secure Application, personal ID and many other areas .

Now ITSO has done the development work, will it cease to exist?

ITSO will continue to help transport authorities and local authorities to implement ITSO-compliant schemes and expects to work for many years to come delivering interoperable smartcard ticketing solutions .

What is the difference between Approval of cards, and Certification of cards?

Approval involves the ITSO Certification & Test Service adding a sample ITSO shell and product (normally IPE TYP2 STR) to the blank customer media submitted by a supplier for testing, and then validating that the Shell has been successfully loaded, using the ITSO Test Tool. Certification takes this a number of steps further: the blank media is tested both for loading and reading / deleting the ITSO Shell and all relevant IPEs, and using all the relevant POSTs in the Interoperability Warehouse. ITSO Licensed Operators are required by their License only to issue ITSO Certified Media. ITSO Approved Media must have successfully completed Certification before being issued by ITSO Licensed Operators.

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ITSO Myths

ITSO is a creation of civil servants

ITSO as an organisation was created by a number of PTEs, Local Authorities and Industry Suppliers. It is a members' organisation which has obtained support from the DfT through a number of development contracts. The ITSO specification was written on behalf of those members and agreed with them - many contributed to the actual work.
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ITSO aims to provide a common smartcard for use by all transport operators

ITSO is a specification for an application that can be loaded onto a range of smartcards (which others supply). The specification describes 8 different types of media or contactless smart card that can be used, from low cost single use cards, through the familiar Mifare 1K & 4K to top of the range Microprocessor cards. It also includes a platform definition for use of Oyster cards. This gives schemes a wide choice of media to suit their particular application and business model - not necessarily a transport card. Scotland is the prime example of this - a citizen card with transport as one of the entitlements .
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"... a closed ITSO system..."

There is no such thing. ITSO is about interoperability, for example, those smart cards in the SW could be used in Cheshire to load local products (tickets) on. Any restrictions come from the product being acceptable or not - as it is today with paper tickets .
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ITSO is about buses and consessionary passes

It is true that up to now (mostly but not exclusively) the first application implemented in a scheme is usually bus based concessionary travel - simply because this is a major win area, particularly after the budget announcement on free national travel on local buses. But the ITSO specification and environment can be used for any 'ticket' including not-defined 'private' applications. The already defined ITSO product entities include one that can have multiple reservation segments, hardly a "bus concessionary" product .
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Currently there are three ITSO schemes

No there are more - Scotland, Cheshire, Merseytravel, Wales (2), Nowcard, Yorcard, Greater Manchester PTE, Southampton City and Nottinghamshire CC. And then there is the collaboration with CNA to enable Calypso card schemes to interoperate, Finland and Hungary looking at adopting ITSO as their national standard, a collaboration with VdV (Germany) on European standards, two ITSO based ITTs in South Africa, etc etc etc. This speaks for itself.
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ITSO supplies only the components and security keys

ITSO supplies the environment for the security - not the scheme components. These are usually obtained, both hardware and software, from the growing range of Suppliers who are now active members of ITSO.
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There is no journey log on the card... What might this mean for revenue allocation?

This statement is plain wrong. There are multiple methods of logging journeys on the media in the ITSO specification which can be made available to the conductor and also transactions are created on each leg of a (multiple leg) journey so revenue allocation in the back office may in ITSO be based on 100% actual information rather than agreed formulae .
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"Conductor can scan a paper ticket in less than a second but he has to put a smartcard into a reader and interrogate it..."

The ITSO specification requires the cards to be contactless - an inspector therefore may merely touch the media against the unit (which can then produce a "valid" or "not valid" response in well under a second) and the software can display all the acceptable tickets for that location without any 'interrogation'. The media or smart cards defined by ITSO, being contactless, do not need to be "put into a reader".
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The South Western franchise announcements came as a surprise to ITSO

Actually not a complete surprise to ITSO but may be to some "informants"! However it would not matter if ITSO did not know as ITSO does not get involved in the planning, operation or commercials of schemes so there is no reason for it to know in advance. ITSO provides an environment which schemes can pick up when they are ready to .
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