Swift Card

[Stu]

It's only Nbus isn't it

See the link!

Other tickets available on Swift

If you don't need to travel all over the West Midlands, as the nbus ticket allows, the National Express Regional Travelcard offers you unlimited travel on National Express West Midlands and Coventry buses and the Black Country and Coventry Faresavers also offer unlimited travel in these areas.

[CL]

[PM]

Don't buy the whole enthusiasm for it I'm afraid. It's taken too long to develop and is already outdated, contactless bank payment is where things are headed for which this technology still can't do. It will even soon be illegal for shops not to accept contactless payment, why didn't Centro incorporate it when it's been on the cards for a while now? Instead of the hassle of hunting for change, you now have the hassle of managing an online account, buying a product, activating a product as opposed to jumping on the bus and just buying your ticket. I fail to see how it makes things easier, unless you occasionally use the bus, top Swift up and then use the cheaper on bus fares on it. M Tickets should be the stop gap prior to contactless, then contactless payment with automatic caps, why do you need to put credit on and then buy products? It should all be completely automated, technology price matches to the best deal for you.

Several options for day travel it should be able to do:

Jump on Diamond 4H to go to Walsall from West Brom, charges standard single to card.

Then you jump on another Diamond 4H to return to West Brom, becomes a £2.50 day return.

You then decide to call it a day, you've spent £2.50.

Another day you get the 002 to Halesowen, 4H to Walsall, then 40 to Wednesbury, all with Diamond, goes to the £3.60 Diamond day ticket cap. Adding a NX bus it would convert it automatically to an nBus.

You get the idea, it would then look at weekly or monthly usage and cap fares accordingly. Say if person was doing an nBus day it would cap at an nBus week price, Diamond day caps at Diamond week. Then converts to month pass when the cap of that price is hit.

This is what Swift should be able to do, no way should people have to buy and load products onto it, you don't with Oyster, completely outdated! I don't buy the argument about needing to track train usage either, if they're really committed to it, install barriers at every station, make them Swift compliant, people touch in and out at the end of a journey, must be their longer term plan.

[WB]

I had a school boy use a pay as you go card on my number 5 service weeks ago!! He held the card on the scanned and it came up in the bottom left corner of my wayfarer that he had £10 on the card. He asked for a child 95p and i pressed the button it gave him a ticket and showed me that his balance had changed to £9.05. Dead easy system!!

[PM]

I had a school boy use a pay as you go card on my number 5 service weeks ago!! He held the card on the scanned and it came up in the bottom left corner of my wayfarer that he had £10 on the card. He asked for a child 95p and i pressed the button it gave him a ticket and showed me that his balance had changed to £9.05. Dead easy system!!

It's great for pay as you go don't get me wrong, assuming it's not slowing boarding time which it shouldn't be. The issue I see is had the boy you mentioned done another 3 journeys, his daily spend would have exceeded the cost of a daysaver!

[T840MAK]

It's great for pay as you go don't get me wrong, assuming it's not slowing boarding time which it shouldn't be. The issue I see is had the boy you mentioned done another 3 journeys, his daily spend would have exceeded the cost of a daysaver!

Whilst it might exceed the cost of a daysaver, what's not to say he would have got on with money, paid 95p, and if he had then done another 3 journeys, surely he'd still be over the cost of it? With that logic, it's the same as paying money to the driver, except it's on a card and the money is taken off automatically. Same concept, just doesn't involve any transfer of money between passenger and driver. Can't see why you're complaining about it on that front.

[Tony]

Whilst it might exceed the cost of a daysaver, what's not to say he would have got on with money, paid 95p, and if he had then done another 3 journeys, surely he'd still be over the cost of it? With that logic, it's the same as paying money to the driver, except it's on a card and the money is taken off automatically. Same concept, just doesn't involve any transfer of money between passenger and driver. Can't see why you're complaining about it on that front.

Because if he was making three more journeys he presumably would have placed his card on the scanner and asked for a daysaver which the machine can do just as easily. It would make sense to put a cap on, but the only people disadvantaged by no cap are those who don't know how many journeys they are going to take

[Steveminor]

But that's only the same as a cash system. The number of people that catch our 71 pay £1.50 then catch it home & pay £1.50 again instead of buying a return for £2.50.
The card is only supposed to take away the hassle of finding change not to start thinking for people.
Too much automation & too many devices that people use to rely on is not a good thing.
Let people make their own mind up what fare they want to pay don't take over.

[T840MAK]

Because if he was making three more journeys he presumably would have placed his card on the scanner and asked for a daysaver which the machine can do just as easily. It would make sense to put a cap on, but the only people disadvantaged by no cap are those who don't know how many journeys they are going to take

Glad its not just me that's thinking about it in that way then Tony.

[Stu]

I had a school boy use a pay as you go card on my number 5 service weeks ago!! He held the card on the scanned and it came up in the bottom left corner of my wayfarer that he had £10 on the card. He asked for a child 95p and i pressed the button it gave him a ticket and showed me that his balance had changed to £9.05. Dead easy system!!

