"The key problem is that everyone is minding their own turf. Under a smartcard system, each company would no longer have control over prices because someone independent would have to set them, " he said.
Smart cards place no such restriction on pricing. There may be through ticket prices or "Travelcard" prices agreed, but operators can set their own gates to charge for different products as required using stored value.
He said there was nothing difficult about implementing a smartcard system, particularly as there was an internationally recognised standard for the cards. "It works in London and there's no reason why it can't be done here."
Only thing is, London uses it's own standard, not an "international" or even national one. And it is only just becoming avaialble on non-TfL services, at a cost to many users (eg South Central travellers) where zone changes are pushing up prices. An almighty row is brewing over the migration to the ITSO standard mandated by the UK DfT - in which the UK train operators are also involved. I can assure you (from experience) that implementing smartcards is anything but easy - there is not a buy off the shelf solution.
Sean
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