NEW ticket machines will be introduced on the Tyne and Wear Metro today allowing customers to pay for travel using notes and bank cards for the first time.
Metro operator Nexus is launching the machines at Palmersville station in North Tyneside with a total of 225 planned to be up and running within a year.
The machines are an integral part of a £25m project to overhaul the network’s ticketing system. All 60 stations will get the new technology.
A smartcard system is planned for the entire network and 13 of the busiest stations will get ticket barriers.
Replacing the 30-year old machines currently used by passengers, the new machines will be touch screen and can be used to buy weekly tickets. The information screens are designed to help tourists visiting the region and will display in six different languages.
Director general of Nexus, Bernard Garner, said: “The new Metro ticket machines deliver the sort of quality passengers should expect from a modern transport system. They will transform the way people use Metro.
“The main benefit is the new machines accept credit and debit card payments and bank notes. The old ticket machines didn’t and this has been a source of frustration for Metro users.
“We are now in the process of installing the new ticket machines at our Metro stations. The new machines are vastly different to the current models and we will have staff at stations to assist people in getting used to them.”
Coun David Wood, chair of the Tyne and Wear Integrated Transport Authority said he was “pleased as punch” the new ticketing machines were being rolled out.
He said: “It’s what people have been asking for for a long time. We’ve been using 1970s technology 40 years on. This is the prelude to the smartcards being introduced and people are more and more used to using various methods of payment. I’m just pleased we’re offering easier travel on public transport.”
Passengers using the Metro’s new Pop cards can use the system and Metro bosses have said the Pop system will develop into a full top-up and travel system, akin to the Oyster card system used by Transport for London, next year.
The new ticket machines are also set up to accept credit and debit card payments via payWave, a method of card payment that involves simply touching a credit or debit card against a sensor.
Passengers can look forward to using this feature in the future.
More than 120 staff who work for DB Regio, which operates Metro stations and trains on behalf of Nexus, have been trained to help passengers use the new machines as more of them are installed at stations across the network.
Nexus has also printed a guide to using the new ticket machines which is available from Nexus travel shops and there is an online tutorial on the Nexus website at www.nexus.org.uk/metro
