London Banter - View Single Post

Paul Corfield · May 26th 04, 05:50 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On 26 May 2004 08:50:01 -0700, (dan) wrote:

David Walters wrote in message . ..
On Wed, 26 May 2004 01:12:43 +0100, wrote:
Prepay seems to have been withdrawn as a payment option on underground
ticket machines. They are only offering cash or credit card as payment
options now.

Perhaps it's just so that they ca get ready to "launch" the facilty
officially. A similar thing happened with the bus prepay- it worked
for months unofficially, then they turned if off for two months prior
to the official launch. I get the feeling that the Oyster developers
set up the system with everything enabled, which has caused
accountancy problems for TfL as their accountancy systems weren't set
up to cope with the system, certainly it seems like it was an
accountancy problem over anything else which caused the big delay on
the buses and trams!

Out of curiosity why do you cite accountancy problems? I've not heard
anything and I'm genuinely interested in why you think that's the
problem area. I thought the whole issue about validation only on entry
with no exit validation (maximum fare check, unresolved journeys etc) as
well as equipment reliability on buses were the issues but then I am
speculating.

I think the other poster who made mention of the banking regulation
issue is probably not too far off the mark about using Oyster pre-pay
value as cash. There were huge issues in Hong Kong with Octopus when the
cards gained significant take up and then Creative Star (the operator of
the system) started to hold vast reserves of electronic cash and also
started to tie in other retailers. The Banks in HK got very nervous
indeed and IIRC special steps had to be taken to regulate Creative Star
within the banking sector. There *may* be similar issues here but I
don't know for certain.
--
Paul C

Admits to working for London Underground!