London Banter - View Single Post

[email protected] · January 25th 10, 09:35 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On 24.01.10 22:27, Richard J. wrote:
wrote on 24 January 2010
20:46:02 ...
How many other towns in the country use SmartCard for their transport?
Would it ever be possible to use SmartCard in other networks around
Britain, besides simply for TfL?

I'm glad Paul Corfield got in first on this, as I couldn't have matched
his reply!

Perhaps Oyster could even be used abroad, such as on the Paris Metro?

The Paris Metro's Navigo system (actually for the Ile de France region,
not just Paris) is a different smartcard system to Oyster, based on the
Calypso standard developed by transport authorities in five European
cities. I'm not sure about how compatible Calypso is with ITSO, and to
what extent both of them are reflected in the European standard EN 1545,
but I'm sure that Oyster would never be accepted in Paris.

The Paris system has no PAYG capability. It only stores the equivalent
of Travelcard seasons of 7 days validity or longer. (And with the
restriction currently that weekly seasons start on a Monday, and monthly
seasons on the 1st of the month.)

Not very user friendly, is it?