TfL Revenue Collection Services - Project Proteus 24412

Transport for London (TfL) through its trading arm Transport Trading Limited (TTL) are procuring the Proteus Contract for the revenue collection services which will require a supplier to take over, operate and maintain the TfL fare collection system; provide the associated revenue collection services; and, in partnership with TTL and TfL, develop, enhance and expand these to meet future needs.

Transport for London's (TfL's) ability to collect fares revenue is fundamental to its achieving and maintaining financial sustainability. Critical to achieving this objective is to ensure we are effectively collecting the revenue by ensuring the revenue collection system and services are available and reliable. The Proteus Contract will ensure that operating costs are efficient, economic, and sustainable; and deliver value for money and support the delivery of the TfL change and innovation programme.
The revenue collection system (the System) supports the Mayor's Transport Strategy objective of making better use of technology to improve the public transport experience, by providing simple and effective payment options to customers. TfL, through TTL, owns and has made significant investments in the System. The contractor under the Proteus Contract will be required to take over the system and become responsible for its maintenance, operation, development, enhancement and expansion in order to and deliver excellent customer experience and respond to business needs.
The System supports legacy magnetic stripe tickets, Oyster (the TfL closed-loop, proprietary smart card system), contactless payment cards and ITSO (the UK national smart card specification). Currently the System incorporates:
• c. 8,500 buses;
• c. 1,000 London Underground, Overground, DLR and National Rail stations;
• c. 4,000 Oyster Ticket Stops; and
• 7 TfL Visitor Centres.
Customers can travel seamlessly between different modes of transport using smart cards, magnetic tickets or contactless.
Oyster Pay As You Go (PAYG) balances can be topped-up and tickets purchased conveniently either via ticket machines in stations, at Oyster Ticket Stops, or via digital channels (web and app). The System's back office collects all transactions securely ensuring best-value charges are applied for PAYG travel and are presented to customers in a transparent manner.
The main ticketing products are:
• PAYG on Oyster and contactless. Customers are charged for each journey made and benefit from daily and weekly capping;
• Season tickets on Oyster. These comprise bus and tram season tickets and Travelcard season tickets which are valid on buses and all rail services within the zones purchased; and
• Singles and Day Travelcards, which are issued on magnetic ticket stock.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, each year the System supported around 4 billion journeys comprising:
• 2.2 billion bus journeys;
• 1.4 billion Tube journeys;
• 0.3 billion journeys on TfL Rail and London Overground;
• 0.1 billion journeys on DLR;
• PAYG travel on Tram and River services and the London Cable Car (around 0.03bn journeys
combined); and
• approximately 0.5 billion journeys on National Rail services in London.
The System comprises of five main elements:
• Front Office Assets: Broadly, ticket gates, retail, and validation devices used by customers to purchase and validate travel products and access the transport network as well as associated network equipment to transmit data. In addition, revenue inspection devices.
• Data Landing: A collection of IT equipment that passes data bi-directionally between the front office assets and the back office.
• Back Office: A collection of IT equipment that manages the various smart card transactions, customer accounts, billing, and settlement processes. This is split into Oyster, contactless and ITSO systems. The contractor under the Proteus Contract will be responsible for all Oyster and ITSO system support and Levels 1 and 2 for contactless, while TfL undertake Level 3 support for that part of the System.
• Digital Channels: The customer web and mobile app channels are operated by TfL and interface to the System back-office.
• Retail System: Management of xPERT retail devices at Oyster Ticket Stops, management of the network of Oyster Ticket Stops, and Oyster card enablement and management of bulk ticket sales.
The data landing and back-office systems are currently located in two Tier 3 data centres, one within the M25 motorway and one just outside of the M25.
The contractor under the Proteus Contract will have responsibility for systems integration for the integrated revenue collection system and service. This responsibility includes but is not limited to; the operational and technical integration of modules of the System, the safe introduction of new or changed technologies and services, ongoing activities to identify and address obsolescence, and to manage faults and incidents as they should occur in day-to-day operation of the system.
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