On 18 Dec, 09:49, Mr Thant
wrote:
On 18 Dec, 09:45, disgoftunwells wrote:

Humans have a problem with cards because you don't know how much money
you have left on the card.

That's why [a tiny subset of] people are interested in mobile phone
near-field communications. Basically the "card" is embedded in the
phone, and you can check the balance and load credit onto it using the
phone's screen and internet connection.

The whole ITSO concept for adhoc tickets (as opposed to season
tickets, where the DfT can force people to use an ITSO card whether
they want it or not) is predicated on these NFC phones being widely
deployed AND used.

As yet you can't buy an NFC phone in Car Phone Warehouse. That might
change, it might not. It took Bluetooth about 6 years to go from
leading edge to ubiquitous, but it's still not widely used except for
handsfree kits.