SmartRider - a smartcard ticketing initiative at the cost of 10% of a new bus

Whilst there have been a number of smartcard initiatives in the UK most of these have involved local authority involvement including financial support. As far as we are aware the Sureline initiative is one of the few smartcard applications in the UK that has been introduced at the full commercial risk of the operator. Sureline wished to provide passengers with a ticketing system that would attract passengers to its new service as well as providing an attractive ticketing alternative to the established operator (First) with whom Sureline competes for local passengers between Portland and Weymouth, and between Weymouth and Dorchester. After careful consideration the company chose to fit its vehicles with the latest generation Wayfarer TGX ticket machines equipped with smartcard readers. Sureline's smartcard readers are ISO compatible which represents the standard that has been adopted within the public transport industry. The implementation of smartcard ticketing technology involves significant costs. Fitting each Wayfarer TGX ticket machine with a smartcard reader increased the cost of each ticket machine by over 50% - a basic Wayfarer TGX ticket machine costs #700 whilst a Wayfarer TGX ticket machine costs #1,100. A POS (Point of Sale) ticket machine was also purchased to first commission and issue smartcards - this cost a further #1,200. In addition the Company also had to purchase the smartcards themselves - because of the relatively small scale of the application the unit cost was relatively high. Initially the Company ordered 250 smartcards at a unit cost of #3.40p. Even so the cost associated with the implementation of smartcard ticketing technology has represented less than 5% of the company's start up costs. Such additional costs are, however, sometimes more easily accommodated within start up costs since additional costs are sometimes more difficult to bear at a later date. The first SmartRider cards were sold to passengers from December and within less than one month currently there are 25 SmartRider cards in circulation even though there has not, as yet, been any promotion of SmartRider cards. Currently further details of SmartRider cards and an application form are available on the Company's website. Application forms are also available on request from the Company's offices and from all Sureline drivers. The first type of SmartRider card to be introduced, therefore, offers regular passengers a 10% discount on cash fares (with cash fares for most journeys already lower than the fares charged by the established operator). Attention has already been drawn to the fact that SmartRider cards have to be first commissioned and issued through the company's offices but can then be recharged by the driver of any Sureline bus that a passenger boards. Despite the high initial production cost of SmartRider cards these are offered to passengers at no cost so long as there is a minimum purchase of #10 of bus travel. The minimum amount required to recharge a SmartRider card is #5. A promotional campaign is currently being devised - the objective of such a promotional campaign will primarily be to encourage passengers currently using either other modes of transport (e.g. cars) or the other bus operator to use Sureline services. For the covering abstract see ITRD E126595.