State-of-the-art ticket machines for Rochdale Metrolink

Councillors Colledge and Whitmore (Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority's Chairman and Vice Chairman) with a Northern Rail ticket machine at Piccadilly station. The same model will be used on Metrolink.

Rochdale's Metrolink passengers will use state-of-the-art ticket machines when the tram line to Manchester via Oldham opens in 2011.

More than 200 new machines will be installed on the Metrolink network over the next three years as part of a £5.4 million project, 108 of which will be installed on the new lines to Oldham and Rochdale, Droylsden in Tameside, Chorlton in South Manchester and MediaCityUK in Salford Quays. 121 will be installed at the existing Metrolink stops.

Up to five machines will be installed at each stop, including at least one queue-busting machine. These machines will only accept cash and will make it quicker and easier for passengers to buy tickets to a limited number of popular destinations. All of the other machines will accept both cash and debit or credit cards.

Councillor Matt Colledge, Chairman of Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority (GMPTA), said: “This new style of touch-screen ticket machine is already up and running at major UK train stations. I’m delighted GMPTE has been able to sign a deal to bring them to Metrolink.

“The existing machines were installed when Metrolink was built and so the technology in them is now almost twenty years old. These new ticket machines will be much more reliable and the majority will accept debit and credit cards as well as cash.”

Councillor Keith Whitmore, GMPTA’s Vice Chairman, added: “This is great news for Metrolink passengers. Not only will the new machines be a big improvement on the existing ones, they can also be adapted in the future.

“The ticket machines will be capable of accepting pay-as-you-go travel cards, similar to the Oyster card in London, if they’re introduced in Greater Manchester. That means we’ll be able to benefit from them for many years to come.”

Transport bosses at Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive (GMPTE) have appointed the international company Scheidt & Bachmann to design, build and install the new touch-screen machines.

Matthias Augustyniak, Managing Director of Scheidt & Bachmann’s Fare Collection Systems Division, said: “We are delighted to be part of the development of an exciting new future for Metrolink. We will be supplying the latest generation of self-service ticket machines with the capability of upgrading them in the future to work in an ITSO Smart Card environment.”

Work to install the new Metrolink ticket machines will begin next year and all of the existing machines are due to be replaced by summer 2010.