Peter Frimberley wrote:
On 14 May 2006 03:53:48 -0700, "
wrote:

Hi,

I asked the oystercard people if it was possible to set the top up
threshold higher than £5. I mainly use buses, live a mile from a tube
station and the local newsagent charges 80p for an Oyster top up.

I agree, the £5 is too low. I too normally get the bus. Why can't they
let people set their own lower limit, even if it is only a choice from
a few fixed options like £5, £10, £20. And if doing that "should I
recharge?" lookup is too much to do at the tube gate, then they should
simply do a run every night at 2am or something and top up any card
that is under it's lower limit then. Then download the list of cards
with new balances to apply to all ticket gates *and bus machines*
ready for start of service.

It's just another example of how the basic Oyster idea was good, but,
speaking as an IT Programme Manager, the implementation has been
shocking.

I am still amazed that it's not possible to examine one's trip details
on the website.

What they should have done was look at the billing systems that the
mobile phone operators use. These can make instant decisions as to
whether phones have enough credit to make a call, and can read your
prepay balance back to you after a call, and can make itemised call
lists available online; so it ought to have been dead easy for Oyster
to be similarly dynamic. So it might have meant that tube stations and
buses needed a permanent data link back to some central billing
computer, so what, bandwidth including mobile bandwidth is dirt cheap
these days.
(snip)

I'm not an expert, but I imagine speed would be a problem. One of the
advantages of Oyster is meant to be the speed at which the reading
process is carried out (which is important for bus boarding - if almost
all passengers board using Oyster, dwell times are noticeably lower). If
the process always had to involve comms with a central computer, I guess
the process would be slower.

Saying that, the new AVL system for buses will add in a whole lot of
comms functionality on board buses, so regular communication to update
the on-vehicle computer will be feasible.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London