Skip to main content

UK rail system to get interoperable smartcards

ESP Group has been appointed by the UK’s Rail Settlement Plan to provide personalisation, encoding and fulfilment services for a major smartcard programme that will simplify travel for millions of passengers on the UK’s busiest train network. The company’s smartcard operation Systex will produce and issue a range of powerful contactless smart tokens for short and long term use that will include high capacity microprocessor cards, lower capacity smart tickets, wristbands, key fobs and accessories. The
January 8, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
ESP Group has been appointed by the UK’s Rail Settlement Plan to provide personalisation, encoding and fulfilment services for a major smartcard programme that will simplify travel for millions of passengers on the UK’s busiest train network.

The company’s smartcard operation Systex will produce and issue a range of powerful contactless smart tokens for short and long term use that will include high capacity microprocessor cards, lower capacity smart tickets, wristbands, key fobs and accessories.

The 1837 Department for Transport’s South East Flexible Ticketing programme (SEFT) will set the standard for interoperable rail travel across National Rail. This programme is the most complex implementation of a smart ticketing service to date in the UK and will eventually offer travellers the chance to travel within the region using a smart card which is valid across many individual train operators and modes of transport.

ESP Group CEO Terry Dunn commented: “We are delighted to be working with RSP to deliver smartcards for such a ground-breaking project. The powerful microprocessor smartcard platform at the core of the system provides future proofing through its capacity, flexibility and compatibility with mobile solutions.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Conduent makes contactless splash in Venice
    July 3, 2024
    EMV system covers trams, buses and - of course - ferries, boats and waterbuses
  • GPS delivers accurate journey time data for UTC
    January 27, 2012
    A new solution developed as a consequence of the UK's Freeflow project fuses GPS and UTC loop data to give more accurate predictions of journey times, benefting network managers and travellers alike. By Matt Cowley and Gareth Jones, Trakm8 and John Polak and Rajesh Krishnan, Imperial College London
  • IP revolution for CCTV systems yet to happen
    February 3, 2012
    The IP Revolution for CCTV systems which has been predicted for some years now has failed to happen, says Craig Howie, commercial director of Visimetrics Ltd. Given the many aspects of different technologies and standards involved in moving high-value, observation-critical applications into a pure digital age, this is perhaps unsurprising, he feels.
  • Washington metro gets Cubic ticketing
    July 29, 2014
    Cubic Transportation Systems has been awarded a contract for more than US$8 million to convert existing paper magnetic fare card vending machines to sales and reload devices for SmarTrip, the contactless smart card for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). The project is part of the agency’s plan to eliminate paper ticketing from its fare system to all contactless media by spring 2016. Cubic will upgrade more than 500 machines with hardware kits including smart card readers and re