The thinking behind the new national Saltire Card builds on a smartcard pioneered in Dundee in 2006, and a small team based in the city is now rolling it out across the country.
Not only has the cosmetic design of the card been spearheaded by Dundee City Council’s Pete Bonar, but the technology of Scotland’s equivalent of London’s Oyster Travel Card was first bandied about in the city as early as 2002.
Brenda Robb, National Entitlement Card (NEC) programme manager, and her team of six first developed a smartcard for concessionary travel for the elderly and some disabled people in 2006 and for young people in Scotland the year after.
But now the new Saltire Card will enable all citizens to pay for train, bus, ferry, subway and tram trips.
While the transport system is impressive in itself, the NEC team has also developed the technology to add other services to the card, making for a lighter wallet and fewer user cards an option that could ultimately be rolled out across the whole country.
”It’s very exciting,” Brenda said. ”We are a small team but we are all so passionate about what we do.”
In Dundee cards are not just being used for transport but services as diverse as library borrowing, staff access and cashless catering in schools.
Brenda said: ”The way the scheme works the cards are multi-application. We don’t just issue it for one purpose.
”Dundee is the lead for all councils.
”We link it to work for other things such as leisure and library.
”It’s one point of contact and the benefit for the customer is they only have to carry one card.”
The possibility is now in place for all 32 councils to attach services to their card.
Brenda’s team is open to suggestions on how else the card can be used.
She said: ”You have to be very open-minded with this.
”We never rule things out right away. If councils approach us saying ‘we would like to use the card for a particular service’ we say would this be something we would want to drive forward with a national card?”
The City Square team offers support as the councils process card applications, look into developing technology and investigate what applications can be implemented.
Ken Guild, leader of Dundee City Council, said: ”I am delighted that the hard work and dedication that has been shown by staff over Dundee City Council has been recognised by the Depute First Minister’s adoption of the Smartcard design, ethos and technology for the whole of Scotland.
”All 31 other councils are using the card that has been pioneered in Dundee and they now have the option to expand the number of services that can be delivered through the card from concessionary bus travel to cashless catering in schools.”