On 17/09/2014 21:14, Paul Corfield wrote:

[Travel discounts, e.g. Railcards, and CPCs]

I suspect the main issue is how, if people set up accounts on line,
TfL can possibly verify that someone saying they have a Railcard
actually does have one. I doubt there is any system to system link
between TfL and whatever system RSP have for railcards (if they even
have one!).

The way round that at present is that you physically present yourself
and your entitlement and a ticket clerk enters all the relevant
details. With a move to scrap ticket offices there has to be some way
of adding entitlement - and yes I know that is via a roving member of
staff logging on to a passenger machine and doing what the ticket
clerk currently does! However is anyone going to want to show a bank
card to a staff member to punch in to a ticket machine? I guess
someone could, at the relevant point in the process, stick their card
in the card reader so details are transferred electronically but it
all seems a dreadful faff.

I suspect discount entitlements will not move across to CPCs at all.
They'll remain on Oyster and later "dumb" Oyster with TfL simply
migrating the vast majority of entitlements as part of a card
"switchover" process when current Oyster is decommissioned (Phase 5 of
the Future Ticketing Project).


Agree with what you say re discount entitlements.

Is there a vague notion of when the current (value stored on card)
Oyster system might end up being decommissioned? (Is that the echo of Mr
Perry frenziedly chanting 'vapourware' I can hear?)

Whenever it is, it'll be a big endeavour, what with all the great many
'old system' Oyster cards out in the wild (in bedrooms in Hong Kong,
down the back of sofas in Leytonstone, forgotten about in seldom-used
overcoats in Sheffield etc) which people will want to exchange or
cash-in for years to come.