In article ,
Peter Masson wrote:
Outside London some bus operators issue a zero fare ticket; others ask
how far you are travelling and then issue a zero fare ticket, but TfL
don't seem to bother to collect any record of journeys made by
non-London bus pass holders.

This seems to vary with the operating company. On some journeys the driver
presses a button on the ticket machine while on others he doesn't seem to
notice your existence.

--
David Wild using RISC OS on broadband
www.davidhwild.me.uk

On 2008-12-20 20:45:14 +0000, said:

In article ,
Peter Masson wrote:
Outside London some bus operators issue a zero fare ticket; others ask
how far you are travelling and then issue a zero fare ticket, but TfL
don't seem to bother to collect any record of journeys made by
non-London bus pass holders.

This seems to vary with the operating company. On some journeys the driver
presses a button on the ticket machine while on others he doesn't seem to
notice your existence.

Thank you both for the information. I'll try it the next time I'm in
'The Smoke'.
--
Robert

In article ,
"John Salmon" wrote:

Isn't a "downthread" post one that hasn't yet been posted?

Depends on whether the thread is travelling to or from London...

(coat already in hand)

In message 2008122019214050073-coppercapped@googlemailcom, Robert
writes
I giving away all my secrets! Yes, I also have an ITSO bus pass and use
it locally, but I've never tried it in London as usually the Tube is
quicker to get me to where I want to go. (Paddington, as any fule kno,
is not in central Lunnon).

Next time, though, I'll try it and see what happens.

It works fine for Mother when she visits. Just shows it to the driver
or gets on as appropriate and off she goes.

She loves riding the buses down here; mind you she is from Lancashire.
--
Steve Fitzgerald has now left the building.
You will find him in London's Docklands, E16, UK
(please use the reply to address for email)

On 20 Dec, 23:10, "Mr.G" wrote:

In article ,
*"John Salmon" wrote:

Isn't a "downthread" post one that hasn't yet been posted?

Depends on whether the thread is travelling to or from London...

(coat already in hand)

Or if the thread concerns the West London Line in which case it
changes halfway down/up... or is that up/down...

(coat on standing outside in the pouring rain)

On 20 Dec, 17:23, Mizter T wrote:
On 20 Dec, 17:06, Matthew Dickinson
wrote:





On 17 Dec, 14:22, Neil *Williams wrote:

On Dec 17, 11:43*am, Matthew Dickinson
wrote:

You can now buy coffee in London with an ITSO compatible card.

seehttp://www.squidcard.com/coffeerepublic.html

I can't help but think that this is what the big hole that calls
itself Visa payWave should have been?

Neil

Visa Paywave (including the oyster Barclaycard Onepulse) and
Mastercard Paypass can now be used at the Eroscard terminals to buy
the Evening Standard.
There are also plans to introduce an Eros prepaid Mastercard Paypass
card.

seehttps://secure.americanbanker.com/article.html?id=20080721ZTR2EYHH

That's interesting. So do the Standard think that their readership are
going to be pushed downmarket as a result of the credit crunch and
will be in need of a prepaid card, or do they alternatively think that
the potential customers for such a card are the aspirant type and will
wish to associate themselves with the 'classy' Standard?

Of course the reality is that the Standard think they can successfully
sell people the concept of this pay 'n' wave card through the pages of
their rag, and in thinking that they may well have a point.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I think the long term aspiration for both TfL and the Evening Standard
is to move away from issuing physical plastic or holding money, and to
instead install account based applications on third party payment
cards.

On 22 Dec, 11:58, Matthew Dickinson
wrote:

I think the long term aspiration for both TfL and the Evening Standard
is to move away from issuing physical plastic or holding money, and to
instead install account based applications on third party payment
cards.

That makes some sense but it does also throw open the doors to a whole
hoard of other questions.

An obvious issue is that of suitably compatible equipment - in the
future if Visa payWave/ Mastercard PayPass contactless cards were to
be accepted in place of an Oyster card at Oyster terminals then
obviously said terminals would need to either be very significantly
modified or (far more likely) simply replaced.

Also, would passengers then be able to use their contactless card for
paying for travel in London from the outset or would they need to
register or activate them first? Whilst the idea that they were ready
to be used 'out of the envelope' might be attractive, there are a
number of issues such as the contractual question of a passenger
having to agree to the T&Cs of the public transport operator in
question (e.g. TfL); the passenger having an understanding of how to
use the system correctly (e.g. the need to touch-in *and* out);
associated with that the passenger having an understanding of the fare
structure; the question of what happens if a contactless card holder
is abusing the system (currently RPIs can and indeed do confiscate
Oyster cards); the cost of processing each transaction whenever the
card is used to pay a fare to the operator (e.g. TfL) which is not
present with prepaid cards (such as Oyster); the issue of how any
problems might be resolved if, for example, an overpayment has
occurred (at the moment Oyster customer services can simply refund
passengers - in the future would people be calling their bank if such
problems occurred, and would the bank's customer services people have
the vaguest clue of how to deal with such issues).

The existing Barclaycard "OnePulse" card sidesteps all these issues as
the Oyster element is quite separate from the payWave and conventional
credit card elements - in essence the OnePulse card merely plays
'host' to an integral Oyster card (obviously it's a bit more complex
than that as I *think* both the payWave element and the Oyster
element are dealt with by the same multi-function RFID chip, and the
designers had to ensure that the payWave Oyster elements don't
interfere with one another at all). The Oyster account is very much
separate from the credit card account - one can activate the Oyster
auto-topup function to take money from the credit card account when
the Oyster balance is running low, but this is no different to what
one can do with a standalone Oyster card and a separate credit/debit
card anyway. And if people have any problems with the Oyster element
of the card then they merely need to deal with the Oyster customer
services people.

One other big advantage of TfL holding the money is that they get to
benefit from the interest on it, of course!

I'm not for a moment suggesting that in the future contactless payment
cards such as payWave and PayPass won't be integrated into the
infrastructure of public transport smartcards in the future, merely
that what might on the face of it seem a simple and obvious thing to
do is betrayed by the complexity of many of the issues which lurk
beneath!

"Theo Markettos" wrote ...
What is it with the aquatic names? Oyster, Squid, Octopus, Goldfish?
Mine's a Wildebeest card, please.


You want a gnu card?

In message , Andrew Heenan
writes
"Theo Markettos" wrote ...
What is it with the aquatic names? Oyster, Squid, Octopus, Goldfish?
Mine's a Wildebeest card, please.


You want a gnu card?


Or a ganother gnu card to replace it with ?

--
To Reply :
replace "bulleid" with "adrian" - all mail to bulleid is rejected
Sorry for the rigmarole, If I want spam, I'll go to the shops
Every time someone says "I don't believe in trolls", another one dies.

In article ,
Adrian wrote:
In message , Andrew Heenan
writes
"Theo Markettos" wrote ...
What is it with the aquatic names? Oyster, Squid, Octopus, Goldfish?
Mine's a Wildebeest card, please.


You want a gnu card?


Or a ganother gnu card to replace it with ?

Oh gno gno gno.

Nick
--
Serendipity: http://www.leverton.org/blosxom (last update 19th September 2008)
"The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life"
-- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996