Swift Card

[Stuharris 6360]

Interesting to hear in the BBC report that NXWM expect to introduce the use of the Swift Pay-as-you-go card on their vehicles in the spring. I just hope they achieve it.

It will be interesting how they work the Pay As You Go card, will it be usable for people who make numerous journeys a day (like bus enthusiasts) or will it work out cheaper to buy a Daysaver, NBus, or Daytripper. Hopefully there will be price capping introduced whereby it will make it cheaper to use Swift, like Oyster in London!

I would hope there will be price caps e.g. no more than £8.10 spent in one day (the cost of an nNetwork ticket), no more than £4.60 if you only go on buses, no more than £4.20 if you only use NX buses, etc..

I wonder if there would be weekly/monthly price caps equating to the various travelcard prices, or if travelcards would need to be pre-purchased and pre-loaded onto the card

I think if they are going to get this to work, they need to offer some incentive to get and use a card, as London have with Oyster!

[Stu]

I would hope there will be price caps e.g. no more than £8.10 spent in one day (the cost of an nNetwork ticket), no more than £4.60 if you only go on buses, no more than £4.20 if you only use NX buses, etc..

I wonder if there would be weekly/monthly price caps equating to the various travelcard prices, or if travelcards would need to be pre-purchased and pre-loaded onto the card

In London, pay-as-you-go Oyster cards only have a daily cap. You can load on weekly or monthly travelcards (season tickets), but I think you'd need to buy a registered Oyster card to do so first. (I have a pay-as-you-go Oyster card for when I'm in London, but I don't think I can add season tickets to it, I may be wrong though)

As I've said before, I'd just like to be able to have one SWIFT card, that I can load on my direct debit NX Faresaver ticket for unlimited travel on NX buses, but then be able to load on credit for pay-as-you-go travel on other operators buses.

I'm convinced that once NX are fully on-board (excuse the pun) with SWIFT, then it will really start to take off.

The other more interesting facet to smartcards, is operators are able to gain more realistic data with regards to passenger journey habits and movements. No personal data needs to be involved, but operators gain a vast database of passenger movements, in order to better plan future network changes, depending on how passengers use services.

[Stuharris 6360]

I would hope there will be price caps e.g. no more than £8.10 spent in one day (the cost of an nNetwork ticket), no more than £4.60 if you only go on buses, no more than £4.20 if you only use NX buses, etc..

I wonder if there would be weekly/monthly price caps equating to the various travelcard prices, or if travelcards would need to be pre-purchased and pre-loaded onto the card

In London, pay-as-you-go Oyster cards only have a daily cap. You can load on weekly or monthly travelcards (season tickets), but I think you'd need to buy a registered Oyster card to do so first. (I have a pay-as-you-go Oyster card for when I'm in London, but I don't think I can add season tickets to it, I may be wrong though)

As I've said before, I'd just like to be able to have one SWIFT card, that I can load on my direct debit NX Faresaver ticket for unlimited travel on NX buses, but then be able to load on credit for pay-as-you-go travel on other operators buses.

I'm convinced that once NX are fully on-board (excuse the pun) with SWIFT, then it will really start to take off.

The other more interesting facet to smartcards, is operators are able to gain more realistic data with regards to passenger journey habits and movements. No personal data needs to be involved, but operators gain a vast database of passenger movements, in order to better plan future network changes, depending on how passengers use services.

In London, the tube get a very good picture of what peoples travel habits are thanks to Oyster and so do DLR, however on buses as you only swipe when you get on the bus, it only shows where people are travelling from. Without getting people to swipe out when they get off the bus, a very difficult if nigh on impossible thing to achieve, smartcards will never get better bus information!

[notepanel]

I would hope there will be price caps e.g. no more than £8.10 spent in one day (the cost of an nNetwork ticket), no more than £4.60 if you only go on buses, no more than £4.20 if you only use NX buses, etc..

I wonder if there would be weekly/monthly price caps equating to the various travelcard prices, or if travelcards would need to be pre-purchased and pre-loaded onto the card

In London, pay-as-you-go Oyster cards only have a daily cap. You can load on weekly or monthly travelcards (season tickets), but I think you'd need to buy a registered Oyster card to do so first. (I have a pay-as-you-go Oyster card for when I'm in London, but I don't think I can add season tickets to it, I may be wrong though)

As I've said before, I'd just like to be able to have one SWIFT card, that I can load on my direct debit NX Faresaver ticket for unlimited travel on NX buses, but then be able to load on credit for pay-as-you-go travel on other operators buses.

