Delivering smart ticketing in Great Britain

Research by geographers at the University of Plymouth underpins Smart Applications Management (SAM), a company which researches and develops smart and integrated ticketing. SAM has supported the rollout of contactless payment across bus networks.

 

Issue

The lack of smart ticketing technology has served as an additional barrier to the provision of ‘inter-operable’ tickets, i.e. those which can be used on any bus company. 

 

Approach

Research on transport policy identified that concessionary fares are most effectively delivered through smart ticketing for both administrative and operational reasons, and the benefits of speed, flexibility, and potential inter-operability of cashless public transport ticketing are easily extendable to all travellers once the system has been established. 

This research supported the creation of SAM, a fully commercially sustainable spin out company from the University of Plymouth which researches, develops and supports the implementation of smart and integrated ticketing in the deregulated operating environment of British public transport.

 

Impact

Speeding up passenger boarding by two seconds per transaction enables buses to complete their routes more quickly. Beyond benefits for passengers, this means they can spend more time at the end of their route with their engines off, and/or fewer buses are needed to work the routes.

Between 2015-2016, SAM’s Host Operator Payment System processed 62,152,984 transactions across 17 local authority areas. Between 2019-2020 it processed 116,844,099 transactions across 27 local authorities.

SAM has enabled Cornwall Council to underpin its One Cornwall bus network with fully integrated pay-as-you-go, contactless ticketing across all operators.

 

More information

• Read the full impact case study in the REF21 database

Institution: University of Plymouth

Researchers: Professor Jon Shaw, Dr Andrew Seedhouse