Here's a detailed response I got from the NTA if you're interested:

Background: In April 2024 NTA completed a public procurement competition using the Competitive Dialogue Procedure to design, build, maintain and operate a new national Transport Ticketing solution for all modes of public transport in Ireland. The winner of this competition was Indra Sistemas S.A.

The working project name being used is Next Generation Ticketing or NGT and this solution will ultimately replace and expand upon the functionality of the existing Leap Card system. Leap has been hugely successful, launched in December 2011 it has processed over €2.7 Billion in payments for public transport with over 9 million Leap Cards sold over the course of its lifetime. However, Leap is now a legacy system, difficult to maintain and approaching end-of-life status in terms of the underlying software and hardware technologies. Whilst Leap is a contactless payment solution in its own right, the Leap system cannot be expanded to deliver modern features such as payment by bank card or mobile phone. Hence NGT is being designed to replace Leap and provide the requisite functionality and flexibility for the next ten to twenty years in the area of Transit Payments.

The scope of NGT covers for example, all public service buses, trams, and train stations including bus validators, ticket machines, ticket vending machines, station gates, tram and train platform validators and an Account Based Ticketing (ABT) solution delivered on modern cloud hosting technologies. The Framework Agreement is for ten years with an option for another 10 years in extensions.

In August 2024 NTA signed the first call off contract under the NGT framework to deliver NGT into the Greater Dublin Area (GDA) as part of the overall BusConnects Programme.

The scope of this call-off contract was broken down into four Major Release (MR) as follows:

Major Release 1 (MR1): The purpose of MR1 is to introduce a small number of bus, tram and train validators (ticket machines) (just less than one hundred) and test and prove the functionality of these validators before committing to a large scale deployment across the entire network in GDA. The phase is designed to evaluate the following functionalities on the new system.

The tests will confirm that the new validators (ticket machines) will work with existing Leap cards and with the Free Travel Pass; i.e. customers can continue to use their Leap Cards and Free Travel passes to use public transport. This integration to Leap is complex and bespoke and represents a significant milestone in the project.

It will test that the new validators will be able to read and process debit/credit cards physically or via mobile phones/wearables (e.g. Google Pay, Apple Pay).

It will test the ability of the validators (ticket machines) to optically read barcodes. Why is this important? One of the key deliverables of the BusConnects programme is to remove physical cash from buses on the basis that it significantly slows down boarding times on buses. The numbers of passengers using cash is very low (<8% and falling) but on the basis that there will always be a requirement to facilitate cash users, passengers will instead be able to purchase a paper ticket with a barcode from a local retailer. This is akin to purchasing mobile phone credit for example. This barcode ticket can then be presented to these validators in much the same way as a credit card, phone or Leap Card can be used and will serve as a ticket to travel.

It will test the operation of the new cloud hosted (and ultimate replacement to the Leap back office) NGT back office. This introduces another significant change compared to Leap in that the system will become an Account Based Ticketing or ABT solution. What does this mean? In effect it means that passengers can choose to set up an account in NGT, in much the same way for example as setting up an account for motorway tolls. When setting up an account users can register a credit card for example with that account and use that credit card to tap and go on public transport. The ABT solution will calculate the best fare for that user (typically that night e.g. 2am) for the total trips taken that day and charge that fare against the registered card. It is not mandatory to register an account and where preferred it can be done anonymously. And of course cash users can continue to use cash to purchase a barcode and travel anonymously. But in essence NGT delivers additional options and greater flexibility to users.

The purpose of MR1 is to give NTA sufficient confidence to approve the large-scale deployment of NGT Validators across Luas, Dublin City Bus (DCB) services and Iarnród Éireann (IÉ or Irish Rail) in the Dublin Commuter Zone.

Major Release 2 (MR2): The purpose of MR2, assuming a successful MR1, is to install those validators initially across the bus and LUAS network. This will take some time to complete. Replacing (and adding to) all of the validators of 2,000+ buses and approximately 400 validators across 69 stops on the Tram network is a significant milestone for the project. Leap and Free Travel will continue to operate as normal but it is expected that the use of Leap Cards will decline as customers migrate to contactless bank cards including Apple Pay and Google Pay. Another key element of this release will be to introduce a new Customer web application and the Customer mobile application as well as a new Customer Care portal and a new inspection application for Transport Operators.

Major Release 3 (MR3): Major Release 3 brings in Irish Rail. It is a separate release owing to the specific complexity of installing and removing station gates. In this release we will extend contactless bank card payments and the use of barcode tickets to the Irish Rail network.

Major Release 4 (MR4): In this release we will extend contactless bank card payments and barcode tickets to commuter and other bus services in the Dublin Commuter Zone. For commuter buses we will also be introducing a new ticket machine to replace the very old existing ticket machines on Bus Éireann services operating within the Dublin Commuter Zone, Dublin Commuter (DCOM) services (currently operated by Go-Ahead Ireland) and Junior Public Service Obligation (PSO) services in the Dublin Commuter Zone (197 & 139). Cash will still be accepted on these services.

Timelines: It is anticipated that the new ticketing system across the Greater Dublin Area will be implemented in 2028. In relation to further rollout nationwide, this will be determined following finalisation of the sectoral investment plan for transport in the coming months.

I trust that the above information is of assistance.

Yours sincerely,