Multi-use smartcard for London

London will be the first European city to have a single smartcard for accessing multiple services from a range of organisations.

Talks between local authority group London Connects and the mayor's Transport for London (TfL) initiative could see basic government services added to the ticketing smartcard, which is due to be trialled later this year ahead of wider use next year (Computing, 9 May).

The first additions would be low-security services such as libraries and leisure facilities or a top-up card for parking payments, says London Connects strategic consultant Mick Davies.

'TfL should have a card for the general public at the end of 2003 and we are trying to get two or three small applications onto that.

'If you have a card dealing with both transport and local services then it will be something people will want to keep because it's a library card, a leisure card, a parking payments purse, as well as just a transport card,' he said.

London Connects is working with public sector organisations across the capital so any applications can be added to any card, regardless of who issued the card or what type of hardware it is.

Future developments are likely to include schools-based applications such as points-based incentive schemes to reduce truancy as well as more complex, high-security uses like benefits payments.

'Once you already have the card then any other organisation will be able to add services to it and people can use it at the level they are comfortable with,' said Davies.

The scheme will build on existing work in local authorities.

'A number of pilots are already underway - the idea is that we can get one or more councils interested in developing, say, a parking application, and then make it available to all the others.

'Potentially we could also work with private sector ventures, as a way to generate revenue and bring down costs for the public sector,' said Davies.

London Connects is awaiting funding from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to create a formal business case. It will be bidding for around £6m of European funding, to be added to money from central government and local authorities.

[blob] Extensive trials of TfL's smartcard ticketing programme will start towards the end of this year. Many of the current range of paper tickets will be switched over to contact-less smartcards, says TfL.