Pass Ticket Transport c 1998

In the late 1980s London Underground (now part of Transport For London) created a network of ticket machines in "corner shops" across London. This was an early part of London Underground's drive to eventually automate ticketing so that station based ticket offices could be closed. This policy was an early phase of the ticket evolution which led to Oyster cards at the turn of the century, and then to the straightforward use of personal contactless credit cards as happens today.

The "PASS machines" were essentially standalone off-line computers with a transport mechanism to pull blank magnetic stripe tickets into the mechanism, encode the ticket with the data for whatever journey type was being sold, and then transport the valid ticket back to the operator. The machine would then be "polled" via a dedicated telephone link each evening to download the data to TfL and calculate the amount of money to be direct debited from the shopkeepers account for that days trading.

ICL (International Computers Limited) provided the installation and maintenance service for these PASS Machines, which were designed and made by Panther Engineering Ltd.

Text and Object donated by Roger Cooper ICL/Fujitsu 1972-2019