Scotland's answer to London's Oyster card was revealed today - the Saltire Card.
It will allow passengers to pre-load money which they can then use to pay for journeys on trains, buses, ferries, subway and trams throughout Scotland.
The smart card is designed to lead to cash-free travel for residents, and could also make it cheaper and easier for people to get around through extra opportunities for promotions such as cut-price travel and flexible pricing.
It may also provide a tourism boost with holidaymakers being able to load up the card before travelling around the country.
Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon launched the delivery plans for the scheme at Glasgow's Buchanan Bus Station. Details will soon be announced of pilot schemes in local areas.
Ms Sturgeon said: "The Saltire Card will be a hugely exciting development for transport in Scotland and will help us achieve a truly world-class public transport network.
"It will make it easier, more attractive and possibly cheaper for people to get around using public transport and will help further connect our cities.
"While we are aware that there is still some substantial work to do on this proposal, we are now taking the first steps towards achieving this vision by launching a series of demonstrator schemes with a number of operators and public sector partners throughout the country.
"Bus operators are already Smart Card-enabled and many are already working in partnership with Transport Scotland to see how they can fully realise the benefits of the technology and how they can integrate with other operators to share those benefits with passengers."
The Scottish Government has already funded the provision of 7,000 smart enabled ticket machines across the entire Scottish bus fleet and successfully runs the Scotland-wide concessionary travel scheme on a smart platform. This is the biggest example of a bus smart ticketing scheme outside London, with over a million cardholders and 146million journeys a year across all of Scotland's 260 bus operators.
On rail, Transport Scotland has worked closely with First ScotRail to deliver the largest rail smart ticketing pilot in the UK, while smart ticketing will be a key element of the new franchise from 2014.
The Scottish Government cannot deliver smart ticketing on its own and transport agency Transport Scotland is currently working with operators, local authorities and Regional Transport Partnerships on a number of demonstrator projects.
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