PORTIS (Portable Operated Ticket Issuing System) and latterly SPORTIS were portable ticket issuing systems used on Rail transport in Great Britain from 1982 until 2006. The system was also formerly used by Northern Ireland Railways for the issue of all tickets, including at railway station booking offices.

PORTIS

These machines were developed by Thorn EMIInformation Technology Applications in Transport. Peter W. Bonsall, Michael G. H. Bell, VSP, 1987 with the prototype of PORTIS being introduced from 3 May 1982 in the Bristol area. They replaced the Almex machines with Omniprinter that were used previously for on-board train ticket sales. The PORTIS was the first

British Railways 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 ...

ticket issuing system to use thermal roll ticket stock. The production version of PORTIS was introduced in 1986.

SPORTIS

A modified version which accepted credit-cards was introduced slightly later, known as SPORTIS (Super Portable Ticket Issuing System). The SPORTIS memory was configured for each route that the machine would operate, so that it held the most likely fares that would be requested. If an unusual fare was requested, then the ticket inspector would have to refer to fares manuals and enter the details manually. SPORTIS could not encode the magnetic stripe on the back of tickets, so tickets issued using the system could not be used in automated ticket gates. SPORTIS weighed around 2.9 kg. The original specification stated that it should be about the same weight as two bags of sugar.

Replacement

As of 2006 all SPORTIS have been replaced by

Avantix Mobile Avantix Mobile ("AVB") is a portable railway ticket issuing system used across Rail transport in Great Britain, the British railway network from 2001 to 2017. Development Development started in 2000 by Sema Group plc, an IT services company wh ...

or Paper Ticket Pads, RSP 4407/4408 series for those Train Operating Companies, for example, Merseyrail, who did not adopt Avantix Mobile as a replacement.

References

British Rail fares and ticketing Fare collection systems in the United Kingdom Public transport information systems Travel technology {{UK-rail-transport-stub