On Jan 30, 6:25*pm, Paul Terry wrote:
In message
,
Mizter T writes

On Jan 30, 10:45*am, Paul Terry wrote:
The new Freedom Passes currently being issued use the Desfire 4K
chipset, in order to allow for future ITSO compatability. I gather that
Oyster readers were upgraded to read the new Desfire chip at the end of
last year.
This presumably was a software/firmware update, as opposed to any
physical modification - the latter would've entailed an enormous
programme of works!

I'm not sure. According to the October issue of Freedom Pass News:

"We have had to wait for this opportunity while TfL colleagues amended
their gate and reader network for the new generation cards. So far
approximately 15 Underground/Overground stations have been completed and
approximately 4,000 of the 8,500 bus gate readers have been updated."

This sounds as though the update was more than just a simple data dump
from the central system, but it may have just involved flashing the
firmware in individual readers rather than physical changes, as the
whole process was finished and tested before Christmas.

TfL have also had to supply at least 1.2 million cards for the
changeover, as the old ones cannot be renewed and will all cease to work
on 31st March (as it is a legal requirement for all Concessionary Bus
Travel cards to be ITSO compatible from April).

It seems astonishing that the testing went so smoothly, especially given
that the cards have only a single chip that can hold both Oyster and
ITSO data (two chips on one card was deemed too expensive). But I guess
that the Freedom Pass is a very simple implementation of Oyster, and I
doubt that the ITSO part has been tested at all, given that the only
working ITSO ticket scheme I know of is on Blackpool Borough Council
buses!

From a Cubic man about 18 months ago: latest model gates being
produced then still did not have a controller able to handle ITSO, but
next upgrade to the controller (needing hardware change: more memory,
possibly more powerful processor) would be a drop-in replacement. Then
the older the gate, the more difficult it will be to upgrade it.

ITSO testing? There are services available to do that (but the ITSO
Ltd / Integri certification service doesn't include full functional
testing - AIDC in Barnsley is working up to doing that), and I would
expect Cubic to also do it themselves. But the new Freedom passes of
course also do need testing for ITSO use outside London, and I'm
trying to find out if a reported problem in that operating environment
has been fixed (nobody seemed to be taking ownership of the problem a
couple of months ago, with ITSO Ltd being a headless chicken until
last week when a new CEO took over with DfT funding).

At least half of the buses in Lancs/Cumbria/Blackpool/Blackburn
(NoWcard scheme) are reported as now accepting ITSO on Mifare Classic
and on DESFire, although some have trouble with the Bracknell
microprocessor card. NoWcard is currently going through a core back
office upgrade procurement process.