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Smartcard swipe-out
• MARTIN Kennedy may like to know that Westminster City Council’s One Card City project was a smartcard concept, to put parking payments on Transport for London’s Oyster card, and other services – ResCard, youth card, library card (The best way to end park strife, December 21).
Smart Citizen was appointed to develop the system further, but the original business case/plan, which was due to go to cabinet in March 2006 for approval, apparently, despite all the early development work, had significantly under-estimated the cost of adapting the parking machines for the Oyster platform (I took that to be the contactless “swipe” readers and associated hardware/ firmware/software).
It was estimated to cost around £1 million to set up, and £160,000 to run, and even if all the various other card systems/
services were put on the same platform, savings would be only around £50,000 a year. To break even on the project by selling the card, it was estimated that it would be necessary to sell it to 400,000 people.
Sir Simon Milton said they felt this was never going to be delivered so the plug was pulled on the project, since even the long-term savings that had been identified were not going to arise.
It seems shortsighted – particularly if congestion charge payments could also have been included, and other options like credit/debit functions. It may though have been a more likely prospect for a commercial developer to take on the risk.
DOMINIC PINTO
Bedfordbury, WC2 |
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