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 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?

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.

On Jan 25, 9:35*pm, "
wrote:

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?

It's operator friendly.

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

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.

'X-No-Archive'
On Jan 25, 12:15*am, "Graham Harrison"
wrote:
wrote in message

...

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?

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

Many other places use variations of smart cards e.g.http://www.octopus.com.hk/get-your-o...n/index.htmlin Hong Kong. * In
Japan they have Suica (sp?) and a competing system I can't remember the name
of. * They are also using chips in mobile phones as payment/travel devices.

The issue is getting enough people to agree a specification to use
internationally. * As others have pointed out we are having enough problems
rolling out ITSO in the UK. * And international use could imply things like
currency exchange rates. * Then take a look at how long it took the payment
cards to agree the Chip and Pin specification and how long it's taking them
to roll that out.

I'd love to carry around just one card instead of separate credit, bank,
loyalty etc cards and in theory I believe that while it probably isn't
feasible because of hardware limitations today (apart from specifications) I
see no reason why it shouldn't come some day. * But then again is that
really the best solution? * If I can be uniquely and reliably identified why
can't that provide access to all my cards in the same way that when I fly
the fact that I am identified by the airline gives me access to my
electronic ticket? * See, I'd rather not carry anything if I didn't have to.


In Japan, there are a number of major pan-operator smartcard schemes
that are gradually becoming interoperable:

Suica (Japan Railways East)
Icoca (JR West)
Pasmo - rail, bus subway operators in greater Tokyo area (but
excluding JR companies). This replaced the Passnet magcard scheme
which had a smaller number of participants.
PiTaPa - Kansai region 0- numerous operators excluding the JR
companies

The latter works on a post-pay basis - you get direct debited with the
cost of the journeys you've made. Not sure how well it works.

The others are stored fare or commuter pass - based. The stored fare
system is I believe, quite simple - based on additive fares for each
leg of any multi-operator journey. There is no attempt at offering
PAYG complexity AFAIK.

The feature that is apparent from Japan is the degree of co-operation
between operators that underpins these schemes.

DRH

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 26/01/2010 00:09, Mizter T wrote:

On Jan 25, 9:35 pm,
wrote:

On 24.01.10 22:27, Richard J. wrote:

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?

It's operator friendly.

It's France.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

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?