On 24 Jan 2010 23:55:14 +0000 (GMT), Theo Markettos
wrote:

In general, there are also other problems with integration. Say your Oyster
is also your credit card (eg with OnePulse). What happens if you lose your
card - you then have no money to get home?

No different to losing my wallet, which contains my cash, credit cards
and PAYG Oyster.

Anyone concerned about this would do well just to carry a tenner in a
different pocket.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On Jan 24, 9:37*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:46:02 +0000, "

wrote:
How many other towns in the country use SmartCard for their transport?

The whole country uses them for concessionary travel but very few have
proper readers on buses in the respective counties.

When I was last in Glasgow, watching the old biddies boarding buses
was a painful experience. The card reader is on top of the driver's
ticket machine, so the user has to reach through the small gap in the
attack screen and balance their card on top of the machine for a
couple of seconds.
It's not exactly the picture of efficiency you see on London buses.
Another poster mentioned the Ridacard on Lothian Buses - their guide
may give you an idea to the process: http://lothianbuses.com/ridacard.php

Some parts of the New York Subway did a trial where Citibank-issued
MasterCard PayPass cards could be used to pay for journeys - I was
hoping to give it a try with my OnePulse card (which uses Visa PayWave
- which should be interoperable with PayPass) last year, but it
appeared that the PayWave functionality didn't work on any of the
readers I tried it on, both on and off the Subway.

On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:16:48 -0800 (PST), martin
wrote:

Some parts of the New York Subway did a trial where Citibank-issued
MasterCard PayPass cards could be used to pay for journeys - I was
hoping to give it a try with my OnePulse card (which uses Visa PayWave
- which should be interoperable with PayPass) last year, but it
appeared that the PayWave functionality didn't work on any of the
readers I tried it on, both on and off the Subway.

Easier to implement over there, of course, as there is just an entry
fee, no complex fare structure.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

I Believe that Stagecoach Merseyside are currently running a
Mastercard scheme - possibly Paypass, but the revenue through it is
pretty poor - less than £100 a week I was told.

On 25 Jan, 21:08, (Neil Williams)
wrote:
On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:16:48 -0800 (PST), martin

wrote:
Some parts of the New York Subway did a trial where Citibank-issued
MasterCard PayPass cards could be used to pay for journeys - I was
hoping to give it a try with my OnePulse card (which uses Visa PayWave
- which should be interoperable with PayPass) last year, but it
appeared that the PayWave functionality didn't work on any of the
readers I tried it on, both on and off the Subway.

Easier to implement over there, of course, as there is just an entry
fee, no complex fare structure.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:37:30 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:

I believe Milton Keynes still has a form of Smartcard scheme

Nope, not any more. Abandoning it was one of the early-ish things
Arriva did on taking over MK Metro a couple of years ago. It used to
take longer to process than a cash fare, was unreliable, still printed
a ticket, still required stating of a destination and never used the
stored value functionality other than for child tickets. Its
replacement, traditional ticket-in-a-laminated-wallet weeklies and
monthlies are quicker to process, easier for other operators to
accept[1] and can be issued for the first time on the bus, which the
old cards couldn't (you had to go to the depot).

[1] MK Metro tickets are the "de facto" interavailable ticket in MK,
other than on a few non-MK Metro commercial or non-MK Council tendered
services.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On 24.01.10 21:37, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:46:02 +0000, "
wrote:

How many other towns in the country use SmartCard for their transport?

The whole country uses them for concessionary travel but very few have
proper readers on buses in the respective counties.

I believe Milton Keynes still has a form of Smartcard scheme. The West
Midlands are supposed to be implementing a regional scheme in the next
few years. Greater Manchester was also said to the place to go "smart"
first but its scheme foundered and LT / TfL got there first in the UK.
There is also the Yorcard scheme in West and South Yorkshire which
finished a trial phase last October.

Would it ever be possible to use SmartCard in other networks around
Britain, besides simply for TfL?

