Smartcard systems and integrated ticketing

Summary

Providing customers with a user-friendly fare structure and clear ticketing tools can help to boost the attractiveness of public transportation.

Implementing sustainable mobility

Integrating the various modes of public transportation operating in the different areas of Lille Metropole required the complete reworking of the existing fare strategies.

Combined with the creation of new intermodal interchanges, the aim was to promote public transport solutions and increase the use of public transport in Lille Metropole.

Measure implementation was based on excellent cooperation between the Lille Metropole authorities, the regional authorities and the transport operators.

Progress

The measure was designed to be implemented in three phases:

• the creation of a pricing scheme for all public transport modes through cooperation between all the public transport operators in Lille Metropole;
• the introduction of integrated ticketing for journeys using several modes of public transport; and
• the introduction of a smartcard system for Lille Metropole based on experience in Stockholm.

By the end of the CIVITAS TRENDSETTER project, an implementation study, partly based on Stockholm’s experience, had been carried out to define all the technical, legal and financial specifications for smartcard implementation in Lille Metropole.

The new fares were applied by the public transport operator Transpole in September 2004. In order to facilitate the integration of train fares into the new system, the cut-off age for the new young person’s tariff was raised from 24 to 25 years, to correspond with the tariff system of the railway operator SNCF.

Outcomes

In implementing this measure, cooperation among the various actors was just as important as the purely technical aspects of the project. The implementation study for the smartcard system in Lille Metropole was completed.

The success of the measure can be assessed according to the modal share of public transportation, which rose from 7.5 percent in 1998 to 9.2 percent in 2003.

This fact sheet has been updated by a third party on the basis of available information (not by the city itself), therefore we do not guarantee any data with respect to their content, completeness or up-to-dateness.