West Midlands and Greater Manchester To Benefit From Pay-As-You-Go Smart Cards

75 Stations in the West Midlands (Including 5 under construction) and 17 Stations in Greater Manchester are to be equipped with tap-in and tap-out payment options. These will “Best Fare” capping and is due to start in 2025. The scheme was announced on February 1st by Rail Minister Huw Merriman and will provide greater local decision-making on ticketing, services and stations.

West Midlands

75 stations across the TfWM (Transport for West Midlands) area are set to benefit from the existing Swift smart card system, which currently only covers local buses in the West Midlands. Mayor of the West Midlands Andy Street has said that this will allow passengers to “transfer seamlessly between our various local bus operators and tram services whilst guaranteeing they get best value fares.” He has also said that adding rail to the Swift card’s offering will bring it much closer to London’s Oyster card system. TfWM is also working with Midland Connect (A transport project promotional body) for a contactless payment system which would allow fare capping with contactless bank cards across the West Midlands’ buses, trams and soon trains.

Greater Manchester

17 Stations in Greater Manchester would be covered in the Swift card’s expansion. These would include the line from Manchester Victoria to Stalybridge and the Glossop Line from Manchester Piccadilly to Glossop. Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, has said “We are transforming how people travel in Greater Manchester, with the aim for people to pay for journeys easily and seamlessly across buses, trams, trains and cycle hire.” He went on to say that he was looking forward to “progressing with these new contactless rail pilots.” Andy later mentioned that this would allow them to integrate local rail services across the city-region into the existing Bee Network by 2030.