They are initially rolling it out in Somerset but the system is to be rolled out over 4 counties in the West Country.
It is obviously a much simpler system that what is in Ireland, but they are still talking about integrating it into the systems of 13 different bus companies which is where the software development complexities would arise.
In fairness, after doing a little more looking around, the Irish system may not be that over-priced by the standards of these. The Australians seem to be spend spectacular amounts of money on smartcard ticketing. The Brisbane system cost $134 million while the Victoria system cost $494 for startup and of the order of $50 million per year to operate. (all according to Wikipedia)
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