A local authority council was looking for an easy, cost-effective solution for printing bus passes for their residents. With a high level of production required, the council needed a high-quality printing solution that still allowed them to overprint details on demand.

They contacted Plastic-ID looking for an affordable, simple solution.

The Challenge

The local authority needed a stock of printed bus passes. The cards needed to have a uniform design with blank spaces for overprinted information, such as the name of the cardholder, an issue number, an expiry date, and a photo, to name a few.

The passes needed to be hard-wearing, to ensure that they lasted a full year. Lots of residents used their bus passes daily, and therefore the cards needed to withstand wear and tear and remained usable.

With more than 4,000 bus passes being issued every year, it was highly important that the cards were easy to produce and seamless for the council team. It was also important for the cards to be easily recognisable by bus drivers as genuine and belonging to the cardholder, as well as in 

The Solution

By using the digital printing method, Plastic-ID printed a stock of cards with the spaces required. This allowed the council to have cards on hand as required, and then, using a Zebra ZC300 card printer and a webcam on-site, they could take photos at the point of issue and overprint the information required for the card to be useable. 

With standard credit card sized cards (CR80), the passes could still fit in a wallet or purse whilst ensuring that the information was easy to read. To ensure each pass had a visible security mark, the council incorporated a space for a holographic patch which made the cards difficult to forge.

For different types of bus passes, the design featured identifiable block colours that allowed people associated with the scheme to recognise each type instantly, as well as having different colours that were associated with the year the pass was issued.

This solution was cost-effective and simple to run, ensuring that it met the council’s criteria.

For more information on how Plastic-ID can help you to create simple, seamless solutions, please get in touch with a member of our expert team. We’ll be happy to help!