In message , at 13:43:53 on
Sat, 19 Dec 2015, Paul Corfield remarked:

Roger Ford tweeted this week that the South East Flexible Ticketing
project appears to be "binned" by the DfT.

So my calling it vapourware all those years wasn't completely off the
mark?

I still think smart ticketing will be delivered via the TOCs
themselves so it won't be vapourware in the sense I think you mean it.
If you are not trying to create a regional product structure spanning
several TOCs and removing boundary issues why do you need an
overarching project structure / team? I've never been convinced,
given the sparse level of info, that the DfT envisaged a South East
region set of tickets / pricing that was enabled in a consistent
manner across the SE area.

I'd be happy with one ITSO card being able to host smart tickets from
TSGN, C2C, AGA and FGW (and anyone else I've forgotten[1]), and then for
the gates to be able to check that whoever issued/priced the ticket I've
pre-bought, it's valid on any such journey I would want to make. PAYG
over such a wide area is probably beyond their wit at the moment.

[1] LM probably; each National Rail TOC appears committed to having
interoperability with TfL travelcard seasons, but I'm not clear if
they have ambitions to interoperate with TfL day travelcards.
--
Roland Perry