APTIS was the Accountancy and Passenger Ticket Issuing System used on the British Rail/National Rail network until 2007. It was originally called "Advanced Passenger Ticket Issuing System" as it was being developed at the time of the

Advanced Passenger Train The Advanced Passenger Train (APT) was a tilting high speed train developed by British Rail during the 1970s and early 1980s, for use on the West Coast Main Line (WCML). The WCML contained many curves, and the APT pioneered the concept of activ ...

. It was widely known as the All-Purpose Ticket-Issuing System, a description which was used during the development of the prototype devices. Ford, Roger (1984). "Technology Update: Ticket issuing and revenue control". In: '' Modern Railways'', Volume 41, May 1984, Pages 256-257.Glover, John (1985). "Mechanisation of ticket issuing". In: '' Modern Railways'', Volume 42, April 1985, Pages 192-195. It led to the introduction, on the national railway, of a new standardised machine-printable ticket, the APTIS ticket, which replaced the Edmondson railway ticket first introduced in the 1840s.

Overview

APTIS issued impact printed tickets on credit-card sized card ticket stock, with a magnetic stripe on the centre of the reverse which could be encoded to operate ticket barriers; it could also use plain non-magnetic ticket stock. APTIS could issue receipts for passengers paying by

debit card A debit card, also known as a check card or bank card is a payment card that can be used in place of cash to make purchases. The term '' plastic card'' includes the above and as an identity document. These are similar to a credit card, but u ...

or credit card. These receipts were a combination of a transparent

carbonless copy paper Carbonless copy paper (CCP), non-carbon copy paper, or NCR paper (No Carbon Required, taken from the initials of its creator, National Cash Register) is a type of coated paper designed to transfer information written on the front onto sheets beneat ...

top copy, for the customer; and a backing card, for retention by British Rail. The customer signed the receipt, handed it back; and, in return, was given the signed top copy and the train tickets.

Adoption by British Rail

APTIS was derived from a private venture ticketing system, the General Purpose ticket-issuing system, developed by Thorn EMI in 1978. It had 25 kB of memory.

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

invited 23 firms to tender for a ticket-issuing system and Thorn EMI was successful. The first prototype was installed at Portsmouth & Southsea on 11 November 1982. APTIS, along with the portable system PORTIS, was adopted as part of British Rail's £31 million investment, which was authorised in 1983.Gourvish, Terry (2002). "Cost Control and Investment in the post-Serpell Railway". Chapter 6 In. ''British Rail: 1974-97: From Integration to Privatisation'' Oxford: Oxford University Press. The production APTIS machines had 300 kB of memory; this could be upgraded to 500 kB. Some 2,971 APTIS machines were scheduled to be installed at 1,600 staffed British Rail stations between August 1985 and September 1987.

Phase-out of Edmondson tickets

The first production APTIS tickets were issued in October 1986 at stations including Didcot Parkway and Abbey Wood; the official launch was by Transport Minister David Mitchell at the British Rail Travel Centre,

Regent Street Regent Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London. It is named after George, the Prince Regent (later George IV) and was laid out under the direction of the architect John Nash and James Burton. It runs from Waterloo Place ...

, London, on 18 November 1986. The first ticket was sold at Benfleet in January 1987.An apt end for BR's APTIS '' Rail'' issue 563 11 April 2007 page 14 In 1988, the last of British Rail's Edmondson printing presses, located at the Paper and Printing Centre,

Crewe Crewe () is a railway town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. The Crewe built-up area had a total population of 75,556 in 2011, which also covers parts of the adjacent civil parishes of Willaston ...

, shut down. The last station to sell Edmondson tickets prior to full APTIS conversion was

Emerson Park Emerson Park is a suburban neighbourhood near Hornchurch in the London Borough of Havering, east London. Predominantly affluent and residential, it is located approximately north-east of Charing Cross. It is part of the Hornchurch post town an ...

, on Network SouthEast's

Romford to Upminster Line Romford is a large town in east London and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Havering. It is located northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Historically, Romfor ...

, on 29 June 1989.

Phase-out of APTIS

APTIS survived in widespread use for twenty years, but in the early 2000s was largely replaced by more modern PC based ticketing systems although some APTIS were modified as APTIS-ANT (with no obvious difference to the ticket issued) Oyster card compatible machines in the Greater London area. The last APTIS machines were removed at the end of 2006 as there was no option to upgrade for accepting Chip and PIN credit-card payments. The last APTIS-ANT ticket to be issued in the UK using one of the machines was at

Upminster station Upminster is an interchange station serving the town of Upminster in the London Borough of Havering, Greater London. It is on the London, Tilbury and Southend line (LTSR), down the line from London Fenchurch Street; it is the eastern terminus ...

on 21 March 2007.Last APTIS ticket sold '' Today's Railways UK'' issue 66 June 2007 page 11

References

External links

List of known APTIS machines as of 2004, with name and numbering variants and dates of installation (by route)
archived 23 July 2018 fro
the original