Passengers may soon be able to travel on York’s buses without the need to fumble around for cash or commit in advance to expensive season tickets.
York’s major bus company are looking to trial the use of charge card enabled terminals which will allow debit card holders to “touch on, touch off” when they use bus services.
The system would allow regular users to be given a discount with daily and weekly ceiling charges introduced to encourage bus use.
The system would also facilitate so called “through ticketing” with no need to purchase a “ticket” for the second leg of an extended journey.
In many ways the new system – which exploits the new technology being rolled out in the latest charge cards and mobile phones – replicates the convenience of the Oyster card system which has been in use in London for some years, although no separate card purchase is necessary.
For operators the new system has the advantage of speeding up boarding times and reducing the amount of cash carried on the buses.
York could become a trial site for the system if the local Council co operates. A similar system is already working in Singapore.
The same technology could also revolutionise payments for car parking. Here drivers would touch their card when arriving and this would – like payments by mobile phone – activate their car registration number on the parking wardens hand held screen. When leaving, motorists would “touch off”.
The advantage of using this system in car parks is that it would be more flexible allowing drivers to stay for as long as they wished and then to pay for the actual time used. It avoids the costly installation of pay on exit barriers and addresses the reliability problems inherent in such mechanical systems.