On 02/01/2014 20:46, Clive Page wrote:

On 02/01/2014 16:24, tim...... wrote:

If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying for
tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are tilting at
windmills

I walk from St.Pancras to King's Cross tube station quite frequently and
continue to be surprised at the number of arrivals from Eurostar who
head straight to the enormously long queue for the ticket office, when
there are plenty of ticket machines with no queue or only a small one.

It could be that some of them are conditioned by the near impossibility
of using ticket machines at stations in France (and for that matter in
the Netherlands) if you are a non-native. I recall arriving at the RER
station in Charles de Gaulle a few years ago and finding that the ticket
machines accepted neither UK credit cards nor Euro notes. I was able to
avoid the extremely long queue only by being able to feed in at least
two dozen small coins (which fortunately I had left over from a previous
trip).

Annoying that (all?) the RER and Metro ticket machines don't take notes,
but they should accept UK cards these days (there used to be problems
when the French had their own chip-and-PIN system, before the adoption
of the EMV standard.)

wrote in message
...
In article ,
(tim......) wrote:

If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying for
tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are tilting
at windmills

You only have to look at the number of suitably "qualified"
individuals who don't go through the self service passport check (at
no risk and sometimes considerable time cost) to see how "frightened"
the average person is of such technology

Now maybe but the use of such cards will grow over time.

but not withing the timetable that Boris wants to close the ticket offices
IMHO

tim

"Mizter T" wrote in message
...

On 02/01/2014 19:02, Phil wrote:

Mizter T writes:

On 02/01/2014 16:24, tim...... wrote:
[snip]
If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying for
tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are tilting at
windmills

You only have to look at the number of suitably "qualified" individuals
who don't go through the self service passport check (at no risk and
sometimes considerable time cost) to see how "frightened" the average
person is of such technology

They might not have a chipped passport yet. (Or have no passport - the
gates don't work with Euro national identity cards.)

Can't be many non-chip UK passports left now.

British passports with chips were introduced in March 2006, according to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_passport#Countries_using_biometric_passp orts

So another two years and two months before the last non-chipped British
passports expire

actually it would be 2 years and 11 months if you renewed a pp with 9 months
still to go in March 2006

But it's even worse that that because whilst they started to introduce then
in March they didn't issue 100% as chipped for sever months

Mine issued in May 2006 (expires in Nov) doesn't have a chip

tim

"Clive Page" wrote in message
...
On 02/01/2014 16:24, tim...... wrote:

If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying for
tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are tilting at
windmills

I walk from St.Pancras to King's Cross tube station quite frequently and
continue to be surprised at the number of arrivals from Eurostar who head
straight to the enormously long queue for the ticket office, when there
are plenty of ticket machines with no queue or only a small one.

It could be that some of them are conditioned by the near impossibility of
using ticket machines at stations in France (and for that matter in the
Netherlands) if you are a non-native. I recall arriving at the RER
station in Charles de Gaulle a few years ago and finding that the ticket
machines accepted neither UK credit cards nor Euro notes. I was able to
avoid the extremely long queue only by being able to feed in at least two
dozen small coins (which fortunately I had left over from a previous
trip).

You only have to look at the number of suitably "qualified" individuals
who don't go through the self service passport check (at no risk and
sometimes considerable time cost) to see how "frightened" the average
person is of such technology

Well my experience of these things at airports is that they only recognise
my face or iris about one time out of three, and that if it fails I have
to queue up for the manned barrier anyway after a few minutes, so that on
average there is little or no time saving.

Really?

Whenever I watch the "helpers" on the self service q they seem to go out of
their way not to reject people (with a valid chip pp) back into the "normal
q,

It's nothing to do with "fright": if the technology gets better maybe more
of us will use them. I'm told that the new-fangled facial recognition
systems are slightly better than the old iris scanners, but my experience
has not provided me with much evidence of that so far.

--
Clive Page

In article , (Phil) wrote:

Mizter T writes:

On 02/01/2014 16:24, tim...... wrote:
[snip]
If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying for
tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are tilting at
windmills

You only have to look at the number of suitably "qualified" individuals
who don't go through the self service passport check (at no risk and
sometimes considerable time cost) to see how "frightened" the average
person is of such technology

They might not have a chipped passport yet. (Or have no passport - the
gates don't work with Euro national identity cards.)

Can't be many non-chip UK passports left now.

But you see the same everywhere, how few use pay-at-pump, although
self-service checkouts do seem to have gained acceptance.

