Manchester’s Nineteenth Century Ticketing
On Wednesday from my hotel by the Reebok Stadium at Horwich Parkway I had to get three tickets to get to Manchester Piccadilly station.
Three Tickets To Ride
The first took me from Horwich Parkway to Farnworth with a change at Bolton.
The second then took me from Farnworth to Manchester Victoria
The third was the tram ticket across the city.
As there were not even any ticket machines at Horwich Parkway and Farnworth, I had to use the Ticket Office.
It’s all so very nineteen-century!
At Farnworth, I got talking to a couple of fellow passengers, who were local and probably over ten years older than I am.
One had just visited his granddaughter in Bromley and said he’d been impressed with using his bank card as a ticket in London.
Mancunians seem to understand London’s simple ticketing concept, so why haven’t the transport authorities embraced contactless ticketing?
It might encourage a few more visitors and commercial activity, if all the great cities of the North allowed contactless ticketing with bank cards.
It will happen, if only because American Express, AndroidPay, ApplePay, Mastercard and Visa will insist it does for their own commercial interests.
The Anonymous Widower 
As discussed elsewhere TfGM is using ITSO for electronic ticketing, but the first contractors made a pig’s ear of it and were sacked. The should aba facility to use bank cards to touch in and out, once the ‘get me there’ system is fully implemented.
Comment by Mark Clayton | March 11, 2016 |
If they don’t allow contactless bank cards it will be a disaster. As the guy said at Farnworth station, it’s the business!
The only thing that it doesn’t do at present, is link your bank card and Railcard.
Comment by AnonW | March 11, 2016 |
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