Bolton’s smart idea could set a trend across Greater Manchester

20 August 2009

Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council’s new smartcard ticketing system, due to go live next month, is to provide support for plans for a Greater Manchester-wide scheme, which could be the UK’s largest ITSO deployment.

According to Bolton council, Parkeon readers on Arriva’s 73 local buses have been updated with accredited software to become the first 100% ITSO installation.

Since September 2008, the readers were providing a partial service, following accreditation to operate with ITSO-based concessionary smartcards.

The readers are now completing final site trials prior to general use, which will involve a pay-as-you-go travel ‘purse’ linked to Bolton’s sQuid citizen card.

With no other equipped buses in the region, Bolton’s results will be critical for the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive’s (GMPTE) development of a ‘technically innovative and easy-to-use integrated ticketing mechanism’.

This appears as a key objective in the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities’ recently published Greater Manchester strategy.

Working in parallel to commission the GMPTE work, the Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority identified multi-modal, cashless electronic ticketing as a ‘priority’.

The moves have quashed fears that a London Oyster-style smartcard was a non-starter. Originally included in the region’s £3.5bn congestion charging-based Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) bid, it did not appear in the £1.5bn post-TIF alternative. Nevertheless, GMPTE officials are warning of the financial problems of implementation ‘in a situation where there is no single large funding mechanism’.

• The Government is proposing the use of new technology to enable mobile phones to replace tickets and stand-alone smartcards for contactless payment for journeys. Transport minister, Sadiq Khan, said: ‘Experience has shown that smart ticketing can be a key part of offering a 21st century public transport system.’

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