United Kingdom

Publicly owned / run public transport often also has very complicated tariff structures. I'm in Germany. There are many different Verbunds (regions), they all have their own app, their own prices, their own logos, etc. With the fairtiq, using public transport becomes like the Deutschlandticket, but for once in a while users, while Deutschlandticket subscription is for regular users. It effectively takes away the headaches here for having to know/choose which tickets, navigating new apps or machines, because every region has different price structures and regions are divided in various zones etcetera. With fairtiq you can use a bus to a city Bahnhof, a regional train to another city and then a tram to your destination. That covers 3 companies, also when it's not privatised but publicly regionalised. Such a ticket really does make it less complicated for the end user to do such a travel when they don't do that often, and they will often be cheaper off than if they had purchased 3 separate tickets.

Creating a one big catch-all public transport company for an entire country (public or privately run, doesn't matter much in this case) creates a whole lot of different problems everywhere. Try getting a local tiny thingy fixed in Sheffield if the decision to do so first has to go to London for 3 approval stamps and an allocated tiny budget.

The problem you're having, I think, is that they seem to want to replace all existing ticket options by this tracking one. That's a very bad idea indeed, for one you're luckily still not obligated to carry a phone with you at all times. The paper alternative should stay possible, but the fairtiq style ticket does have benefits both for users and for public transport companies.