PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE OF INTRODUCING ITSO SMART TICKETING John Backway, Head of Commercial Development

15th May 2012

GO-AHEAD GROUP

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GO-AHEAD GROUP

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ITSO - an introduction

Background

• Key principles and purpose

• Formation, early years

• Pilots, small schemes

Rail and Bus acceleration

• Rail franchises 2007 onwards

• Bus BSOG uplift incentive

• Direct grant funding for local authorities

Organisation and specification

• DfT steps in

• Moving towards maturity and stability

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Go-Ahead’s rationale for ‘going ITSO’

Overarching objectives

• Generation of additional journeys through more attractive products and ticket types to better match today’s changing journey patterns;

• Joined up ticketing between bus and rail, to promote multi-modal travel;

• Guaranteeing the customer the ‘best fare’ if they buy online and use their smartcard;

• Environmental benefit of reduction in paper ticket waste; and

• Reduced boarding times on buses and through stations, so better overall operational performance.

Specific enablers

• Mandated franchise commitments (London Midland and Southern)

• BSOG incentive

• Other grants such as NESTI grant, Brighton and Hove EU funding

• Oxford SmartZone

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Go-Ahead’s ITSO brand – the key

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Rail ITSO scheme architecture

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Bus ITSO scheme architecture

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Progress to date - BUS

• New smartcard enabled ticket machines rolled out to over 2,000 buses in the Go-Ahead bus fleet outside of London.

• Over 200,000 key smartcards have been issued and are in regular use.

• 80,000 key card journeys are now being made on Go-Ahead buses every day.

• Over 250,000 smartcard journeys are being made on Go-Ahead buses every day (the key + ENCTS)

• In 2011, we also launched Oxford SmartZone, a multi-operator smartcard scheme in Oxford with Stagecoach Buses. Since its launch:

– An average of 41% of all Oxford Bus Company commercial journeys are now being made using ITSO smartcards (a mixture of Go-Ahead’s Key and Stagecoach’s Smart cards)

– 100% of concessionary journeys were already being made using ITSO smartcards (ENCTS) before SmartZone’s launch.

– Taking into account the above, a majority of all Oxford Bus Company journeys are now made using ITSO smartcards

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Daily journey statistics – BUS

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Live key cardholders - BUS

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Progress to date - RAIL

London Midland

• Since February 2010, London Midland has been running an ITSO smartcard pilot in Worcestershire, between Kidderminster and Worcester. In January 2012 this was extended to Birmingham city centre and Stratford upon Avon along the Snow Hill Lines.

• A total of 41 railway stations are now ITSO enabled, including 2 gated stations and 39 ungated stations.

Southern Railway

• In November 2011 Southern Railway launched an ITSO smartcard pilot in Sussex, between Brighton and Seaford.

• In April 2012 this was extended to Bexhill, along the East Coastway line.

• In June 2012 this will be further extended to Worthing, along the West Coastway line.

ATOC / RSP

• Development of ITSO on Rail specification

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London Midland ITSO scheme map

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Southern ITSO scheme map (June 2012 position)

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Feedback from the key pilot passenger survey (Southern)

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Future plans

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Geographical deployment

• ITSO on Prestige:

– December 2012

– December 2013

• South East Flexible Ticketing initiative

– Interface with other TOCs, opportunity for Southeastern

• West Midlands Integrated Smart Ticketing initiative

– Early stages, potential for an ‘Oyster for the West Midlands’

Product development

• Flexi Season

• Pay as you go

• Plus Bus on ITSO

Plus Bus on ITSO, September 2012

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Crawley Plus Bus zone

Brighton Plus Bus zone

ITSO strengths

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Technical

• Crown Copyright specification, accessible to all.

• Leveller - everyone has to play by the same rules.

• Market has been opened up to new players.

• The technology is not tied to card media, so in theory allows NFC (mobile phone based ticketing) as well as smartcard.

• Flexible to meet all ticketing needs, including complex multi-operator tickets.

• With Version 2.1.4. beginning to reach maturity and stability

Commercial

• With every smart ticketing system on the ITSO platform, there is a huge opportunity for fully integrated, multi-operator and multi-modal ticketing schemes to be implemented.

• Security of system proven.

ITSO weaknesses

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Technical

• Limited capacity in the market, both in terms of supplier resource and technical knowledge. Availability of qualified resource is a real challenge.

• Not ‘plug and play’, so big integration challenges. Also means it is very resource hungry, leading to cost issues.

• The specification is too ambiguous and open to interpretation (although ITSO in principle is there to act as a referee).

• Disconnect between technical and operational expertise. Bridging the knowledge gap amongst business managers expends a huge amount of resource.

• Not Oyster. This is both a strength and a weakness, but in terms of expectation gap this is primarily a weakness at the moment.

Commercial

• Lack of operational guidance / operating manual.

• Without BSOG and other indirect subsidies, ITSO would be too expensive and it is still difficult to justify a business case as a stand alone initiative.

Future opportunities

• DfT Command paper

• DfT Fares and ticketing review

• New franchises / SEFT

• ITSO on Prestige

• Innovative products

• Multi Modal

• CRM

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Competition from other retail channels and media

• Not all of these can be sustained at once, as each will add a layer of cost, so something has to give....

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ANY QUESTIONS?