Oyster - the proof is in the pocket

Transport for London’s Oyster smartcard ticketing system was launched in 2003 and has been a huge success with Londoners and visitors to the capital ever since. The Oyster card is accepted as one of the world’s leading smartcard ticketing and revenue collection systems and has blazed the trail for contactless technology in the UK, says Shashi Verma

Oyster is now an intrinsic part of everyday life in London. Before leaving the house check for your wallet, house keys, mobile phone and your Oyster card. As a result, over 80 per cent of the 10 million plus journeys made on the Tube and bus in London every day are made using an Oyster card.

The reason London has taken to Oyster is convenience. Having a smartcard means quicker journeys with less waiting time at ticket gatelines and when boarding the bus. It also means greater convenience because the Oyster card can carry a variety of different travel card products whilst also storing up to £90 of pay as you go credit. There are now well over 6 million cards in regular use.

Development and introduction

The concept of a ticketing smartcard for London was borne out of the requirement to increase passenger footfall through stations, reduce the number of ticketing transactions and to clamp down on ticketing fraud.

Oyster was delivered by the ‘Prestige’ PFI as part of an overall upgrade of London’s ticketing system. The PFI was signed in 1998 by London Underground and inherited by Transport for London when the latter was formed in 2000. It resulted in the completion of installation of ticket gatelines across the entire London Underground network. This made significant inroads into reducing the number of passengers travelling without tickets, but a by product was a reduction in the speed of passage through stations.

Last year TfL announced the signing of a new future ticketing agreement that will deliver better value for London as well as providing scope for the future evolution of the capital’s ticketing system.

Growing demand

Last year saw record numbers of people carried on London’s buses, Tube and DLR networks - over 1.1bn, 2.2bn and 67m passenger journeys respectively. Despite the current economic downturn, passenger numbers continue to rise albeit at a slower rate that forecast.

Oyster enabled London’s public transport system to manage significant increases in passenger numbers in recent years and has actually relieved congestion on the network. Oyster enables more people to travel safely on the system, especially during peak periods, by allowing almost three times more people to pass through gatelines every minute than when paper tickets were the norm (40 people per minute compared to 15 per minute with paper tickets).

Oyster will soon become the one ticket needed to travel on all forms of public transport in London. The mayor and Transport for London are close to reaching formal agreements with every train operating company that operates services in London to accept Oyster, including pay as you go.

TfL is currently engaged in a £40m investment programme to install Oyster equipment at all national rail stations across London. Oyster is already accepted on a number of rail services and it is hoped blanket coverage will be achieved by the end of the year. This will ensure the complete integration of ticketing, reduce overcrowding at ticket barriers and increase the rate at which the one million passengers who travel on these services each date pass through stations.

Transport for London is committed to making Oyster accessible to Londoners and to people working in or visiting the capital. The sales of visitor Oyster cards online remain strong and the number of shops where you can buy Oyster cards and travel products have increased by 75%. Oyster has never been so convenient.

Future ticketing

TfL is constantly striving to maintain its position at the forefront of ticketing technology. It remains committed to working with partners in the banking and mobile telephony sectors on innovative ways to build on the success of Oyster and develop the ticketing system of the future.

TfL was a key player in Europe’s largest trial of NFC technology, the O2 Wallet, which saw card-based functions, including Oyster, placed on a mobile phone. The results of the trial demonstrated a clear consumer demand for such a product. Oyster was the most popular feature, with 89% of triallists stating they would be interesting in having the application on their mobile phone. Ultimately to make this a viable proposition mobile phone companies must increase the penetration of NFC technology in mobile phone handsets.

With an eye on the future, TfL is actively exploring whether credit and debit cards could be used for direct payment on the transport system. This could see passengers touching in and out at ticket gatelines, as they do now, but using their bank card or credit card rather than their Oyster card to pay for journeys.

An upgrade of TfL’s ticketing system in 2010/11 will see all 23,000 card readers replaced, enabling the system to read both ITSO cards and EMV (Europay, Mastercard Visa payment standard) contactless bank cards.

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