TRAIN operator First ScotRail is to bring Nicola Sturgeon's vision of a "Saltire card" for travel around Scotland one step closer with plans to install the necessary technology in scores of stations in the coming months.
The operator has kicked off a project to install 140 validation machines for smartcards in 70 of Scotland's 350 stations, concentrating in the Strathclyde, Stirling and Aberdeen areas. It installed them in 27 stations towards the end of last year and aims to have the rest finished by the end of March.
Building on a pilot scheme for annual season-ticket holders that has been running between Edinburgh and Glasgow on the line through Falkirk since 2011, the move will mean that the stations will have the same integrated transport smartcard organisation technology installed in most of the country's buses.
It raises the prospect of the same ticketless travel on trains currently enjoyed by the country's concessionary bus travellers. It will also increase the chances of the arrival of the "Saltire card" that the Deputy First Minister announced last October.
The Scottish Government envisages that this would work in the same way as the Oyster card in London, enabling passengers to switch between different modes of transport. The long-term vision is that all journeys in Scotland's bus, train, ferry, tram and subway networks will eventually be accessible through smartcards.
First Group has a duty to roll out a smartcard service as part of its seven-year ScotRail franchise, which is due for renewal this year. However, the service is at least a year behind the target the company publicly set itself in 2009 and it is not yet clear when First will expand the service to the rest of the rail network.
Together with a two-year contract to manage the service, this stage of the project is expected to cost Aberdeen-based First up to £850,000. The Glasgow-Edinburgh pilot is being managed by Japanese group, Fujitsu.
Glasgow subway operator Strathclyde Partnership for Transport is launching a smartcard operation for its service in the course of this year.
Transport Scotland is currently considering what smartcard requirements to put into the next phase of the ScotRail franchise.
A spokesman for First said: "All 70 stations will have the validators by March 31 this year. They will be operational on dates to be announced in due course."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article