ITSO Services

Stop listing

You may recall that when you signed up to receive ITSO Services Limited's (ISL's) services, you agreed to "create and maintain a list of lost, stolen or otherwise no longer needed concessionary travel passes" and to "provide this list to ITSO Services Ltd to an agreed timetable and format for the purposes of hot listing".

Hotlisting requires a number of processes, the first stage of which is known as "Stop Listing". This document explains how stop listing will work and sets out the information that TCAs will need to send to ISL on a regular basis..

Why do we need to do this?

An England-wide stop listing approach is essential to help reduce fraudulent use of passes and so reduce the cost of concessionary travel. Before April, the only concessionary travel passes used on buses in a smart area were passes issued by that local authority or its partners. Since that local authority issued the passes, it had first hand knowledge of which passes were reported as being lost or stolen, etc. It could ensure that the readers on its buses 'invalidated' such passes if they were subsequently used. Now, passes from all over England can be used on that authority's buses. As the authority has not issued passes from outside its area, it does not know which of these passes are being used fraudulently. Stop listing provides the mechanism for one authority to tell all the others which of its passes are no longer valid. Fraud prevention will therefore only work if all authorities contribute to the stop listing process.

What is Stop Listing?

A Stop List is simply a list of smartcards which, for whatever reason, are no longer valid and which should therefore be prevented from functioning. Stop listing means that a card is added to the stoplist (which is kept as a database). If a "stop listed" card is then used, an electronic transaction is generated which, when checked against the database generates a hot list entry to be sent to"smart" readers (known as POSTs). When a card is then used subsequently the reader will invalidate the card, 'marking' it so that it cannot be used again.

This ensures that, in similar fashion to a credit or debit card,when the smartcard is cancelled (e.g. reported stolen or lost by the owner) there is a mechanism by which ITSO equipment can be made aware that the card should not be accepted.

What are the benefits to my scheme?

For a non-smart TCA with no card readers on buses there may seem to be very few benefits to you at present. However, as passes can now be used throughout England, it is important that all authorities play their part in helping to reduce fraudulent use. If one of your scheme's stop listed cards is used fraudulently in a smart area it can be detected and a fraudulent journey thereby prevented. The process that we put in place now will equally help you once you decide to go smart.

How does a TCA stop list?


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