London Banter - Oyster in Other Towns

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Oyster in Other Towns

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?

Oyster in Other Towns

Paul Corfield wrote:
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.

Lothian Buses (Edinburgh) have had contactless smartcards since at least
2005, even for basic weekly seasons. Cardiff Bus do scan the over-60s card,
but their seasons are still paper AFAIK.

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'm told that SWT are have a poster advertising 'Oyster' coming soon at
Petersfield. I questioned rather closely as to whether that's the London
Oyster (eg PAYG extended to Zone 6) but I'm told that the statement was that
it was definitely a usable at Petersfield. I haven't seen the poster for
myself.

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.

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? Who is liable for fraud? And so
on.

With contactless cards, it doesn't matter so much. If you present your
wallet to the reader it can activate the 'right' card. (But here be plenty
of implementation dragons)

Theo

Oyster in Other Towns

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.../en/index.html in 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.

Oyster in Other Towns

In message , at 20:46:02 on Sun, 24
Jan 2010, " remarked:
How many other towns in the country use SmartCard for their transport?

Nottingham City Transport have their range of smartcards (widely
deployed about 5 years now):

http://www.nctx.co.uk/fares/easyrider/easyrider.asp

And recently I've seen readers appearing on Trent Barton buses:

http://www.trentbarton.co.uk/fares-a...ets/mango.aspx
--
Roland Perry

Oyster in Other Towns

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.

Oyster in Other Towns

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.

Oyster in Other Towns

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.

Oyster in Other Towns

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.