Contactless smartcards on the railways of Britain

Contactless smart cards are being progressively introduced to replace paper ticketing on the National Rail system of Britain. The first large scale adoption for transport in Britain is the Transport for London Oystercard. This uses a proprietary encoding developed by Cubic Transportation Systems. Initially it was only available on the London Underground, but it has been progressively rolled out to National Rail services in and around Greater London.

The ITSO standard has been developed as a national standard to cover all types of public transport. It has been included as a requirement by the Department for Transport for all new rail franchises in the last few years. It is also the format that ENCTS concessionary passes are required to be issued in.

Regions of England that have had bodies created to implement smart ticketing include North East England (NESTI), South West England (SWSAL) and Yorkshire and the Humber (Yorcard). Much of the East of England and South East England will be covered by the South East Flexible Ticketing project.

The Scottish Government also has plans to introduce a national transport smartcard called the Saltire Card.

The Welsh Assembly is also trialling a multi-modal smartcard, called the "GoCyrmu" card.

The Oystercard system is not compatible with ITSO at present. However, there is a project underway to make the Oystercard system compatible with ITSO. , the position is:

¶ Only valid in combination with a paper single or return ticket (as provided for at point 19c in the National Rail Conditions of Carriage.)