Archived decisions

Agenda Item 7

Report to the

Transport for South Hampshire Joint Committee

Date: 16 October 2007

Report by: Head of Planning Services, Portsmouth City Council

Written by: Paul Denyer, Portsmouth City Council

Subject: Solent Travelcard Smart Card Opportunities - Report on Consultant Study

Purpose of the Report

To appraise the Executive Members of the conclusions from the study undertaken by MVA Consultancy into developing Solent Travelcard to a multi-modal, multi-functional smart card for the Solent Transport area.

Recommendations

1. That the report be noted.

2. That further investigation of a multi-functional smart card led by Transport for South Hampshire not be pursued at this time but the matter be reviewed in two years.

3. That Transport for South Hampshire welcomes Southampton City Council's continued development of its Southampton smartcard.

4. That following the integration of rail into Solent Travelcard the opportunity to include the local ferries be investigated.

Background

1. In November 2006 MVA Consultancy was appointed to investigate the opportunities and barriers to develop the currently bus only Solent Travelcard into a fully multi-modal Travelcard, and potentially a smart card with functionality across a range of council and potentially other partner services.

2. The consultants finished their study in April 2007.

The Study

3. The consultants examined the current Solent Travelcard scheme and its proposed extension to rail, which is planned for introduction later this year. They reviewed the background to smartcards, the London Oystercard and the requirement that outside London smart cards must be ITSO¹ compliant to be acceptable to the Department for Transport (DfT). They consulted the relevant stakeholders within Solent Transport, including bus, rail and ferry operators, and investigated and reported on current experience of smart card use in transport applications, including the Southampton smartcard now being used for concessionary fares as part of a citizen card. All the main bus operators in Southampton will have smartcard enabled ticket machines installed during 2007, enabling bus operators' commercial products to be placed on smartcards, as is already practised at the University of Southampton, where students' cards are accepted on Unilink buses.

Outcomes of the Study

4. The report recognises that in the longer term smart card technologies have the potential to bring substantial benefit to the local authorities, transport providers in south Hampshire and the public, but cautions that the technology is still relatively undeveloped. A small number of schemes have been implemented and others are under development but these generally are concentrated on bus use. Some are non-ITSO compliant, some are being piloted as demonstration projects and schemes are being introduced in Wales and Scotland and coordinated at a county-wide level. Despite the early positive indications the market is not yet sufficiently mature to give confidence as to the direction it might take in the future. There is therefore still the potential to invest in technology that could quickly be superseded.

5. Additionally, the number of partners involved is also a significant consideration at this time. The Solent Travelcard area is served by three national bus operators (FirstGroup, Go Ahead and Stagecoach) and it is probable that these would wish to standardise on a particular supplier of ticket issuing technology at a national level (to enable vehicles to be redeployed between depots or regions as necessary). With competing suppliers there is a risk of incompatibility between equipment fitted to different operators' buses potentially leading to a degree of incompatibility of systems within back offices, although the provision of ITSO should minimise this.

6. If Transport for South Hampshire and its partners were minded to take forward a smartcard scheme, the Southampton smartcard scheme, which is being brought up to an ITSO compliant standard, is suggested as a platform from which it could be developed. Accordingly it would be appropriate for Transport for South Hampshire to support Southampton City Council in further developing this product for the "in house" operational experience that will assist in future decisions.

7. The flow chart below sets out a possible future process for developing Solent Travelcard into a multi-functional Smartcard, initially concentrating on travel and transport applications before expanding into other areas such as e-government as the scheme matures.

8. Initial estimates indicate a potential cost of £5million for the necessary equipment with associated costs for communications, software licensing, administration and management staff costs. The delivery of the project would require a dedicated resource, the support of all of the operators and the commitment to ongoing maintenance and management costs.

9. The DfT recently announced its intention to put the new national concessionary fares scheme from April 2008 onwards on to a smartcard platform from the outset. This would still relate only to the single mode (bus) but implementation and use of this would provide further experience to inform a future review of the then current opportunities and barriers to a multi-modal, multi-functional smartcard for the sub-region.

Conclusions

10. The study has been valuable in drawing together the views of the potential partners in taking forward Solent Travelcard and in the future migrating it to a wider smartcard functionality. It also usefully reports on progress on existing schemes elsewhere in the UK (none of which has the potential complexity of south Hampshire with its multiple operators for bus, rail and ferries) and those in development.

11. Whilst there are potential benefits to be had from Smartcards for south Hampshire there are also significant risks. The institutional issues should not be underestimated and there is a substantial capital and revenue commitment to implementing a scheme in a still evolving market.

12. Whilst not losing sight of the longer term objective of a multi-functional smartcard for the sub-region, it is recommended that for the present resources be directed to building on the success of the current Solent Travelcard, both in increasing its use, consolidating the integration of rail and potentially expanding it to the local ferries, together with locally developing the Southampton City Council smartcard.

(Copies of this consultant's report are also held by Hampshire County Council and Southampton City Council and is available as a PDF download from the Portsmouth City Council web-site)

9409/PJM