Railways: Tickets

Transport written question – answered at on 10 March 2014.

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Photo of Caroline Lucas Caroline Lucas Green, Brighton, Pavilion

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what the strands of the South East Flexible Ticketing project are; what the budget and relevant train operating company is for each such strand; when he expects the competition for the flexible ticketing trial for part-time workers to commence; when the outcome of that competition will be announced; when he expects that trial to begin; and how long the trial will last.

Photo of Stephen Hammond Stephen Hammond The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The South East Flexible Ticketing programme (SEFT) aims to deliver flexible smart ticketing across London and the South East, working in partnership with TfL and the train operators. In terms of delivery 'strands', these include station infrastructure, back office systems, testing and integration, core products, and other 'soft factors' such as training and marketing in order to deliver a consistent passenger proposition.

The geographic scope of the programme is yet to be finalised but will include all of the train operators which run passenger services into London, namely:

c2c

Greater Anglia

East Coast

First Capital Connect

East Midland Trains

London Midland

Virgin West Coast

Chiltern

First Great Western

South West Trains

Southern

Southeastern

The total budget for the programme is £45 million. Until the geographic scope is finalised it is not yet possible to estimate what proportion of that will be spent on each part of the rail network.

The competition for the flexible ticketing trial is currently scheduled to commence later in 2014 by issuing requests for proposal to all train operators that are signatories to the SEFT scheme. We expect to announce a winning bidder in sufficient time to commence the trial in January 2015. The trial is expected to last for a year.

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