The government are promoting the expansion of smartcards to the ITSO
standard. This is supposed to give a common platform and
interoperability. The TfL network is to be upgraded to accept ITSO but I
doubt very much there will be reverse compatibility with Oyster being
accepted everywhere else.

Lord Adonis doled out about £25m to about 10 regions before Christmas to
encourage multi modal Smartcard adoption. The DfT are also trying to
incentivise the fitment of Smartcard readers on buses in England by
linking the Bus Service Operator Grant (BSOG) payment to whether such
readers are fitted. These changes come in very soon. Whether they will
work remains to be seen.

The big problem is the Oyster is a "closed" system whereby value and
products on the card are traced back to a central system which
reconciles all the journeys and charges and the card balances. This
implies devices being linked to the Oyster central system or else
something akin to that.

I can never summon up the enthusiasm to read the ITSO specifications but
the premise is very different to that of Oyster as the system is "open"
without a central system AIUI. ITSO is just a spec - other people have
to produce cards, readers and interface units to ensure compatibility.
Such equipment exists but I have to see a scheme that works across lots
of different equipment on multiple modes and operators. To me that is
the real test.

We should also not forget that several TOCs are lumbered with
introducing ITSO as part of their franchises. SWT are first but that
seems to have stalled. London Midland are next but the London part of
their network will be done last. I believe Southern have to get their's
in by 2012 and are proposing links to Metrobus in Crawley and Brighton
and Hove buses in Brighton (all Go Ahead companies). I think East Coast
and Cross Country also have to get ITSO cards working on their areas.

I have yet to see how the Oyster concept of PAYG and Travelcard seasons
can work on ITSO. There are lots of practical issues given the wide
variation in ticket product validities and also very wide range of
fares.

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

Again I doubt it because of the intrinsic "closed" nature of the system.
I already have 4 transport smartcards - 2 for London, 1 for Hong Kong
and 1 for Singapore. I'm sure I will collect more as time goes on. I
would find a UK National Transport Smartcard to be very useful but I
cannot see how we will ever get a National Transport Card given the
hugely fractured nature of our transport industry and the fact that all
the big groups will want to preserve their "independence" rather than
co-operate to make fares simple and attractive across the country.


They do have such a scheme in the Netherlands, though, don't they? And I
believe that they have introduced a SmartCard for the entire country.

Granted, the Netherlands is not as big as the UK. But it's not the
smallest country either.

On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:32:46 +0000, "
wrote:

They do have such a scheme in the Netherlands, though, don't they? And I
believe that they have introduced a SmartCard for the entire country.

A *very* basic scheme. No zones, no capping. Just a "starting" price
(standard) plus a kilometric rate which varies by operator.

Indeed, it's rather more simplistic than the Strippenkaart it
replaced. I think the main reason for it is revenue apportioning in
an increasingly privatised system.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

In message , at 22:26:34 on
Mon, 25 Jan 2010, Paul Corfield remarked:
They have also had to gate the Amsterdam Metro which I suspect
has proved an utter nightmare given the extremely basic architecture of
the original line and the open cross platform interchanges with NS. I
also don't imagine the Dutch will be very keen on such things as ticket
gates given decades of open and free entry to their transport systems

They've gated Centraal NS too. The barriers weren't working when I saw
them (a week before Xmas) but it wasn't clear if that's because it was
stupid o'clock, or that they hadn't been commissioned yet.
--
Roland Perry

They've gated Centraal NS too. The barriers weren't working when I saw
them (a week before Xmas) but it wasn't clear if that's because it was
stupid o'clock, or that they hadn't been commissioned yet.

They were there and powered (I'm pretty sure), but open, all last
weekend.

On 26.01.10 14:19, David wrote:

They've gated Centraal NS too. The barriers weren't working when I saw
them (a week before Xmas) but it wasn't clear if that's because it was
stupid o'clock, or that they hadn't been commissioned yet.

They were there and powered (I'm pretty sure), but open, all last
weekend.

Since when has NS been introducing gates at Centraal, plus tickets to be
used on them?