UK Government spending £20Million for Smart Ticketing!

Within the next 5 years, passengers on public transport in the UK’s major urban areas will be able to travel without a paper ticket. The Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis has given a statement on this account.

England’s nine largest urban areas will receive £20million to bring smart and integrated ticketing to its people through the Smart and Integrated Ticketing Strategy. The strategy sets out the Government's goal for every area of England to have access to smart ticketing by 2020. It contains nearly 30 Government commitments to help make this happen.

Smart tickets include system where a ticket is stored on a microchip, on a smartcard (like Oyster) or even on a phone or bank card. Through the use of this ticket, travelling by bus, train and tram can be much easier and faster. The Government estimates that the benefits of ‘integrated smart’ ticketing, could be worth over £1 billion per year. The ministry has also announced a special 8% increase in the Bus Service Operator Grant (BSOG) if they have ITSO smartcard infrastructure on their buses.

The transport authority is highly optimistic about the use of this smart ticketing system. They believe that this technology on-board will help reduce congestion and pollution, and in turn improve the local environment.

The 9 cities who are going to get the new mode of ticketing are - Greater Manchester, West Midlands, Tyne and Wear, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, and West Yorkshire, Nottingham, Leicester and Bristol.

Bus operators will also receive a further 2% increase in their BSOG rate if they install in their buses, GPS technology. This technology will allow the operator to track the position of their bus, whenever required.