Oyster proposals stay on track

Passengers on some mainline trains will be able to use their London Underground Oyster cards by early next year, following an agreement on infrastructure funding.

But discussions are continuing over the finer details of the scheme, because accepting pay-as-you-go smartcards is complex and expensive to install.

Last month London Mayor Ken Livingstone pledged £20m to fund the necessary readers, equipment and back-office systems at mainline stations.

Initial adopters will be ready early next year with the rest to follow in 2009, says Association of Train Operating Companies’ London director Steve Howes.

‘There is broad acceptance of pay-as-you-go ticketing and some train companies want to proceed quickly, but there are a number of technical issues we need to address,’ he said.

Accepting pre-paid travelcards simply requires validation of tickets, but pay-as-you-go is more complex and needs extra equipment and higher processing power to calculate fares and manage multiple deductions from the card’s balance.

There will need to be changes to the back-office systems of both the train operators and TranSys, the consortium that manages Oyster on behalf of Transport for London (TfL).

Initial transaction data will be sent from ticket barrier card readers to TranSys systems, which will establish which train company should be paid what. The information will then be sent on to the Rail Settlement Plan, which manages transactions for mainline train firms.

‘TranSys systems must be able to determine how the revenue is split up and allocate it to the correct rail company,’ said Howes.

The other challenge to widespread adoption is that Oyster smartcards do not comply with technical specifications set out by ITSO, the industry group campaigning for interoperable smartcard ticketing standards. So Tube ticket g ates will have to be upgraded to accept ITSO standard mainline train tickets.

‘The government wants train operators to adopt the ITSO standard, so gates in London will have to be dual fitted to accept both our smartcards and Oyster,’ said Howes.

The rollout of Oyster on the mainline rail networks will be a success, despite the technical difficulties, says TranSys chief executive John Stout.

‘The challenges do not compare with the technical issues we overcame in rolling out Oyster in the first place,’ he said.

Train companies have been slow to exploit smartcard technology because they have focused on cost rather than the long-term benefits, says Butler Group analyst Sarah Burnett.

‘There are significant benefits because smartcards allow train operators to offer more complex ticketing and deliver intelligence on customers they did not have,’ said Burnett.

Through Oyster, TfL gets sufficient insight into passenger journeys to allow it to determine the most popular routes, where it needs to increase capacity and how best to plan for the future, she says.

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Further reading

London opens up Oyster role

Barclaycard agrees smartcard deal

Mainline rail operator opens up to Oyster