In article ,
Paul Corfield wrote:
On Fri, 3 Aug 2007 22:26:38 +0100, "tim....."
wrote:


"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 19:59:37 on Fri, 3 Aug
2007, tim..... remarked:
They say all the ATOC cards [or is it phones] are going to be compatible
with each other, but I wouldn't take bets on it.

Being technically compatible and using the same stored
value may not be the same thing :-(

That's a whole new can of worms, but are you suggesting one smartcard
could have the stored value from dozens of different TOCs upon it (and

No, just that one TOCs card would be useless at a different TOC
even though they were technically compatable, unless the issue of
funds sharing is resolved.

Eh? Surely you put cash on the card and it's irrelevant who added it or
who deducts it provided there are systems to reconcile the card and
distribute the payments due against travel undertaken?

I'm not terribly au fait with ITSO but I thought the whole point of it
was that any suitable technically compliant card could hold / recognise
the ITSO specification and associated "product profiles" for each TOC

AIUI (I could be out of date, I've been out of EPOS for a long while)
there isn't currently any such concept as "cash on a card". Banks might
one day be able to issue cards that can hold cash, backed by their legally
mandated reserves in the same way as other accounts. But at present LUL
are just letting you pre-pay for their service with a fancy chip card to
record your pre-payment, which doesn't bring it within the legal reach
of either cash or credit regulations.

You could have "credit on a card", with the credit backed by the
card issuer. The product would just hold the amount of your current
credit with the particular issuer(s). One day all credit cards might
work that way, rather than the antiquated chip-and-pin bodge the UK has
only just got round to rolling out. I *think* I'm right in saying that
this is what Oyster would become if we went the Octopus route of paying
for small goods with your Oyster. I presume LUL would continue to only
give you credit against an equivalent deposit ! But it still wouldn't
be cash on the card, unless maybe LUL became a bank.

Cards with bank-backed stored value (essentially cash-on-a-card) have been
trialled a couple of times in small areas in the UK, but both fizzled
out about 10 years ago in a blaze of non-publicity. I never found out
the results of the trials and the reasons they weren't taken any further,
despite an interest in the subject.

ITSO (again AIUI, though I've not read in depth) is more about a
defined way to hold several products (so you could have one card
holding a couple of season tickets and some stored PAYG travel credits
and maybe your library card plus some credit value from your favourite
coffee shop) rather than either a way to hold cash or a way to use
those products.

I know you've actually worked on this stuff Paul, so please correct me
if wrong !

Nick
--
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