I'm convinced that once NX are fully on-board (excuse the pun) with SWIFT, then it will really start to take off.

The other more interesting facet to smartcards, is operators are able to gain more realistic data with regards to passenger journey habits and movements. No personal data needs to be involved, but operators gain a vast database of passenger movements, in order to better plan future network changes, depending on how passengers use services.

In London, the tube get a very good picture of what peoples travel habits are thanks to Oyster and so do DLR, however on buses as you only swipe when you get on the bus, it only shows where people are travelling from. Without getting people to swipe out when they get off the bus, a very difficult if nigh on impossible thing to achieve, smartcards will never get better bus information!

Maybe not on a single journey, but what I'd imagine the data would show is the connections customers are making from one bus to another - which ultimately could lead to revised/better suited routes in the future.

For example, if the data showed lots of customers connecting from the 957 onto the 900 at Sheldon - it would suggest a route between Solihull - Coventry via Old Lode Lane, the Airport & Coventry may be beneficial, as a number of residents in that area appear to use the link. Further analysis may be able to show that a large number of those connections board the bus at Land Rover on journeys out of Solihull, and Meriden on journeys into Birmingham - potentially suggesting a large number of Meriden residents use the bus to get to work at Land Rover.

Knowing that Meriden is an area with a number of Landrover employees, NXWM may then decide to introduce a Meriden - Land Rover works service, which not only would the current travellers be more likely to use, but would also be more attractive to other Meriden residents who work at Land Rover.

Other potential examples could include if a large number of Stowlawn residents were connecting at Bilston onto the 39/79, it would suggest that estate may be better served by a bus route to Wolverhampton rather than Walsall for instance.

[CL]

Watch from 10:20
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04vcdn9/midlands-today-02012015
Last Chance to View, before tomorrow

[Tony]

Swift 'Pay as you go' goes live on NX Coventry in June

[the trainbasher]

Swift 'Pay as you go' goes live on NX Coventry in June

Any idea when the main NXWM will go live with it?

I suppose once NXWM go live, all the other ops that don't do it will follow

[Tony]

Any idea when the main NXWM will go live with it?

I suppose once NXWM go live, all the other ops that don't do it will follow

This is the quote from the MD's business brief

We will shortly be introducing the next smartcard development - pay as you go. For the first time passengers will be able to hold their smartcard on the scanner and ask for any ticket that they could normally buy with cash............ Initially this will be piloted in Coventry, with all Coventry routes available in June. Taking learnings and feedback from Coventry we will then plan the roll out across the rest of the West Midlands. This is an exciting new product which customers should like.

[Stu]

What products are already available on Swift? (and accepted on NXWM buses)

NXWM currently accept their own eDaysavers, and 4 week Faresavers on SWIFT, as well as the nBus products.

[JPC]

From Monday 15 June Centro are sending out new PAYG cards to existing users and adding a range of day tickets on to the PAYG system, users will have to ask for the ticket they want to buy and it will be issued on a paper ticket.  If you ask me a backward step on the existing automated touch and go 'Swift' system, fair enough users may wish to use Swift credit for buying day tickets but I do hope in the future users can choose to set their PAYG card to run as automated single-user incremental purchasing with capping to the relevant day ticket price in the style of oyster card once all operators are 'on board'.

[MrBevan2000]

Hi guys. I was chatting to a driver yesterday who told me the Network West Midlands Season Tickets (1 Week Nbus etc) were changing to Swift Card from the 27th. Can anyone confirm?

[Bryan]

I was reading through the Swift website and noticed the following which surprised me:

How do I care for my card?

.................... Do not keep your Swift card in the same wallet as other credit, debit or reward cards as it will not work if placed on the reader with other cards in your wallet.

A couple of weeks ago I had been about to put my credit card in the plastic wallet supplied and I'm now glad I didn't.

[domino.99]

Any news on PAYG on NXWM buses, Child NBus or normal NX travelcards for swift?

[Stu]

Any news on PAYG on NXWM buses, Child NBus or normal NX travelcards for swift?

NX 1 and 4 week Faresavers have been available on SWIFT for a while now  (just not the monthly Direct Debit cards)
http://www.swiftcard.org.uk/more-information/season-tickets.aspx

[domino.99]

NX 1 and 4 week Faresavers have been available on SWIFT for a while now  (just not the monthly Direct Debit cards)
http://www.swiftcard.org.uk/more-information/season-tickets.aspx

It's only Nbus isn't it