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On Wed, 06 Nov 2013 19:44:16 +0000, Mizter T
wrote:
Some 400 Oyster dispensing machines, upgraded by Cubic
Transportation
Systems, are in operation across the Tube network, with at least
one
machine at every station expect Roding Valley.

I stand corrected... But what has Roding Valley done to miss out? :)

Neil

--
Neil Williams. Use neil before the at to reply.

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Neil Williams wrote:
On Wed, 06 Nov 2013 19:44:16 +0000, Mizter T wrote:
Some 400 Oyster dispensing machines, upgraded by Cubic Transportation
Systems, are in operation across the Tube network, with at least one
machine at every station expect Roding Valley.

I stand corrected... But what has Roding Valley done to miss out? :)

Quietest station on the Underground?

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It shouldn't be too hard a problem to solve - ethernet has managed to do
collision detection since the 80s. I guess it depends on how smart they
want to make the hardware in the card.

--
Spud

My Oyster card will not read if I have a PATH Smartlink card next to it.
However, at least four years ago when I last used it, the Smartlink card
will work quite happily on the readers on the PATH turnstiles when next to
an Oyster card, so it can't be too difficult to make it ignore a 'foreign'
card not valid on that system. Of course it's slightly more difficult when
two valid cards, say an Oyster and a VISA debit card can both be seen.

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In message , at 23:32:21
on Wed, 6 Nov 2013, Stephen Furley remarked:
My Oyster card will not read if I have a PATH Smartlink card next to
it. However, at least four years ago when I last used it, the Smartlink
card will work quite happily on the readers on the PATH turnstiles when
next to an Oyster card, so it can't be too difficult to make it ignore
a 'foreign' card not valid on that system.

Actually, there's no reason for it to be symmetrical. What if, when
energised, the Smartlink card produces a much stronger signal than an
Oyster so that when used on PATH it swamps the Oyster signal and is
recognised, and on a TfL gate it swamps the Oyster signal and the gate
can't see the Oyster.
--
Roland Perry

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In message , at 23:59:35 on
Wed, 6 Nov 2013, Paul Corfield remarked:
On Wed, 06 Nov 2013 23:13:07 +0000, Neil Williams
wrote:

On an aside, it never ceased to amaze me how TfL designed Oyster to
require so much human intervention when paper tickets require near
enough none.

Can you explain what you mean by "so much human intervention"?

I presume he means when buying the card, and when spending hours talking
to the helpline to sort out unresolved journeys etc.

Plus of course the effort of getting printouts for "expenses purposes"
when all you need do with a paper ticket is hand in the ticket itself.

What would be your example of a system or facility not requiring so
much intervention?

When my OnePulse Barclaycard was renewed after three years, the credit
card balance was transferred seamlessly, but the Oyster balance required
considerable individual effort to move across.

The facility with the least intervention is probably the Travelcard,
just buy it once and then use it. If it's an outboundary Travelcard it's
even issued as one coupon, whereas a day return will be two (plus
whatever ticketing is required once you get to London).
--
Roland Perry

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On 07/11/2013 07:37, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 23:59:35 on
Wed, 6 Nov 2013, Paul Corfield remarked:
On Wed, 06 Nov 2013 23:13:07 +0000, Neil Williams
wrote:

On an aside, it never ceased to amaze me how TfL designed Oyster to
require so much human intervention when paper tickets require near
enough none.

Can you explain what you mean by "so much human intervention"?

I presume he means when buying the card, and when spending hours talking
to the helpline to sort out unresolved journeys etc.

On the few times that I have had a problem with Oyster, I have spent
less than five minutes on the phone.


Plus of course the effort of getting printouts for "expenses purposes"
when all you need do with a paper ticket is hand in the ticket itself.


Register Oyster, print journey history (or have it automatically
e-mailed to you)

What would be your example of a system or facility not requiring so
much intervention?

When my OnePulse Barclaycard was renewed after three years, the credit
card balance was transferred seamlessly, but the Oyster balance required
considerable individual effort to move across.

