Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to guarantee interoperability between smart ticketing systems for public transport provided by different franchise operators.

My Department is currently in negotiations with train operators as part of the smart ticketing programme, and I expect these negotiations to conclude by the end of November. The agreements reached, alongside collaborative working with Scotland, Transport for London and Transport for the North, will see the delivery of smartcard acceptance across the whole franchised rail network by the end of 2018, using a common standard, and building on previous government investment in rail industry smart ticketing systems.