A Dublin based company has been chosen to provide ticketing equipment to private bus operators who intend to participate in the integrated ticketing transport scheme.
Mapflow Limited has been selected by the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) to supply the equipment for the scheme which will allow commuters to pay for Dublin Bus, Luas, Irish Rail, Bus Éireann and privately operated services with a re-usable smart card.
The RPA has said that, ultimately, all licensed mass public transport providers in Dublin will be able to use the integrated ticketing system, which will provide Dubliners with a new, flexible way of paying for travel which is similar to the Oyster card employed by Transport for London.
Testing of the long anticipated service is expected to get underway in Dublin in the near future. The RPA said commuters with annual tickets for either Dublin Bus or Luas will be invited to take part in pilot project this summer.
If the project goes well numbers will be expanded and testing will then move on to the pay-as-you-go cards after the summer.
Early next year Irish Rail systems will be integrated and the infrastructure will gradually be rolled out to non-State-owned bus companies.
The system is designed to handle transactions worth hundreds of millions of euro per year, scanning prepaid smart card tickets with "proximity" readers similar to those currently in use for Luas smart cards, and passing on the money to the relevant transport company.
The two main elements of technology are the scanners, the technology for which the RPA is sourcing from Germany, and the "back office" computers which apportion the money. Back-office technology is being provided by IBM.
