Digital smartcards to replace traditional paper tickets are a major growth area on UK railways.

Nationwide transport group Go-Ahead won the West Midlands franchise in June on the condition it would roll out the technology by 2010.

The firm anticipates it will be issuing 20 per cent of tickets electronically by 2012 and 50 per cent by 2014, developments that are in line with the sector as a whole, said Dave Lynch, group technical director at the Go-Ahead Group.

‘The development of a national standard will mean an interoperable system spread across the whole rail network,’ he said.

But the group’s plans are only a technological stepping stone before smartcards themselves become obsolete.

The technology will be replaced by similar functions accessible using mobile phones, said Lynch.

The main drawback of smartcards is that transport operators have to invest in readers for guards to check the validity of the fare. Mobile phones offer a better solution because information can be displayed on the screen. Another option, tested in Germany, is to store the data on a USB stick.

‘There are so many other options, which is why I think we should drop the word smartcard ­ a card is just one possibility,’ said Lynch.

‘The goal is to find something simple that can be easily read by conductors.

‘We will launch the pilot in 2010 using smartcards, but I expect to be using other technologies to store travel information before long,’ he said.

Using mobile phones would fit into the wider trend towards converged digital devices, said Datamonitor analyst Alex Kwiatkowski.

‘At present smartcards are another thing to carry, but most people already have a mobile so it could be possible to embed multiple applications on a single device,’ he said.

‘The single device could become a mobile bank, in the pocket, to be used for many different transactions.’

But businesses will not necessarily benefit from holding off until the next-generation technology has arrived.

‘Investing in smartcards as an interim step is a good idea but firms must plan for the future,’ said Kwiatkowski.

The Go-Ahead Group owns bus, rail and aviation firms across the UK.