ITSO is a non-profit membership organisation which maintains and develops the ITSO specification. The specification is an open one which is Crown copyrighted and available to all with the aim of allowing interoperable ticketing between transport operators in the UK.
ITSO Limited operates and manages an interoperable smart media environment, and facilitates and supports development of interoperable smart ticketing schemes that comply with the ITSO specification.
ITSO was established as a result of discussions between various UK passenger transport authorities concerning the lack of standards for interoperable smartcard ticketing. These discussions grew to include other authorities, transport operators and government.
Today ITSO membership covers the breadth of the transport arena including transport operators (both bus and train operating companies), suppliers to the industry, local authorities and public transport executives.
The Department for Transport rolled out Concessionary Bus Travel Scheme which uses ITSO smartcards. Transport Scotland and the Welsh Government have implemented ITSO in their concessionary travel schemes. Many regions of England either currently use the Specification to support concessionary and commercial public transport schemes or have plans to do so within the next few years.
ITSO Limited is funded by its members, which include transport operators and affiliated bodies, as well as local, regional and national government organisations.
The Integrated Transport Smartcard Organisation has been dropped and ITSO is now just ITSO. That is because the specification covers other forms of ticketing besides smartcards and transport.
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The ITSO specification is a technical platform on which interoperable smart ticketing schemes can be built. It defines the key technical items and interfaces that are required to deliver interoperability between the components of a ticketing system – smart media (usually smartcards), points of service (bus or rail ticket machines) and back office data processing systems. ITSO is unique in transport smartcard specifications in that it covers all required components.
The ITSO specification is Crown copyright and is available from the ITSO website.
The ITSO member list includes most of the major bus operators, ticket issuing system vendors and passenger transport executives.
ITSO members (and links to their websites) include:
The above is not an exhaustive list. A full list of members can be found here: http://www.itso.org.uk/page55/Home/Members-List
The largest commercial-based scheme is Transport for London, which is marketing its smartcards as Oyster. Currently, Oyster is not compatible with the ITSO specification. However, the Department for Transport is working with TfL to ensure the readers will also be compatible with the ITSO specification.