Manchester’s hilarious attempt at reinventing London’s Oyster Card

Why does the local authority have to fund this anyway? Isn't 'innovation' one of the reasons public transport outside London was sold off?

What's really shocking is the very last entry on the FAQ page [1], which appears to imply that UK Govt has mandated every location outside of London should use some "standard" which is far, far inferior to the tried and tested Oyster system.

[1] http://www.getmethere.com/help.php

Classic example of a government system built by an army of contractors and consultants who don't really have the "built a fast, simple, useful, profitable" mentality.

That's not really fair to Transport for London, the government system they built (Oyster) is fast, simple, useful and profitable. And still the only one in the world to work with a normal contactless card (or phone).

What do you mean? The vast majority of transit cards I've experienced work contactless

I think the OP is stating that it's the only transit system that lets you use a contactless credit card / ApplePay / etc. rather than a dedicated transit card (I didn't realise no other transit system had that! It seems like such an easy win)