Paperless travel for nine major urban areas

In an effort to launch paperless travel in some of the largest urban areas in the country, The Department of Transport will be investing over 20 million pounds into new initiatives. The transport secretary, Lord Adonis, aims to install NFC compatible systems.

These systems will be provided with information stored on the microchips of smart cards, to reduce time intervals and inconveniences caused to passengers in buying paper tickets. The Department of Transport is hoping that the new systems encouraging paperless travel will be worth over one billion pounds each year.

The transport secretary has asserted that before the share of investment funds is paid put, each area selected in the scheme will have come up with detailed descriptions of the areas that will require new infrastructure and funding. This report will have to be submitted before the start of the New Year. There are nine areas that have been thus far identified. They are Bristol, Leicester, Nottingham, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Merseyside, Tyne and Wear, the West Midlands and Greater Manchester. If the initiative in the areas is successful, the rest of the country will be able to use the smart ticketing systems by 2020.

The Department of Transport has come up with many viable reasons on why paperless travel should be implemented. One major reason is the decrease in waiting time to obtain a ticket. Passengers will be able to preload the tickets on to the smart cards prior to the journeys. Incase reported missing; the smart cards can be cancelled. Also, they cannot be as easily replicated as paper tickets, resulting in reduction in fraud. Operators too stand to gain, as they will be able to roll out their own loyalty schemes to their passengers.