Smart ticketing needs development says Northern's Alex Hynes

Smart ticketing is a big miss from the new Northern franchise, the current Northern Rail Managing Director Alex Hynes believes.

Speaking at the National Rail Conference on November 5, Hynes called it a “massive barrier” for taking travel in the North: “What’s missing from the ITT ? Smart ticketing - in my view, a big loss of opportunity.

“We already accept smartcards in many of the urban areas across the North - Newcastle, Liverpool, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. But unfortunately, people don’t respect the balance - they want to be able to travel across the borders from a suburb of one city to another city, and they can’t do that today. It is a massive barrier for taking train travel in the north of England." 

• For more on this, read RAIL 788, published on November 25.