South West commuters to get smart ticket technology
Rail Commuters in the South West will be able to use modern smart ticketing ticketing technology from next year.
A new government investment of £3.25 million will allow South West Trains to upgrade its ticketing system at all its stations outside of London.
Similar to the Oyster card system on the London Underground commuters will be able to avoid queues by paying ticket fares online and in advance.
The move to smart ticketing comes as part of the Department for Transport’s £45 million investment into flexible ticketing across the south of England.
Rail Minister, Baroness Kramer, said: “A modern railway system helps drive a strong and vibrant economy. Smart ticketing will help the tens of thousands of commuters who use these services every day, getting them to their places of work more quickly and on time.
“Smart technology also will also help pave the way for passengers to get the best deals for travelling, for instance part-time workers receiving discounts on season tickets for travelling 3 days rather than 5.”
Stagecoach was the first in the UK to launch a national rail smartcard pilot at South West Trains in 2008 and now more than 200,000 smartcard transactions are made each day on its rail and bus network.
Stagecoach has also introduced StagecoachSmart travel cards at its bus companies in Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, Manchester and East Kent and East Sussex after becoming the first major UK bus operator to install smartcard-enabled technology on its entire 7,000 fleet of buses outside London.
Tim Shoveller, Managing Director of the South West Trains-Network Rail Alliance, said: “This is great news for our customers and we are pleased to be working with the Department of Transport to expand our existing commitment to smart ticketing.
"We were the first train operator on the UK National Rail network to offer smartcard travel and passengers can already use this convenient technology at more than 100 of our stations. Integrating this with the SEFT (South East Flexible Ticketing) investment programme means that travel on Europe’s busiest commuter network will become easier and more convenient.”
The funding will be spent on upgrading stations to the ITOS ticketing system which is run and maintained by a not-for-profit company.
There are already a number of ITSO smart ticketing schemes in England, and the Scottish and Welsh national smart ticketing schemes also use the ITSO specification.
The use of the common system across England, Wales and Scotland is to make it easier for different areas of rail operators to work together.