Forced in by supermarkets maybe. I refuse to use them. "Unexpected item in
bagging area" is hassle I don't need.

Have yet to see anyone else use a pay wave card in my local co-op
though.

Nor me in local Sainsbury and ASDA.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(tim......) wrote:

wrote in message
...
In article ,
(tim......) wrote:

If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying for
tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are tilting
at windmills

You only have to look at the number of suitably "qualified"
individuals who don't go through the self service passport check (at
no risk and sometimes considerable time cost) to see how "frightened"
the average person is of such technology

Now maybe but the use of such cards will grow over time.

but not withing the timetable that Boris wants to close the ticket
offices IMHO

It's still some time till his 2015 deadline in terms of electronic payment
development timescales.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 12:13:42
on Thu, 2 Jan 2014, remarked:
If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying for
tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are tilting
at windmills

You only have to look at the number of suitably "qualified"
individuals who don't go through the self service passport check (at
no risk and sometimes considerable time cost) to see how "frightened"
the average person is of such technology

Also built-in problems for families travelling:

"Like Oyster, you can only pay for one person per journey with a
contactless payment card; if you are travelling in a group, each
person will have to use a separate contactless payment card or
other method of payment."

However, they have either withdrawn the restriction on using foreign or
prepay cards (and many tourists will have foreign prepay cards) or
they've just stopped mentioning it.

Now maybe but the use of such cards will grow over time.

Have they met the deadline set when first introduced [Dec 2012]:

"From the end of 2013, contactless payment cards will be accepted on the
Tube, Docklands Light Railway, London Overground and trams."

I'm not looking forward to that because it would seem it obsoletes my
"Onepulse Barclay/Oyster" - the system charges neither rather than one
or both, apparently. Will they be sending me an automatic refund for the
stored amount?
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 20:05:59 on Thu, 2 Jan 2014,
Mizter T remarked:
Can't be many non-chip UK passports left now.

British passports with chips were introduced in March 2006, according to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_passport#Countries_using_biometric_passp orts

So another two years and two months before the last non-chipped British
passports expire (and that's excluding all the inevitable exceptions -
I've a feeling that Brit passports issued by embassies overseas weren't
issued with chips until a later date).

So less than a quarter of the old one left.
--
Roland Perry

On 03/01/2014 10:25, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 12:13:42
on Thu, 2 Jan 2014, remarked:
If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying for
tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are tilting
at windmills

You only have to look at the number of suitably "qualified"
individuals who don't go through the self service passport check (at
no risk and sometimes considerable time cost) to see how "frightened"
the average person is of such technology

Also built-in problems for families travelling:

"Like Oyster, you can only pay for one person per journey with a
contactless payment card; if you are travelling in a group, each
person will have to use a separate contactless payment card or
other method of payment."

However, they have either withdrawn the restriction on using foreign or
prepay cards (and many tourists will have foreign prepay cards) or
they've just stopped mentioning it.

How many (if any) prepaid cards have contactless enabled? I suspect they
won't have it, as contactless transactions are all about being
super-quick, 'touch and go', without time for online authorisation.
Enabling contactless would be a risk for the issuer - existing prepaid
cards have a zero floor limit (i.e. automatic online authorisation), for
example.



Now maybe but the use of such cards will grow over time.

Have they met the deadline set when first introduced [Dec 2012]:

"From the end of 2013, contactless payment cards will be accepted on the
Tube, Docklands Light Railway, London Overground and trams."

I'm not looking forward to that because it would seem it obsoletes my
"Onepulse Barclay/Oyster" - the system charges neither rather than one
or both, apparently. Will they be sending me an automatic refund for the
stored amount?

"the system charges neither rather than one or both, apparently" -
really? I'd expect it to continue acting as an Oyster card when
presented to an Oyster validator (though I'd also expect the product to
be discontinued soon - when-ish does your card expire, if you don't mind
me asking?).

On 03/01/2014 10:27, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 20:05:59 on Thu, 2 Jan 2014,
Mizter T remarked:
Can't be many non-chip UK passports left now.

British passports with chips were introduced in March 2006, according to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_passport#Countries_using_biometric_passp orts


So another two years and two months before the last non-chipped
British passports expire (and that's excluding all the inevitable
exceptions - I've a feeling that Brit passports issued by embassies
overseas weren't issued with chips until a later date).

So less than a quarter of the old one left.

See my follow-up post - non-chipped continued to be issued until end of
2006 - but my point was in response to "Can't be many non-chip UK
passports left now" - I'd say there'd be quite a few.