Paul Corfield wrote:
I believe Milton Keynes still has a form of Smartcard scheme. The West
Midlands are supposed to be implementing a regional scheme in the next
few years. Greater Manchester was also said to the place to go "smart"
first but its scheme foundered and LT / TfL got there first in the UK.
There is also the Yorcard scheme in West and South Yorkshire which
finished a trial phase last October.

Lothian Buses (Edinburgh) have had contactless smartcards since at least
2005, even for basic weekly seasons. Cardiff Bus do scan the over-60s card,
but their seasons are still paper AFAIK.

We should also not forget that several TOCs are lumbered with
introducing ITSO as part of their franchises. SWT are first but that
seems to have stalled. London Midland are next but the London part of
their network will be done last. I believe Southern have to get their's
in by 2012 and are proposing links to Metrobus in Crawley and Brighton
and Hove buses in Brighton (all Go Ahead companies). I think East Coast
and Cross Country also have to get ITSO cards working on their areas.

I'm told that SWT are have a poster advertising 'Oyster' coming soon at
Petersfield. I questioned rather closely as to whether that's the London
Oyster (eg PAYG extended to Zone 6) but I'm told that the statement was that
it was definitely a usable at Petersfield. I haven't seen the poster for
myself.

Again I doubt it because of the intrinsic "closed" nature of the system.
I already have 4 transport smartcards - 2 for London, 1 for Hong Kong
and 1 for Singapore. I'm sure I will collect more as time goes on. I
would find a UK National Transport Smartcard to be very useful but I
cannot see how we will ever get a National Transport Card given the
hugely fractured nature of our transport industry and the fact that all
the big groups will want to preserve their "independence" rather than
co-operate to make fares simple and attractive across the country.

In general, there are also other problems with integration. Say your Oyster
is also your credit card (eg with OnePulse). What happens if you lose your
card - you then have no money to get home? Who is liable for fraud? And so
on.

With contactless cards, it doesn't matter so much. If you present your
wallet to the reader it can activate the 'right' card. (But here be plenty
of implementation dragons)

Theo