Smarter travel

Rochdale teenagers are to be offered money-off deals on skiing, football museums, restaurants and clothes shops to persuade them to use a travel card in Greater Manchester.

But the card, based on London’s Oyster card and which will entitle them to cheap fares on buses, will cost them £5 and will be confiscated if they behave badly while traveling.

Up to 200,000 young people in Greater Manchester are eligible for cheap bus fares because they are in full-time education.

The “smartcard” will cost more than £1 million to introduce but will also eventually be used for other activities like libraries, sports centres, and to get discounts on goods.

In London, a card scheme giving free bus travel has improved conduct on buses, with 3,000 cards confiscated because of bad behaviour.

First Bus, which runs services in Rochdale, has been the victim of anti-social behaviour in recent years, the most serious even seeing buses burnt out by young arsonists.

The cards will bear a photograph of the young person and will allow them to buy System One junior bus saver 7 tickets giving a week’s travel on any bus for £7.

The card will free bus drivers from having to decide on whether passengers are young enough to qualify for cheap fares, but there are concerns about photographs quickly getting out of date as teenagers grow older.

But David Hytch, Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive’s information systems director, said: “We believe vanity will overcome the £5 cost of getting a new card. They are likely to want to replace it every couple of years at least.”

He added that it would be technically possible for individual districts of Greater Manchester to use the card to offer their own extra discounts to young people.

Smartcards were first promised in Greater Manchester more than a decade ago but the scheme has been beset by technical problems.

Young people will be the first to get them, probably early next year.