A new smart card that will provide easier, cheaper journeys to passengers in the north east was launched (2 November 2015) by Transport Minister Andrew Jones.
The Pop Pay As You Go card is the first of its kind outside London offering a daily price cap and will allow seamless travel across local bus services and the Tyne and Wear Metro.
Transport Minister Andrew Jones said:
The Pop Pay as you go card is a great initiative that will ensure passengers across the north east can enjoy seamless journeys and save money on their local bus and Metro services.
The government is fully committed to improving the ticketing experience for all passengers. That is why we’ve invested £2.2 million in smart ticketing technology in the north east and are providing continued support through the £12 million Smart Cities Partnership scheme.
Congratulations to the Nexus team for launching the first capped pay as you go ticketing outside London.
Andrew Jones visited Newcastle to meet the Nexus team responsible for delivering the Pop card scheme and to see how passengers will be able to book tickets online before they are automatically loaded onto their card as they pass through the station the next day.
Customers touching in and out at Metro ticketing gates will automatically be charged the best fare while customers on Metro also benefit from a ‘last journey’ guarantee – allowing them to travel even if the journey takes them into a negative balance, provided that they later top up the card.
Both the development of Smart Ticketing on Metro and its sister project, The North East Smart Ticketing Initiative (NESTI), have been supported by the Department for Transport’s Smart and Integrated Ticketing team.
More than 39 million people used the Metro system in the last year, the largest smart region outside of London.
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