The facility with the least intervention is probably the Travelcard,
just buy it once and then use it. If it's an outboundary Travelcard it's
even issued as one coupon, whereas a day return will be two (plus
whatever ticketing is required once you get to London).

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In message , at 09:52:23 on
Thu, 7 Nov 2013, Tony Dragon remarked:
Can you explain what you mean by "so much human intervention"?

I presume he means when buying the card, and when spending hours talking
to the helpline to sort out unresolved journeys etc.

On the few times that I have had a problem with Oyster, I have spent
less than five minutes on the phone.

I've had several half-hour sessions, and I'm only an occasional visitor.

Plus of course the effort of getting printouts for "expenses purposes"
when all you need do with a paper ticket is hand in the ticket itself.

Register Oyster,

Find a computer, log on... Find a printer...[1]

print journey history (or have it automatically e-mailed to you)

Then clip out the bit you want to submit as expenses.

And this functionality is quite recent, to begin with the only way to
get a journey history was to queue at a ticket window.

[1] Actually, this is one of the most difficult steps when travelling or
working away from home.
--
Roland Perry

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On Wednesday, 6 November 2013 23:59:35 UTC, Paul Corfield wrote:

Can you explain what you mean by "so much human intervention"? What
would be your example of a system or facility not requiring so much
intervention?

My aims perhaps differ from TfL's (with union pressure) given my experience of German systems which are generally completely unstaffed except drivers and the odd security guard, but I would have had a core requirement that all ticket offices could be closed when the system was fully implemented, and that it could fully replace paper tickets. This wouldn't necessarily result in redundancies, but rather I would have roving staff to assist in the use of ticket machines. I'd do the same for the mainline, FWIW.

So, some examples of how I would have done it differently:-

1. No unresolved journeys. The way I would work this is the same way as many other systems do it, such as Singapore - touching in charges the maximum Oyster single fare to the card that could apply from that station (subject to cap if appropriate for London), and touching out refunds back the difference back to the journey you actually made. If you don't touch out, you don't get it back, tough. That is powerful motivation, and far, far less complicated.

2. OSIs (out of station interchanges) seem to be the biggest cause of this. I've posted about ways these could be tidied up before - one way is to always close the journey on touching out, but reopen it when touching back in at an OSI location. Leaving journeys open was a silly piece of design again asking for a need for intervention.

3. All card transactions, be that dispensing, refunding or whatever, possible ONLY from automated ticket machines, NOT from ticket offices.

4. A full abolition of paper tickets except accepting cross-London NR tickets (requiring a smaller number of accepting barriers, thus lower maintenance cost). Singles/returns could either be issued on Oyster cards returnable for refund later, or on retained contactless "tokens" like Delhi's system (I think) which are inserted into and retained by the barriers for re-use.

I just remain amazed that a system designed in the 21st century for the 21st century has so many holes in it that it requires so much human intervention.

Neil

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On Thursday, 7 November 2013 13:50:38 UTC, Neil Williams wrote:

1. No unresolved journeys. The way I would work this is the same way as many other systems do it, such as Singapore - touching in charges the maximum Oyster single fare to the card that could apply from that station (subject to cap if appropriate for London), and touching out refunds back the difference back to the journey you actually made. If you don't touch out, you don't get it back, tough. That is powerful motivation, and far, far less complicated.

Failure to touch in and touching out would do the same thing. Maximum fare that could apply to that station would be charged. Or in the case of National Rail, an automatic Penalty Fare.

Neil

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On Thursday, 7 November 2013 13:52:31 UTC, Neil Williams wrote:

Failure to touch in and touching out would do the same thing. Maximum fare that could apply to that station would be charged. Or in the case of National Rail, an automatic Penalty Fare.

One more... maximum journey lengths set very high (perhaps 6 hours or something, or closed by next touch-in), but if exceeded would result in two separate maximum fares, again non-appealable.

Neil