Swift card explained

Swift
Service 1:West Midlands (county) buses
Service 2:Rail zones 1-5
Service 3:West Midlands Metro
Sales Location 1:Online
Sales Location 2:Travelshop
Sales Location 3:PayPoint
Currency:Pound sterling
Stored Value:Pay-as-you-go
Variant 1:Travelcards
Variant 2:TfWM-issued concessionary pass
Variant 3:e-Daysaver
Homepage: tfwm.org.uk/swift-and-tickets/

Swift is an electronic ticketing scheme developed by Transport for West Midlands for use on public transport in the West Midlands metropolitan area in England, similar to the Oyster card in Greater London. Rather than being a single card, it is a range of travel cards under a common name.

History

Introduction began in 2012, with a phased rollout estimated to be completed by the end of 2015 when the system is rolled out across the local rail network, as part of rail devolution in the West Midlands county.[1] Bus operators began to accept the scheme during this roll out; National Express West Midlands began accepting pay-as-you-go Swift cards in September 2015. In May 2018 at the Google I/O conference, it was announced that the Swift smartcard would be integrated with Google Pay to allow transport users to purchase a travel card online and have it immediately available on the users mobile device running the Android operating system. When the Metro came under the hands of TFWM, Swift Pay-as-you-go was added to all services, with passengers tapping once on the reader onboard the vehicle.

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Just the ticket! Birmingham commuters to get Oyster-style travel card. 27 March 2015.