Discussion: is Swift PAYG obsolete, or could it be improved?

[the trainbasher]

With the advent of contactless on buses, do you think Swift PAYG is getting obsolete? Or do you think the scheme could be improved?

Compared to its contemporaries, such as the Oyster card in London, Swift PAYG is less useful than contactless. Example of it is on NXWM buses, Swift does not cap, instead a passenger is required to use their PAYG credit in order to travel, whereas NXWM contactless works as a cap, so for 2 journeys at £2.40, a saving is being automatically made.

A flaw that swift has which London's Oyster card is that PAYG is not enabled for rail journeys within the WM region, yet in London, Oyster can work out and deduct fares for rail journeys by tapping on and off. In my opinion, TfWM need to make the ntrain zones work for PAYG, and get all 4 WM rail (and WMM for the Hawthorns to City section) to have a zonal fare policy with common fares on sections they share, and capping to replace paper daytrippers and returns for journeys wholly in the 7 district's.

Plus now, for Metro, you have Swift on Mobile which links in with Google Pay. With contactless on the rise, and most of the population using smartphones, could introducing a flat fare (example £1.30 children, £2.60 adults) on buses across the region and forcing all operators in the WMCA sphere (including those who operate in the "associate members") to adopt a common ticketing solution work to make Swift better integrated across the bus network, or even render it obsolete in favour of mobile ticketing for period passes and contactless payments. This could include daily caps which would replace operator only daysavers/nbus.

Another thing could be added to a daily cap scheme is parking with the 7 district's using car parks as a park and ride site where people tap in at a car park barrier, park up, board a nearby existing bus route which runs anyway to the nearest of the 3 city centres (with the bus+parking fee being capped, and councils free to put more restrictive pro bus TROs in the town/city centres - if PAYG was being used, tapping out to exit the car park?)

What do you think? Could Swift be improved, or could it be rendered obsolete by Contactless and mobile.

[metrocity]

The main issue is the minimum top up is set to £25 which triggers if I recall as soon as your card balance is due to fall under £5. For the occasional traveller, this could mean a large cash balance sitting on the card. Hardly 'Pay as you go'...

[Stu]

Swift PAYG is not quite obsolete yet as there are still operators who accept Swift but don't accept contactless payments.

As far as I am aware, only NX Bus and Diamond currently accept contactless payments, unless the likes of Arriva, Stagecoach and First do as well. I'm pretty sure many other smaller operators don't yet, happy to be corrected by the way.

But I agree that Swift PAYG would be more beneficial (to the likes of me anyway) if it worked more like how the Oyster card does in London.

I think the problem is that in London as its all franchised out and run centrally by TFL its easier for them to collect all the fare revenues and then 'divvy' them out to the various contracted operators. Whereas here in the West Midlands, most of our services are run by private companies who would prefer to collect and retain their own revenues.

Personally I would prefer a situation where I have my current NX Bus Swift card, loaded with my NX Bus direct debit season ticket, which allows me unlimited travel on NX buses, but then be able to also have - on the same card - a PAYG balance for use on other operators services, including tram and train, which would then be capped at the appropriate daily rate, for those odd occasions where I find myself using another operator's bus or making a journey by tram or train.

[j789]

Swift PAYG is not quite obsolete yet as there are still operators who accept Swift but don't accept contactless payments.

As far as I am aware, only NX Bus and Diamond currently accept contactless payments, unless the likes of Arriva, Stagecoach and First do as well. I'm pretty sure many other smaller operators don't yet, happy to be corrected by the way.

We accept contactless on first midlands buses and many people now use it (probably 1/3 of paid fares) We also accept Swift card for all tickets, I had a few passengers recently who bought day tickets to Worcester from Birmingham on it so it is useful.

[Pat]

As far as I am aware, only NX Bus and Diamond currently accept contactless payments, unless the likes of Arriva, Stagecoach and First do as well. I'm pretty sure many other smaller operators don't yet, happy to be corrected by the way.

Arriva do accept contactless as they have recently upgraded to ticketer machines.

I would suggest that Swift could be improved by extending it to cover a larger area e.g being valid on services that start out of the NWM boundary such as the 9 or the 891.

[Westy]

Surprised they haven't sorted out the train part after all this time!

[Ashley 60171]

I have an NX Regio'al Travelcard with Metro add on. But I also have a Swift PAYG card which I use if I haven't yet renewed my Travelcard which for me works fine.

I wouldn't ever touch an M-ticket if you paid me. It's quite a regular occurrence now to see people saying they've got an M-ticket but their phones dead, maybe that's just the pessimist/realist in me.

[markcf83]

I too wouldn't touch them. I prefer to have a paper ticket at all times.

[nathanielrwi]

Not sure how recently this was but concessionary passes now have swift PAYG integrated into the card - is this paving the way for swift season passes to do the same?

[Westy]

Not sure how recently this was but concessionary passes now have swift PAYG integrated into the card - is this paving the way for swift season passes to do the same?

Are these the current passes issued or are new ones being issued?

On behalf of my elderly mother, how do you tell the difference?

[nathanielrwi]

@Westy the TfWM website says:

"All Concessionary Travel Passes now have Swift Pay As You Go (PAYG) included.

This means you can load PAYG credit on to your Travel Pass to pay for journeys when your pass is not valid on the bus and tram, so there's no need to carry the correct change (not currently accepted on trains).

To activate your PAYG you will need to register your Travel Pass and load on some credit."

I assume that only newer passes have PAYG built in and that you'd have to contact TfWM to check if its available?

[Stu]

@Westy the TfWM website says:

"All Concessionary Travel Passes now have Swift Pay As You Go (PAYG) included.

This means you can load PAYG credit on to your Travel Pass to pay for journeys when your pass is not valid on the bus and tram, so there’s no need to carry the correct change (not currently accepted on trains).

To activate your PAYG you will need to register your Travel Pass and load on some credit."

I assume that only newer passes have PAYG built in and that you'd have to contact TfWM to check if its available?

The PAYG will be enabled at a 'system' level. As your quote states "All Concessionary Travel Passes now have Swift Pay As You Go included".

One just needs to register their Travel Pass on the Swift website then credit can be loaded.

https://www.networkwestmidlands.com/swift/swift-for-you/concessionary-payg/

[Kevin]

....
I wouldn't ever touch an M-ticket if you paid me. It's quite a regular occurrence now to see people saying they've got an M-ticket but their phones dead, maybe that's just the pessimist/realist in me.

Do drivers not challenge that?

[John]

Do drivers not challenge that?

I don't. I'm not paid to inspect tickets. I'm not having a bad day having an argument with some people we carry, getting sworn or spat at

[2206]

Do drivers not challenge that?

Most don't challenge anything these days.
On 4491 this evening the driver let a group of men just walk straight on without showing a ticket of any form, without challenging it. Seen it happen a number of times now. They got on at the City Centre stop travelling to the Sladefield Road stop on the Washwood Heath Road. There seems to be quite a few faredogers who use this stop at Sladefield Road.