Manchester plans rail-friendly smartcard

Travellers within Greater Manchester will be able to use smartcards for travelling on buses, trains and trams from next year in a £20m implementation.

From October 2005, the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive (GMPTE) will start offering the smartcards, called 'Readycards', for use on concessionary travel.

Pensioners, students and children will be able to buy the Readycards for trips on any of the 45 different bus operators that operate across the 10 Metropolitan Borough Councils in the Greater Manchester area.

Supplier Prepayment Cards Limited will then roll out the smartcards in a £20m project, to cover trips on trams and trains for all passengers.

"Readycards will make travelling across Manchester much easier, by having one ticket to cover all journeys," said a spokesman for GMPTE.

The Readycard will be based on the ITSO smartcards standard, developed for British public transport, meaning that it will be accepted on the national rail network, unlike the Oyster card in use in London.

Transport for London was forced to press ahead with its own scheme because the ITSO standard was not agreed in time.