Integrated Public Transport

One of my problems with public transport is the method of payment.  It is inconvenient to carry around large amounts of change and assorted bank notes just to cover the various fares we have to pay.

In many parts of the country there are smartcard systems, all seemingly discrete and incompatible.

What we need is a national travel card.  My thinking is that the Oyster Card model works well.  When I am in London I can use my Oyster to pay for train, tube, bus, tram and boat journeys - all with a simple tap on a reader, sometimes just on boarding, say for buses, other times on entry and exit, like the tube.

This charges the journey to your card.  The basic card can operate either as a stand alone prepaid card that you manually add credit to when it runs out, or for those who make more journeys you can set an auto top up feature that links to your preferred payment method.  The former is better for those who are concerned about providing payment details as they can top up in shops with cash.

Extending the model, the card can also be loaded with season tickets for those who have them and the correct ticket or charge will be recognised by the system.

Why do we not have this across the whole of the UK?

Many buses already have the smartcard readers and it therefore would seem only to be a software issue to add a national card into this.  The driver already has to determine the fare so why not state your destination, be told the fare and then just tap your payment card.
Trams could either adopt the model used in London whereby you tap in at the point of boarding as all fares are fixed, or as used on the riverboats in London, where the conductor has a portable reader.

Even if we just implement this on buses and trams this would save a lot of grief.  Depending upon financial limits we could potentially roll it out to taxis as well.

Imagine the benefits if you are away from home on holiday or business, you don't know the local fares so may have no idea how much money you need.  A travel card like this will be ideal and will also speed up boarding of buses and reduce the amount of cash that both the passenger and the bus have to carry.

Prior to the last election I asked this question of both Labour and Conservative transport departments.  Labour failed to answer the question (despite three letters repeating it) and the Conservatives said it was planned.  I would have asked the Liberal Democrats but had no idea they would get anywhere near government!

I will update this post when (if) I get an answer from the present government, watch this space.