Travel on certain public transport operators across Nottingham has now become a lot simpler with the introduction of “Nottingham Contactless”, said to be the first Oyster-style contactless ticketing system in the country outside London. There is a catch though, it is only valid for travel on Nottingham Express Transit, Nottingham City Transport buses and Linkbuses operated by CT4N.
Nottingham City Council successfully bid for £2.7 million from the DfT’s National Productivity Fund and Transforming Cities Programme to develop the technology which means passengers will be capped at £5.60 for travel during any one day. It can also be used to pay for single tickets.
The system was launched on individual operators last year and since then there have been three million taps registered. With this multi-operator rollout it is hoped more people will be encouraged to travel more easily and flexibly without worrying about how much they will be charged or deciding what ticket they need in advance.
Cllr Rosemary Healy, Nottingham City Council’s portfolio holder for Local Transport, said: “We have been working towards a multi-operator contactless and capped payment option for a number of years now, to make using our wonderful public transport network as simple and stress-free as possible. It’s something we may have experienced in other great cities and I’m really pleased we are now offering it to people visiting, living and working in Nottingham. The new system will always give the best value for passengers, providing an extra reason for even more people to choose our award-winning green public transport services. This in turn helps Nottingham continue to grow sustainably.”
The system has been developed by INIT who have a UK office in Nottingham. It is hoped that the system will be able to be rolled out to more operators in the future with the City Council working alongside the DfT and regional partners including Transport for West Midlands and Midlands Connect to integrate all operators including trentbarton and train operating companies.