Agency launches procurement with ambitions to support account based ticketing in Transport Application Back Office
Scotland’s public transport agency is looking to raise the capabilities of its back office system with the beginning of a procurement process for a contractor.
Transport Scotland has indicated that it is looking for a supplier for a new cloud based Transport Application Back Office (TABO), aimed at support the country’s integrated travel plans.
The demands include the capability to support a range of established functions, taking in the management of concessionary travel schemes, the Bus Service Operators’ Grant, data reporting on e-purse payments and user authentication with an audit trail.
But they extend to the ability to implement new concessionary schemes, better analysis and reporting, processing of commercial journey information and processing e-purse information.
Transport Scotland has also indicated it wants to improve the analysis and reporting capabilities, and handle smart travel information from its existing systems using the ITSO standard for ticketing.
Optional ambition
More ambitiously, it specifies an optional element around account based ticketing, an emerging model in which the travel card provides authentication for a user but the details and fare of the journey are processed in the back office – in effect, moving the ticket from the card to the cloud system.
The approach is still in its developmental phase, but many authorities are pointing to it as the future for smart ticketing in public transport.
The contract with the winning supplier is set to last four years, with the possibility of two extensions of two years each, and be worth in the region of £4.5 million.
Image by Glen Wallace, CC BY 2.0 through flickr
