Stagecoach Group has launched a ticketing scheme in Hampshire to allow passengers to travel by bus and rail on one smartcard.
The pilot was launched last Wednesday (March 14) in Basingstoke and is one of the UK’s first commercial multi-modal applications of the Government-preferred ITSO technology.
It involves a small number of South West Trains (SWT) season ticket holders travelling between Basingstoke and any smartcard enabled station outside London.
One smartcard stores both a rail season ticket and a Stagecoach South Megarider multi-journey bus ticket. The pilot will be expanded over the coming months to include more passengers and areas.
Stagecoach Group finance director Martin Griffiths said: “This exciting initiative means joined up journeys on rail and bus using smartcard ticketing is now a reality. It’s making travel easier and more convenient for our passengers.” In 2008, Stagecoach launched the UK’s first national rail smartcard on SWT and ITSO smart ticketing is now live at around 100 stations on the network.
Stagecoach’s smartcards are also in use in Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, Manchester and East Kent and East Sussex after it became the first major UK bus firm to install the technology.
