Trevor Crotch-Harvey and Fenbrook Consulting have experience in the fields of smart ticketing and cashless payments going back sixteen years when the first contactless cards were supplied to London Transport. Now, since environmental issues have become a global concern, politicians and Local Authorities are looking for more ways to encourage people out of their cars and thereby increase ridership on public transport. Please see a short video about Limited Use Smart Tickets (Newcastle 2006)
London transport has successfully used the Oyster Card for over six years and there are now a handful of UK cities that are implementing seamless, contactless payment solutions within their own transport systems. Grants have been made to various cities including Bristol, Nottingham and Leicester and ITSO -the Integrated Transport Smartcard Organisation- predict that this will lead to a wider roll out of smart card transport schemes across the country.
In addition to the environmental case there is also a strong business case for all transport authorities to adopt a Smart Ticketing solution.
Fenbrook Consulting advise on:
- The business case
- The manufacturing process
- Applications and deployment
- Fare schemes
- Security systems
- The strategic roadmap
- Project management
- Operator co-ordination
- Standards compliance
- Interoperability
- Contactless Payment Solutions
Adopting a Smart and Integrated transport system will lead to improved overall reliability, increased savings and reduced dwell time but there are more changes on the horizon. Recent developments in mobile technologies such as the i-Phone and Android phones, mobile banking, Near Field Communications (NFC), Bluetooth and GPRS mean that there will be more convenient ways for the customer to pay for their ticketing.
The Mobile Wallet
Mobile Wallet
The technologies do exist to make your Internet-capable mobile phone a mobile wallet and full integration with reliable security systems has proven success in China, Japan and other Far Eastern countries. However, full implementation in the UK may take a little longer as required standards have not been agreed upon by the banks, the
communication companies and transport operators. Trevor Crotch-Harvey, as a MasterCard Paypass consultant, is in the ideal position to consult on the future of the mobile wallet.