Manchester calls its Oyster card the My Get Me There

Manchester calls its Oyster card the My Get Me There

Greater Manchester's transport chiefs have taken the 'it does what it says on the tin' approach to naming the city's new smart ticketing system, calling it the Get Me There.

Explaining the decision not to follow the lead of London, with its Oyster card, Councillor Andrew Fender, chair of the Transport for Greater Manchester Committee, says that "both life and technology have moved on" since its introduction.

Although there will be a dedicated card - called my get me there - in Manchester, commuters will also be able to use other options, such as an existing concessionary photo card to travel on the tram, bus and train.

"Get me there will also accept contactless bank cards when we roll out the scheme on Metrolink and, in the near future, we expect that people will be able to use their smart phones as well. The technology behind get me there is being built to be as flexible as possible to accommodate any future devices - even the ones we don't know about yet," says Fender.

Passengers will touch their get me there-enabled device - be it a card or, in the future, a phone - on to an electronic validator, which will then check if they have a valid travel card or enough 'pay as you go' credit in their account. The system will come to trams in the second half of 2014, with buses following in 2015.

The journey starts here... from get me there on Vimeo.


According to the Manchester Evening News, the new name was arrived at using "in-house expertise" but it has been criticised by local politicians and is currently fairing badly in a readers' poll on the paper's Web site, while tweeters are also letting their feelings known.






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