So far so good, so I logged on to the website and ordered myself the smart ticket, which in essence is a contactless smart card like the Oyster system.
After a very short wait, my ticket arrived in the post, branded Stagecoach. As Stagecoach are the parent company of my local rail operator this was no surprise to me.
Now I started to look at what I can do with my ticket - and that is where it starts to go down hill. I could see from the accompanying leaflet that I could use it for certain journeys on the network but not all stations on the line would accept it. I could go to London but whereas with a paper ticket I can include travel within London, that is not yet possible with the smart ticket.
I tried contacting Stagecoach customer services via their website, to be told they only handled the bus and coach smart cards. Eventually I was put in touch with a very helpful gentleman in the IT department who DOES know what is going on.
After a long conversation I was able to ascertain the following, with the rider on all elements being - we are working towards that.
- My smart ticket can only be used with my network - if I want to use other smart ticket services withing the Stagecoach group I must obtain the ticket for that particular network.
- As I already knew, only certain stations can accept the smart ticket.
- I cannot buy a ticket online to load to the smart ticket, I must do this by phone or at the station.
- There is a limit of how many tickets can be on the card at any one time - and get this, it depends on how much data each ticket contains, as if I am likely to know this - about four to six apparently.
- There is no facility to get a bus smart card on a Pay as You Go basis like Oyster, only weekly and monthly passes.
- There is no interoperability with other smart card ticketing systems throughout the country.
So, all in all, not a very smart solution after all.
I can only praise the chap in IT who was able to both understand and answer fully all my questions, but why did customer services not have this information?
Dates for roll out of the missing features are necessarily vague, but don't hold your breath. Until then we will have to stick to good old fashioned paper tickets.
I remember reading of a promise by the last government to implement nationwide smart ticketing by the end of 2014. This was I believe taken on by the present administration without a move of the target dates. Based on what I have seen from this scheme and Oyster, I think they are both very wide of the mark.
In Nottingham, we have Phase 2 of the tram network - allegedly this will include smart ticketing options. I will be interested to see their solution. Perhaps we all need card holders that can hold a multitude of smart cards, remembering that as they are all contactless we will have to take the appropriate card out of the wallet to use it in order to avoid confusing the reader.
