So what happened to citizens' cards?

Citizens' cards - the original plan
The concept of deploying multiapplication cards to people living or working in a conurbation is not new. Socalled City Cards were tried out in France from the early 1990s, and British local authorities started to consider their use shortly afterwards. Citizens' cards, as they were entitled here, were believed to offer a number of advantages, from the destigmatisation of those receiving state handouts, particularly for free school meals and free access to leisure outlets, to the convenience of combining other functions in a single card, including library and leisure centre memberships, proof-ofage, concessionary travel entitlements, epayments, and even third-party commercial applications for revenue generation and to make possession and frequent use of the cards more attractive. Later on, with government encouragement and financial support, a number of pilots were conducted.{mosimage}

English national specifications were then developed, in order to bring cohesion and standardization to the process of
scheme planning and implementation. The main barriers encountered by those LAs electing to mount such schemes were their perceived lack of longer-term financial sustainability, and perhaps a lack of realization of the impact of their
introduction on working practices and upon the new skills necessary to support the implementation and operation of such complex technology. Meanwhile, Scotland took its own decision to fund a national initiative there, based on initial
deployment of cards for concessionary travel.

The Modernising Government myth
In 2002, the Labour Government, primarily through the then ODPM, embarked upon a strategy to oversee the modernization of LA service delivery. The Modernising Government programme mandated that English LAs would, by the end of 2005, offer electronic delivery of all relevant services, including the deployment of smart citizens' cards. Most authorities paid lip-service to this, took the financial aid, but did little more than develop bigger websites and open one-stop-shops in local high streets. Most of the websites were boring and unhelpful, seemingly of little use to those not having online access - the very people most needing statutory local services - and the one-stop-shops remained empty. Very few LAs launched citizens' card schemes. To this day, only about ten English authorities, sometimes working in regional groups, have done anything serious with smart cards. The reasons for this inactivity continued to be the financial cost - the 'business case' did not stack up - and a more pragmatic view that school, library and leisure functions by themselves had nothing to do with e-Government (you have to turn up to get the service offered), and in any event were dull applications, of no relevance or interest to the majority of citizens. Meanwhile, Scotland continued to invest its £63 million budget in expanding its own scheme and planning non-travel functions for inclusion in the cards.

The impact of smart concessionary travel cards
One of the cornerstones supporting the justification of citizens' card schemes was the incorporation of concessionary and commercial public transport functions. LAs saw these as a good revenue-earner to shore up their business cases, and as a way of reaching a critical mass of their citizens with attractive functions engendering frequent use - a reason to carry the card on a daily basis. But in 2007, the Government decided to give the elderly and disabled in England free local off-peak bus travel, and to use smart cards as the pass/ticketing medium. Given a deadline of April 2008, little time was available to consider the relationship of this political initiative within the wider citizens' card concept.

The result was the issuance in England of nearly 7 million ENCTS cards as singlefunction tokens, with no brand name, and in 90 per cent of cases, no spare chip space to hold non-transport functional support outside the ITSO shell. At a stroke, LAs lost their killer application for citizens' cards. Meanwhile, Scotland continued to conduct a cohesive national strategy to operate multiple applications in its travelorientated card plan. Wales, without the luxury of proper funding, and having already introduced free bus travel for the elderly (supported by fragmented, noninteroperable and ineffective token platforms) finally started to get its act together with a national strategy, but one that clearly envisages the concessionary travel card as the carrier for other citizens' functions. A case of the tail wagging the dog?

The effect of national ID cards
Another confusion for any local citizens' card scheme strategy has been the UK national ID card project. Long in anticipation, confused as to purpose, expensive in development and doomed to oblivion if the Conservatives regain power, the ID card idea has recently extended, at least in some ministerial minds, to "supporting local services". How this will be achieved has been left unclear, as citizens' cards were themselves always planned to carry a level of identity validation and cardholder verification.  Perhaps we shall need two cards (and use two terminals) every time we claim any llocal entitlement; very joined-up Government. The effect of this complete lack of high-level clarity of thought and planning has been further to confuse LA managers in any consideration of investing about £2 million each in a local scheme.

Whose card is it anyway?
A further little spoiler is about to play havoc with the public sector card game. Whilst all minds have been focussing on concessionary travel cards, there is the small matter of commercial travel on trains and buses throughout the UK. If all buses will require smart card readers (eventually, when there is agreement as to who pays for them) for concessionary travel cards, then it makes obvious commercial sense to convert paid-for travel, including season tickets, travel carnets and ad hoc journey ticketing and payments, to smart cards. But who will own and issue the cards? This challenge, which will dwarf the concessionary pass exercise, is about 35 million new cards - all operating in a deregulated environment over multiple transport modes using hugely complex fare structures, with Oyster in the background also needing to be accommodated. Potential card issuers and transaction clearers include: transport operators: banks: third parties such as The Trainline: EDS, Logica and their ilk: and even, just possibly, local authorities. Apart from an almost complete lack of debate and visible national strategy, it is hard to identify who will be the ultimate design authority for the new card. The DfT is singularly silent on the matter.

What happens next in the card game?
Commercial transport ticketing and payment is where the game will go. If the competing transport operators become card issuers, will there be a national logo, full interoperability and a single epayment facility? Or shall we need several expensive cards and several e-jam jars in them to complete multi-modal journeys, supported by many proprietary brands? We shall need long bendy buses again, if only to carry all the logos. But all we ordinary folks really want is a
single card (including any concessionary entitlements) to get us on the next bus or train going our way, and a single epayment pot from which to pay. The original stated Government aim of seamless travel with one card, also able to be used for parking at the station and a coffee on the platform, is pie in the sky. And where does this leave English local authorities? Probably in a permanent state of confusion, and without the courage to take the high ground, get together, grab the opportunity by the throat, and offer all these functions in a proper - and really useful - citizens' card. This one will run and run.

NFC: the game will change
As if the current state of affairs wasn't bad enough, a new and disruptive technology is just around the corner, and will be in all our pockets in but a few short years. NFC-enabled mobiles are going to change the card game forever. Who needs a wallet full of plastic when it can all go into a mobile? If there are still non-believers out there, just watch this space. Look at Japan, where 50 per cent of the population is already NFC-abled. Watch the banks, as they reinvent contactless technology for e-payments, as a clear preliminary to going with NFC. See the quiet pilots start at universities and elsewhere. Read about the new generations of handset, with NFC and fingerprint readers in them. Wonder at where the photo ID and all those precious brand logos will go on that handset. Worry about who will own the customer, and figure out which payment product will be used first when a mobile is waved at a bus ticket machine, or at a retail ePOS terminal. And why will NFC happen? Because we, the people, will want it. Perhaps we are witnessing the birth, or at least the conception, of citizens' mobile schemes. RIP citizens' cards?