SEATTLE -- It was supposed to be a way to coordinate over 300 types of tickets, passes and tokens for people who use mass transit all over Western Washington. But KIRO 7 has learned that there are serious questions about the future of the so-called Smartcard.

The Australian-based company ERG Group recently faced a very ugly ending with the City of Sydney, Australia, after leaders there felt that ERG group wasn't getting a similar project called the Tcard off the ground on time.

Australian news reports indicate that leaders in Sydney simply "had enough" of the ERG group, when the company proposed delaying its Tcard delivery until 2010, five years later than originally planned.

So, what does this mean for Seattle and the other Western Washington cities that had planned to use the Smartcard?

According to Kevin Desmond, GM of King County Metro Transit, that remains to be seen. By phone Tuesday from Florida, Desmond told us, he hopes it will have "no effect" on efforts to come up with one simple credit card that would allow local passengers to transfer from one system to another without digging into their pockets for extra fares or tickets. But Desmond did confirm that leaders from several area transit authorities met last week in executive session to discuss the problems in Sydney and the potential for problems here.

The Smartcard project was to be in place in Western Washington by 2006, but as it stands now, wouldn’t be fully functional until 2009, according to Desmond. He said there are "bugs in the system" that still need to be worked out, but that the local ERG consultants are working hard to fix those problems.

Desmond said that if ERG's Smartcard plan doesn't pan out, it would be a tremendous setback to local passengers hoping for a way to use one card for all their mass transit needs. Although he couldn’t give KIRO 7 Eyewitness News a "100 percent" guarantee, he did say that local leaders are not looking for another contractor yet to pick up the Smartcard project.

For more information, visit the Metro Transit Smartcard web Site.