I didn't know NX had started accepting pay-as-you-go SWIFT yet?

But that's only the same as a cash system. The number of people that catch our 71 pay £1.50 then catch it home & pay £1.50 again instead of buying a return for £2.50.
The card is only supposed to take away the hassle of finding change not to start thinking for people.
Too much automation & too many devices that people use to rely on is not a good thing.
Let people make their own mind up what fare they want to pay don't take over.

I will slightly disagree with you there; one of the reasons I love travelling round London when I go down is that I don't have to think about the myriad of ticket options available, the Oyster system does it for me. As long as I've got enough credit on my PAYG card, I just touch and go! I suppose it helps down there that there is one flat fare for using buses (£1.50 per single journey), but then the system will max out at the equivalent day bus ticket rate (£4.40).

Then again, I suppose the disadvantage here is that we have multiple operators, who all want to maximise their revenue streams through cash payments, rather than periodic disbursements from Centro. But ultimately the system (smartcards) has to work in a way that benefits passengers the most, as that will be the only way to encourage more people to use public transport, and thus attract more passengers onto other operators services, and admittedly get people like myself, who has a direct debit NX pass and thus only ever uses NX buses, to use other operators.

[busfan2847]

I will slightly disagree with you there; one of the reasons I love travelling round London when I go down is that I don't have to think about the myriad of ticket options available, the Oyster system does it for me. As long as I've got enough credit on my PAYG card, I just touch and go! I suppose it helps down there that there is one flat fare for using buses (£1.50 per single journey), but then the system will max out at the equivalent day bus ticket rate (£4.40).

Then again, I suppose the disadvantage here is that we have multiple operators, who all want to maximise their revenue streams through cash payments, rather than periodic disbursements from Centro. But ultimately the system (smartcards) has to work in a way that benefits passengers the most, as that will be the only way to encourage more people to use public transport, and thus attract more passengers onto other operators services, and admittedly get people like myself, who has a direct debit NX pass and thus only ever uses NX buses, to use other operators.

And even better if you use the underground or surface trains as well it maxes out at the appropriate zone day rate.

[PM]

I didn't know NX had started accepting pay-as-you-go SWIFT yet?

I will slightly disagree with you there; one of the reasons I love travelling round London when I go down is that I don't have to think about the myriad of ticket options available, the Oyster system does it for me. As long as I've got enough credit on my PAYG card, I just touch and go! I suppose it helps down there that there is one flat fare for using buses (£1.50 per single journey), but then the system will max out at the equivalent day bus ticket rate (£4.40).

Then again, I suppose the disadvantage here is that we have multiple operators, who all want to maximise their revenue streams through cash payments, rather than periodic disbursements from Centro. But ultimately the system (smartcards) has to work in a way that benefits passengers the most, as that will be the only way to encourage more people to use public transport, and thus attract more passengers onto other operators services, and admittedly get people like myself, who has a direct debit NX pass and thus only ever uses NX buses, to use other operators.

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks automatic capping is kind of essential for it to work and attract people to pay in this way. Tempted to get one myself though, being only back in the WM for distinct periods of time it might be useful if I can't commit to month passes/direct debits etc.

[Kevin]

I can see both sides of it, but look at this scenario:
- A few years down the line and card payments are the norm, maybe even as far as no cash payments on board as per London
- You are an outsider who is used to the idea of the Oyster card and the daily spending cap, coming to Birmingham to see some of the sights for a couple of days (I know that prospect sounds ludicrous...) and buy yourself a pay as you go Swift card, put a tenner on it thinking "that'll be plenty enough for the one day's travelling round, hell a daysaver is apparently £4.20, bargain"
- You use a few buses to get out of the city centre and back to some of the spots you wanted to visit, go to catch a 5th bus and BAM you've used up all of that money already and you can't use the card

[Niall]

Quick question: when cards fail to be recognised on the scanner, how is a driver to know whether it's a genuine problem with the card or a fare dodger trying to get away with "it won't scan driver!"? I'd imagine there's not a lot you can do, and I expect the company won't want to refuse travel to customers who have already paid for season tickets because of technology problems.

On Monday my NX regional pass came up with a red light and said something along the lines of PLEASE ASK DRIVER. It worked fine on all other buses I used that day. Then today my nbus wouldn't scan at all on my way home. Again, it worked ok this morning. I've been using swift for a few months now, and haven't had any problems with it since the first few weeks.

[MW]

Quick question: when cards fail to be recognised on the scanner, how is a driver to know whether it's a genuine problem with the card or a fare dodger trying to get away with "it won't scan driver!"? I'd imagine there's not a lot you can do, and I expect the company won't want to refuse travel to customers who have already paid for season tickets because of technology problems.

On Monday my NX regional pass came up with a red light and said something along the lines of PLEASE ASK DRIVER. It worked fine on all other buses I used that day. Then today my nbus wouldn't scan at all on my way home. Again, it worked ok this morning. I've been using swift for a few months now, and haven't had any problems with it since the first few weeks.

In that scenario, I press the unread pass button. I think that button is for OAP/Disabled passes, but I don't know what else I'd do.