A world-leading electronic smart card system for bus passengers has been launched in Cumbria.
NoWcard went live on Stagecoach buses in Carlisle and Penrith (Sunday 13 May) following its successful introduction in Blackpool last September and Rossendale in East Lancashire earlier this month.
It will be introduced on Stagecoach buses in West Cumbria on 20 May, followed by Barrow on 27 May and Kendal on 3 June.
The £7 million project is now being rolled out to all major bus operators across the North West and spells a revolution in the way local authorities can calculate concessionary bus fares. It is the culmination of four years of development work led by Cumbria County Council, in partnership with Blackpool Borough Council, Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council and Lancashire County Council and funded mainly through the Local Transport Plans of the four lead authorities and the Department for Transport. The roll-out will be completed in October 2007.
The NoWcard is the first time the new Integrated Transport Smartcard Organisation (ITSO) specification for smart cards has been fully deployed on buses anywhere in the world and is a unique achievement for a local government partnership.
The NoWcard features a photograph of the holder and is loaded with data which identifies the concessionary fare entitlement of the holder. When the holder presents his NoWcard to the ticket machine on the bus for the first time, the card is converted electronically to the new ITSO-compliant technology. The smart card then automatically prompts the ticket machine to calculate the correct concessionary entitlement and the relevant fare for the journey.
At the end of each driver's shift, all the transaction data is encrypted, downloaded and sent electronically to the ITSO Head Office Processing System, which then passes on the data to the NoWcard Payment And Charges system. This allows detailed invoices to be produced for concessionary travel for the Travel Concession Authorities, who are the six district councils in Cumbria, and calculates the revenue credit due to each bus operator.
The Integrated Transport Smartcard Organisation (ITSO) specification was launched in 2004 by the Department for Transport. It has been designed to allow a variety of smart cards to be used and recognised by different types of electronic ticket machines. It is the Government specification for all public-funded transport smart card schemes across the UK.
Twenty Travel Concession Authorities in the NoWcard area are involved in the roll-out across the region, where 300,000 NoWcards have already been issued to concessionary bus pass holders. The aim is to have all 1,800 buses in the region operating the smart ticketing technology by the autumn of 2007.
The long-term aim of the NoWcard partners is to provide an inter-operable smart card-based system capable of expansion to cover all smart card types. Future plans include smart cards with an electronic purse, commercial smart cards, multi-operator smart cards and student travel cards.
Councillor Ian Stewart, Cumbria County Council's cabinet member for transport, said: "This is an exciting moment for our unique partnership. The North West has led the pack on rolling out smart cards for buses; it will make journeys much easier and will speed up boarding times. It will also give accurate information on costings for both the district councils and the bus operator."
Chris Bowles, the managing director of Stagecoach North West, said: "We have been able to make the roll out even smoother by the early upgrading of about 8,000 NoWcards in Carlisle and Penrith last month. As this process takes about 4 seconds per card, these early upgrades will mean that there is less likelihood of delays, particularly to the busier town services, for the first two or three days of live running."
Neil Scales, Chair of ITSO, said: "When we say this is world-beating technology for bus passengers we mean it. Smart cards will jump-start the digital economy by making it easier to perform a multitude of daily tasks. It will modernise the way millions of people use public transport, reducing the need for them to queue and enabling them to get through ticket gates and onto buses much more quickly and efficiently.
"Not only will this new technology transform the face of transport as we know it, it can support a variety of other types of applications. It will reduce the number of cards in people's purses or wallets and it will provide them with a secure, mobile identity that they can use to access to a variety of different services. This is a fantastic example of organisations working together to improve services. We are breaking new ground with this, not just nationally but internationally," said Mr Scales.
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