SWR’s Touch Smartcard

RAIL 862 provided some detail on South Western Railway’s new Touch Smartcard, which is a highly imaginative attempt to reduce fares for frequent travellers who might not benefit from a season.

You can buy a carnet of ten identical Anytime Day Returns (ADR) at a 5% discount, each expiring after two months, so suitable for those travelling one or two days a week.

If you travel from Woking to Waterloo, for example, one ADR is £21.70. A weekly season is £81.20, so you need to make four journeys to break even. But using the carnet, even three journeys would only cost £61.85.

However, you would have to be careful for longer journeys. For example, Winchester to Waterloo is £70.70 ADR but a Weekly is only £128.20. A carnet would offer each for £67.17, so even with only two journeys a week a season is cheaper.

You’d save with one journey a week, but you have to use all ten in two months. Care is needed, but it’s still a good offer. Interestingly, each day offers unlimited travel between the points - like a season.

The other thing the Smartcard offers is 11 consecutive Monthly seasons on auto-renewal with the 12th month free. If a Weekly is £100, a Monthly is £384 and an Annual £4,000. That ratio is fixed for any journey, short or long.

With the carnet you’d pay 11 lots of £384 (£4,224) and so pay 5.6% more than an annual. Clearly in this case the attraction will be not having to pay the £4,000 in advance, but as well as paying 5.6% extra you lose out on the benefits of an annual being a Gold Card.

Other possible downsides are that it may only be used on SWR services, and it’s only available for Standard Class travel. It all needs to be thought through carefully, but nevertheless this does offer some attractive options.