Wales ITSO roll-out is enabled by ACT
Applied Card Technologies (ACT) has been chosen by the Welsh Assembly Government to provide a full range of travel products and managed services, for the Wales national concessionary travel programme. ACT is delivering the ACT ITSO HOPS travel transaction processing engine, national Customer Management System (CMS), card production and fulfilment and on going programme management. 2008 is an exciting year for Welsh transport, featuring the roll-out of the all Wales ITSO concessionary travel project. The Welsh Concessionary Travel Pass entitles all those aged 60+ and the disabled to free bus travel across Wales; all existing concessionary bus passes will be replaced by smart cards delivered by ACT and its sub contractor ESP Systex Limited.
The project will enable over 600,000 concessionary travellers and some 2,500 buses across the whole of Wales and in some cases the smart card will be valid for cross border travel into England. For the project to function successfully, the ACT HOPS (AMS) is needed to co-ordinate all transactions from a number of sources including POSTs (Electronic Ticket Machines), Personalisation POSTs and other HOPS (for HOPS to HOPS communication). Integrated with the ACT HOPS is the ACT Customer Management System, which manages customer details and gathers the ITSO transactional information from the ACT HOPS resulting in a comprehensive view of cardholder information, ITSO card details, journey statistics and information such as concessionary fares. The CMS has a wide range of information available, which can be viewed and exploited as key marketing information.
Gary Watts, Director ACT: ‘This is an exciting time for Welsh transport and ACT are delighted to have been chosen as the lead supplier for such a large national project. The transition to ITSO will enable a more flexible transport system, reducing costs, improving efficiency and offering travellers throughout Wales a better, improved and more enjoyable journey. The sophistication of the HOPS and CMS products means that each Wales local authority will be able to manage each individual customer and benefit from having all related journey transactions alongside.’
Jo Scott, for the Welsh Assembly Government: ‘The new Welsh Concessionary Pass programme will give Wales a more effective and efficient transport system, utilising existing networks and encouraging the increased use of public transport for sustainability and health reasons. We very much look forward to working with ACT to roll-out the concessionary programme in 2008 onwards.’
