Revolution in Ticketing

(1) A ‘ticketing revolution’ with electronic smartcards replacing traditional paper tickets for bus and train journeys is now well under way all over the world. Automatic fare collection (AFC) is a response to the need for fast control and fast money transfer to improve the flow of passengers through a public transport network.

Seamless payment is the need of the hour. Ultimately, people can travel to school or work, visit a leisure centre, borrow a book from the library and then take a train home, without ever needing to carry cash. A single smart card will enable the payment of fares for multiple modes of transport: the Metro, the monorail, buses, trams and the suburban railway.

(2) Sized like a credit card, such smarts cards are embedded with a microchip with details of the holder and an electronic purse with details of money. When the commuter enters a train or a bus, he can hold the card close to the reader in a contactless system.

Smart cards hold much more information than a magnetic stripe, and can be also used outside the mass transit systems for which they were designed, for instance, as ‘electronic purses’. In Hong Kong, for example, car parking can be paid for by a debit from a smart card – and the same card will also serve as a ticket on the Mass Transit Railway.

(3) While smart cards are a fairly new concept in the United States, they have been widely used in Europe for a decade or more and now are spreading rapidly in Asia.

In Netherlands the multimodal contactless e-ticketing system is being introduced on a national scale. The system uses a rechargeable smartcard enabling passengers to move easily between all forms of public transport: trains, buses, trams, metros and ferries. Passengers no longer need to queue to buy a ticket or pass through a gate.

(4) Seamless travel on one ticket throughout the country by 2020 is the goal set by the government of Great Britain. The Oyster card is a form of electronic ticketing used on public transport within the Greater London area of the United Kingdom. The card was first issued to the public in 2003 with a limited range of functions. The extension of Oyster from just 60 rail stations to over 300 marks a massive step towards a fully integrated ticketing system in London, enabling passengers to move easily between rail, Tube, Docklands Light Railway, tram and bus.

(5) Another way of using an Oyster is to ‘pay as you go’. This means you put a cash amount on your card (you can do this at most Tube stations) and use it until it runs out. Every time you touch the card to one of the electronic readers it will tell you how much you have left on your card so you know when you have to top-up. This way of travelling is especially handy when you first arrive in London and are unsure where your day will take you. As long as you have money on your Oyster you can hop on the Tube or bus as you please for a lower price than if you were to pay cash. Oyster cards also have daily price capping which means you are charged the appropriate Oyster fare for each single journey you make. Then, if you make several journeys on the same day, once the total cost of these journeys reaches a cap, any further journeys you make that day will be free, unless you travel beyond the zone(s) covered by your original cap.

The online agent Trainline reckons that over 50 per cent of all its rail ticketing will be based upon Smartcard technology by the time of the London Olympics in 2012. Use is encouraged by offering substantially cheaper fares on Oyster than payment with cash. Passengers will be able to reload their Trainline Smartcards through their PCs or laptops or via a “Smart target” at the station. The ticket is then validated in the normal way by Smart-enabled ticket gates or by onboard staff.

(6) The benefits of smart ticketing are there for all to see – quicker, easier and potentially better value journeys on trains, buses and trams. An interoperable electronic ticketing system offers the public greater freedom and seamless journeys, as well as collaboration with other service providers and banks.