On Fri, 28 Oct 2005 15:07:59 +0100,
wrote:

One group which, as far as I can see, is particularly hit by the new
structure is that of pensioners who can use their Freedom Pass after 9
a.m. but need to pay the high cash rates when traveling to earlier
hospital and other medical appointments.

Prepay Oysters are available to crumblies too, I believe.

On Fri, 28 Oct 2005 15:15:45 +0100, Laurence Payne
wrote:

One group which, as far as I can see, is particularly hit by the new
structure is that of pensioners who can use their Freedom Pass after 9
a.m. but need to pay the high cash rates when traveling to earlier
hospital and other medical appointments.

Prepay Oysters are available to crumblies too, I believe.

Not to mention the highly developed system of refunding travel
expenses to medical appointments for those who need it.

That'll teach you to play an "emotion" card :-)

In message , Laurence Payne
writes
You need to buy a paper TC if you need to use National Rail within th
travelcard zone. NR are dragging their heels at implementing oyster
pre-pay.
On the Parliamentary channel the other day was London assembly questions
to Ken Livingston who said that NR had been offered full installation of
oyster readers in the GLA but didn't want to know, so now was
considering taking all the railways in the GLA under the TfL umbrella.
--
Clive

On Fri, 28 Oct 2005 15:15:45 +0100, Laurence Payne
wrote:
On Fri, 28 Oct 2005 15:07:59 +0100,
wrote:

One group which, as far as I can see, is particularly hit by the new
structure is that of pensioners who can use their Freedom Pass after 9
a.m. but need to pay the high cash rates when traveling to earlier
hospital and other medical appointments.

Prepay Oysters are available to crumblies too, I believe.

Indeed, I have a Freedom Pass but also have prepay oyster for early
journeys, very useful, plus I am not too crumbly just yet


--
Martin

wrote in message
...
On 26 Oct 2005 09:06:49 -0700, wrote:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/downloads/...06-leaflet.pdf

One group which, as far as I can see, is particularly hit by the new
structure is that of pensioners who can use their Freedom Pass after 9
a.m. but need to pay the high cash rates when traveling to earlier
hospital and other medical appointments.

I know of at least three people with Freedom passes who also hold
Oyster Cards and use them for journeys before 9am. Two of them even
have auto-top up activated.

If you are sufficiently disabled they give you a freedom pass encoded to
allow travel before 9am anyway.

On Fri, 28 Oct 2005 21:59:50 +0100, Barry Salter
wrote:

So it's not entirely unreasonable for the train companies to be
unwilling to spend a not unsubstantial sum of money installing gates
and/or Oyster validators at all the stations in the zonal area if
there's no guarantee that the same hardware will be capable of accepting
a potential future *national* smartcard system, as at the end of the
day, that money will have to come from their passengers, either directly
through the farebox, or via increased subsidy from the taxpayer.

Okay, but (IIUC) it's not their money that would be spent, it's the
GLA's.

And they don't seem to have a problem with having the validators
installed at every *gated* station within the zones - why the
difference? It must be something to do with pre-pay, surely?

asdf wrote:
On Fri, 28 Oct 2005 21:59:50 +0100, Barry Salter
wrote:

So it's not entirely unreasonable for the train companies to be
unwilling to spend a not unsubstantial sum of money installing gates
and/or Oyster validators at all the stations in the zonal area if
there's no guarantee that the same hardware will be capable of accepting
a potential future *national* smartcard system, as at the end of the
day, that money will have to come from their passengers, either directly
through the farebox, or via increased subsidy from the taxpayer.

Okay, but (IIUC) it's not their money that would be spent, it's the
GLA's.

And they don't seem to have a problem with having the validators
installed at every *gated* station within the zones - why the
difference? It must be something to do with pre-pay, surely?

According to this news article, SWT are working on the expansion of
Prepay onto a couple of its routes for early next year as a trial:

http://tinyurl.com/9j4rm

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

Colin wrote:

Oh come on Richard. 'Pay As You Go' is common parlance now thanks to the
popular Mobile Phone payment mechanism.

