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?

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.)

--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

In article , ()
wrote:

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

Reading Buses uses a Smartcard system, which you can load tickets onto or
PAYG. No discounts for using it though, and the tickets are surprisingly
expensive, for a council-run bus service. However, it can get you across
almost 30 miles of countryside, point to point.

The "network" travelcard, as an example, covers from Andover, Hungerford,
Wantage and Lambourne in the West, right out to Twyford, Wokingham and
High Wycombe in the east. A Network Travelcard is £30 a weeek.

http://www.reading-buses.co.uk/smartcard/

Stagecoach and Oxford Buses are introducing a similar system for Oxford.

--
Paul Cummins - Always a NetHead
Wasting Bandwidth since 1981

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

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.

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

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 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 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 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.