[crossposted to uk.transport.london - second time lucky!]
[original thread on uk.railway]

Paul Corfield wrote:

On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 02:25:50 -0700 (PDT), EE507
wrote:

On Aug 22, 3:56am, Mizter T wrote:

Are you serious? It's devilishly complicated to work out a scheme for
divvying up the money. That's been the main thing that's been delayed
Oyster PAYG on NR for the last few years at least.

I'm not convinced. You would have a point if Oyster weren't accepted
anywhere on NR at the moment, but of course it is. Can you list some
of the suspected problem flows? Aren't the problems more related to
ITSO franchise requirements: ITSO compliance itself, plus enabling the
system to recognise Oyster?

I cannot recall Informed Sources ever citing revenue allocation as the
principal barrier to smartcard use on NR within London.

With the greatest of respect to Captain Deltic he doesn't know
everything.

Well take it from me, because I asked the relevant department in TfL,
what would happen with Oyster PAYG on NR. I was told that a new fully
encompassing agreement is being negotiated to deal with Oyster PAYG
revenue allocation. It is a completely new beast and all of the current
PAYG acceptance has been on the basis of one off agreements with
individual TOCs. It has always been on flows that are the preserve of
one TOC only or else where there is historical ticket interavailability
with LUL if you care to take a look at where it applies. You will note
that it does not apply anywhere south of the river where you have
complex traffic flows and shared revenue arrangements. Even then we
have had people claiming PAYG works on SWT between Clapham Junction and
Richmond which, of course, it doesn't. You have to travel via Willesden
Junction to make a valid journey.

TfL have had their own share of issues relating to Oyster and the TfL
fare structure on Overground. It has thrown up all sorts of issues -
just trawl through the London Travel fares and ticketing committee
meeting minutes. This is because LOROL is still part of the NR set up
even though TfL are taking the revenue risk on the concession.

There are considerable commercial issues involved with PAYG and how its
introduction will affect the volume of travel, the proportion of peak /
off peak travel, how capping works (if at all on NR), how quickly
settlement works, what rights there are to hold the up front cash and
earn interest, how it is retailed, what commission is paid, what data is
provided in support of settlement, who owns the data, who pays for the
maintenance of kit, who calls out faults, who sorts out failed cards,
how is revenue protection carried out yadda, yadda, yadda. In short
it's bloody complicated, it's about a lot of money and you've got
umpteen different players all with different ideas and different
franchise terms and different commercial imperatives from their owning
groups.

I just thought this post from Paul C was worth highlighting. The epic
negotiations between the interested parties can only be assumed to be
ongoing - because when the final deal gets done, be under no illusion
we'll hear about it - Boris will probably launch City Hall to the
moon, and I dare say the real masterminds at TfL might even allow
themselves some jubilation.

In addition to Paul's points, I can't help but feel that the TOCs (and
the owning groups) really want to get the agreement "right" from the
beginning - where the "right" agreement is the one that obviously
affords TOCs the best deal (i.e. the highest reward). Whilst I'm sure
the agreement will contain mechanisms for reviewing various aspects of
the operation of the agreement itself and making a number of changes
to how things work, one imagines that essentially the deal that's
being done now will form the foundation of the Oyster PAYG revenue
distribution for years to come. Hence the TOCs are being fully awkward
(I'd think they're fighting out certain things between themselves as
well as collectively going into battle with TfL).

One thing can I think be said for sure - if it was just BR or Network
SouthEast or whatever on the 'big' railway side of things, then this
deal would have been done a very long time ago, if indeed BR/ NSE
hadn't have fully been part of the whole Oyster scheme in the first
place.