Tom Anderson wrote:

Presumably it would have to operate at a database level rather than from
the data held on the card,

Why?


I understood from the way Daily Capping works, that there is a very
limited data capacity in an Oystercard, so it wouldn't be able to hold
even a week's travel information - therefore it would have to be done
by analysing the travel records on the database ??

asdf wrote:

The problem is that there's no easy mechanism for the data on the card
to be updated according to changes that take place at the database
level.


I thought that anybody who buys tickets or tops-up online has to go to
a designated Tube Station to update their Oystercard - surely it
wouldn't be unreasonable to have to go to a Tube Station once a
week/month to collect the "refund" due from weekly/monthly price
capping ?

Presumably the ticket machines could be used, rather than the barriers,
so a journey wouldn't have to be made.

Neil Williams wrote:

I think we need to think outside the box on this, and a possibility
would be, once seasons are all on Oyster, to abandon the concept of
season tickets completely.


Absolutely, but that is presumably some way off ... in the meantime, I
would have thought that it would be possible to write some reasonably
efficient code to effect the scenarios that have been described,
without the database grinding to a halt whilst it was being run.

As a start users could be limited to only running the calculation once
a week - they could even be required to nominate in advance a
particular day on which the calculation would be run each week. This
would be far from ideal, but at least it would stop me being ripped off
to the extent that I currently am ...

Tom Anderson wrote:

Presumably it would have to operate at a database level rather than from
the data held on the card,

Why?

I understood from the way Daily Capping works, that there is a very
limited data capacity on an Oystercard, so the card wouldn't be able to
hold
even a week's travel information - therefore the Capping would have to
be done
by analysing the travel records on the database ??

On 16 Aug 2005 17:14:54 -0700, wrote:

it would stop me being ripped off
to the extent that I currently am ...

So would buying a weekly season ticket. I don't believe Oyster should
have an upgrade released until it is completely ready.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

I thought that anybody who buys tickets or tops-up online has to go to
a designated Tube Station to update their Oystercard - surely it
wouldn't be unreasonable to have to go to a Tube Station once a
week/month to collect the "refund" due from weekly/monthly price
capping ?

In the longer term if Oyster gets rolled out to National Rail one would
assume that it might become possible to nominate railway stations too, and
it will also increase the number of passengers using Oyster on the tube who
presently use paper one day travelcards because of their use of rail.

Presumably the ticket machines could be used, rather than the barriers,
so a journey wouldn't have to be made.

The problem at the moment is that the ticket machines cannot be used to
collect top-ups and you do have to make a journey. There really needs to be
readers available whose sole function is to update Oyster cards.

The functionality might not be there at the moment, but I don't see any
obvious reason why in the future nominated "Ticket Stop" shops shouldn't
also be collection points for updates.

Graham J wrote:

In the longer term if Oyster gets rolled out to National Rail one would
assume that it might become possible to nominate railway stations too, and
it will also increase the number of passengers using Oyster on the tube who
presently use paper one day travelcards because of their use of rail.

The problem at the moment is that the ticket machines cannot be used to
collect top-ups and you do have to make a journey. There really needs to be
readers available whose sole function is to update Oyster cards.

The functionality might not be there at the moment, but I don't see any
obvious reason why in the future nominated "Ticket Stop" shops shouldn't
also be collection points for updates.


These options all involve a greater or lesser amount of hardware
investment - where as converting the automatic ticket machines in tube
stations to allow for the collection of topups would presumably just be
a software change ? This shouldn't put too much extra strain on the
machines at peak time, because unless you were down to your last few
pence, the collection of the refund/rebate could occur outside the peak
morning rush-hour periods.

If TfL went for the cheapest option first, they could then improve the
service as investment allowed ...

Mizter T wrote:
As other posters have mentioned it would be very complex to implement,
and even if it were possible, it could well cause a large amount of
passenger confusion.


Surely if it were properly explained how it works, passenger who
understood it, could benefit from it, and passengers who currently use
straight-forward travelcards, could continue merrily with them !

Neil Williams wrote:


So would buying a weekly season ticket. I don't believe Oyster should
have an upgrade released until it is completely ready.

that's only practical if you know your weekly travel patterns in
advance. Oyster is great for those of us who don't.

U n d e r a c h i e v e r (and proud)
--

So would buying a weekly season ticket. I don't believe Oyster should
have an upgrade released until it is completely ready.

that's only practical if you know your weekly travel patterns in
advance. Oyster is great for those of us who don't.

Quite. But the particular point being responded to was that it should be
possible to nominate a day in advance for a weekly capping calculation to be
made. If you were able to nominate such a day then you must already know
that a weekly travelcard will be more cost effective for that week. So you
might as well just buy one. Such an upgrade to Oyster wouldn't actually
have gained you anything.