ITSO Ltd

ITSO is a non-profit membership organisation which maintains and develops the ITSO specification. The specification is an open one which is Crown copyrighted and available to all with the aim of allowing interoperable ticketing between transport operators in the UK.

ITSO Limited operates and manages an interoperable smart media environment, and facilitates and supports development of interoperable smart ticketing schemes that comply with the ITSO specification.

ITSO was established as a result of discussions between various UK passenger transport authorities concerning the lack of standards for interoperable smartcard ticketing. These discussions grew to include other authorities, transport operators and government.

Today ITSO membership covers the breadth of the transport arena including transport operators (both bus and train operating companies), suppliers to the industry, local authorities and public transport executives.

The Department for Transport rolled out Concessionary Bus Travel Scheme which uses ITSO smartcards. Transport Scotland and the Welsh Government have implemented ITSO in their concessionary travel schemes. Many regions of England either currently use the Specification to support concessionary and commercial public transport schemes or have plans to do so within the next few years.

ITSO Limited is funded by its members, which include transport operators and affiliated bodies, as well as local, regional and national government organisations.

The Integrated Transport Smartcard Organisation has been dropped and ITSO is now just ITSO. That is because the specification covers other forms of ticketing besides smartcards and transport.

Specification

The ITSO specification is a technical platform on which interoperable smart ticketing schemes can be built. It defines the key technical items and interfaces that are required to deliver interoperability between the components of a ticketing system – smart media (usually smartcards), points of service (bus or rail ticket machines) and back office data processing systems. ITSO is unique in transport smartcard specifications in that it covers all required components.

The ITSO specification is Crown copyright and is available from the ITSO website.

Members

The ITSO member list includes most of the major bus operators, ticket issuing system vendors and passenger transport executives.

ITSO members (and links to their websites) include:

• Ecebs Ltd - Smart card ticketing experts, suppliers of a full suite of ITSO certified products & solutions including, Paragon HOPS, Paragon LITE, Paragon CMS, Paragon Card (CMD2) and the only ITSO supplier certified with a remote ticket download system – Paragon RTD.
• Almex Information Systems - Ticketing System Vendor
• Applied Card Technologies - supplier of ITSO HOPS(AMS) system and integrated Card Management Systems (CMS)
• Arriva - Bus, coach and train Operator
• Association of Train Operating Companies
• ATOS Origin - Ticketing System Vendor
• Burall InfoSmart Ltd - Ticketing Stock Supplier
• West Midlands PTE - Centro
• Calypso Networks Association - Calypso is an electronic ticketing standard which defines the secured dialogue between cards and terminal
• Cubic Transportation Systems - Automated fare collections systems solution provider
• Department for Transport
• Vix ERG - Ticketing systems and automatic fare collection vendor
• First Group - Bus and train operator
• General Information Systems Ltd - Developers and manufacturers of handheld terminals and specialist smartcard readers
• Go-Ahead Group - Bus and train operator
• National Express Group - Bus, coach and train operator
• Nevis Technologies
• Novacroft - Designs, develops and manages innovative end-to-end multi-application citizen cards and multi-modal smart ticketing solutions
• Scheidt & Bachmann GmbH - A global leader in fare collection technology.
• SmartCitizen Ltd - Specialists in Local Authority smartcard solutions
• sQuidcard Ltd - eMoney Payments Network, works as a top-up partner for paid-for transit schemes based on ITSO.
• Stagecoach Group - Bus, coach and train operator
• Transport for Greater Manchester
• Unicard Ltd - Local Authority smartcard solutions

The above is not an exhaustive list. A full list of members can be found here: http://www.itso.org.uk/page55/Home/Members-List

Non-ITSO systems

The largest commercial-based scheme is Transport for London, which is marketing its smartcards as Oyster. Currently, Oyster is not compatible with the ITSO specification. However, the Department for Transport is working with TfL to ensure the readers will also be compatible with the ITSO specification.

External links

• Official ITSO website