Transport Ticketing supplement

• Recognising the importance and benefits of smart ticketing
  2015 looks like being a big year for smart ticketing on public transport in the UK, writes Steve Wakeland, General Manager of ITSO Limited. The last few months have seen a wide number of announcements featuring smart ticketing as one of the essential ingredients in moving towards an integrated, multi-modal, multi-operator public transport service that is fit for future purpose. That purpose is to support an expanding economy through giving the workforce easier access to jobs, as well as reducing congestion, which can be a major drain on productivity.
• Implementing mobile ticketing in Athens
  After the replacement of cash with paper tickets in 1986, the capital of Greece, Athens, had to wait 28 years before a new fare medium was introduced in the city. Having missed magnetic and SMS tickets, the so-called Athens ‘paper taboo’ was finally broken in December 2014, and Athens leaped from the stone age of fares to the electronic age. With the exception of the planned metro extensions of Metro Lines 2 and 3, mobile ticketing was the first innovation presented to the Athenian passengers after the major renewals in infrastructure, new metro rolling stock, buses, trolleybuses and a new tram line in 2004, just before the Olympic Games. Jason Angelopoulos – Transport Economist Advisor at Athens Urban Transport Organisation – provides further details about the future of ticketing in the city….