'We will deliver our obligations on ITSO', a senior Stagecoach insider has told RBI. The SWT franchise agreement is believed to include a commitment to roll out ITSO-compliant smartcards from January 2009. What these 'obligations' actually comprise is not clear. DfT Rail has completely redacted the section headed 'Oyster/ITSO Smart-cards' from the SWT franchise agreement and has also refused to reveal the redacted material to TfL (RB1311 p4). However, it can be inferred from other franchise commitments that the DfT Rail expects ITSO to be available at SWT from January 2009. This correlates with claims by Stagecoach that the ITSO back office for SWT is already 'live', connected to a number of stations fitted with ITSO readers. Testing of the system has started and ITSO certification of the card interface is expected 'within weeks'. SWT is also required to make TfL Oyster pay-as-you-go ticketing available from January 2009, when Network Rail is scheduled to have completed gating London Waterloo. According to an NR spokesman, the new Waterloo gateline as being installed will only have readers for magnetic stripe tickets and Oyster cards. Asked about ITSO capability, the spokesman said that this was a separate issue for DfT Rail. Stagecoach claims that NR is obligated to fit ITSO readers at Waterloo.
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