Oyster Pre-Pay is exactly the same concept as mobile phone PAYG. It makes
absolute sense for TfL to describe it using a term that the general public
(excepting yourself perhaps) are totally comfortable with.

So if TfL want to make their Oyster product sound like mobile phones,
perhaps they should consider another option whereby you get billed and pay
by direct debit (or credit card) at the end of each month according to your
usage.

--
Phil Richards
London, UK
Home Page: http://www.philrichards1.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

On Fri, 28 Oct 2005 21:59:50 +0100, Barry Salter
wrote:

On Fri, 28 Oct 2005 17:54:37 +0100, Clive
wrote:

On the Parliamentary channel the other day was London assembly questions
to Ken Livingston who said that NR had been offered full installation of
oyster readers in the GLA but didn't want to know, so now was
considering taking all the railways in the GLA under the TfL umbrella.

What "Red Ken" neglects to mention is that Oyster isn't actually
compatible with the Integrated Transport Smartcard Organisation (ITSO)
specification, nor can the "APTIS replacement" Ticket Office machines
handle Oyster.

So? ITSO were nowhere to be found when the Oyster contract was awarded.
They've come up with precisely nothing compared to a working system in
London. The much vaunted Manchester smartcard has yet to materialise
into a working scheme. There was a window of opportunity where ITSO
compatibility could have been built into Oyster if ITSO have known what
it wanted. AFAIK it didn't and Oyster could not wait so that opportunity
was lost.

Old APTIS did work with Oyster because my local station had it. The TOCs
and ATOC have been pitiful when it comes to trying to work with TfL / LT
on Oyster. I should know - I was involved in the early discussions and
to describe the views as surreal is an understatement. They are now in
the situation of being overtaken by events - technically and politically
given DfT's likely decision to grant Ken more control over London rail
services.

Members of ITSO include the "Big 5" bus companies (Arriva, First,
Go-Ahead, NatEx and Stagecoach), ATOC, various ticketing system
manufacturers (Almex, Ascom, ATOS Origin and Cubic Transportation), most
of the PTEs, BT, BemroseBooth (who supply most of the ticket blanks to
the TOCs) and the Department for Transport.

And all of the manufacturers barring Cubic have sat and moaned rather
than try to work with Cubic (part of Transys) to develop compatible
equipment. Cubic have developed readers that can deal with more than one
form of card and the Oyster system contract recognises the requirement
for other cards to be read, written to and for data to move around
between different card management systems.

So it's not entirely unreasonable for the train companies to be
unwilling to spend a not unsubstantial sum of money installing gates
and/or Oyster validators at all the stations in the zonal area if
there's no guarantee that the same hardware will be capable of accepting
a potential future *national* smartcard system, as at the end of the
day, that money will have to come from their passengers, either directly
through the farebox, or via increased subsidy from the taxpayer.

As the TOCs don't have to spend anything I fail to see why that is being
quoted as an issue. This is all covered under existing agreements for
Travelcard, Through Ticketing and ticket technology changes. They knew
this years ago. They have done nothing apart from prevaricate about
whether they might lost out on some revenue if people switch
technologies or products. Perhaps it would have been more sensible for
them to actively participate in the debate and subsequent development of
Oyster so that their requirements were built in from day 1. Instead (I'm
convinced) they are going to be forced to accept something they have
little control over.

All very disappointing but let's hope someone can get their act together
to secure more effective ticket product integration.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

What "Red Ken" neglects to mention is that Oyster isn't actually
compatible with the Integrated Transport Smartcard Organisation (ITSO)
specification, nor can the "APTIS replacement" Ticket Office machines
handle Oyster.

You can hardly blame the mayor for something that was decided before his
job was even created.

And in a similar vein you can hardly blame the people behind Oyster Card
for misplacing their crystal ball in regards to future card standards and ticket
issuing equipment of third parties who do not disclose the information in the
first place.