London Banter - View Single Post

[email protected] · September 17th 14, 08:58 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article , (Mizter T) wrote:

On 17/09/2014 21:35, wrote:

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:
[...]
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).

I don't get this. A contactless card will be linked to an account in the
TfL back office. So if a cardholder shows contactless card and railcard
to staff member why shouldn't they record the discount on the account
just as they do now sort of?

Two answers...

(1) It gives you something to remain annoyed about.

Not that silly! Not handling railcards limits the ability of contactless to
replace Oyster.

(2) Using what (PCI DSS compliant) mechanism?

Huh? How does the suggestion I made differ from the current process which
records the entitlement on the Oyster card instead of in the back office?

--
Colin Rosenstiel