London Banter - View Single Post

[email protected] · November 14th 14, 08:52 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Fri, 14 Nov 2014 12:51:11 -0600,
wrote:

In article ,
(Richard) wrote:

On Fri, 12 Sep 2014 16:12:03 -0500,
wrote:

In article
,
(Matthew Dickinson) wrote:

TfL buses work fine. The ETM flashes up ITSO card. I haven't tried
Tramlink yet.

Curious. My National Bus Concession card didn't work this week. I
tried it on 3 buses too.

A card I saw yesterday showed "ITSO card" and something like "Show to
driver" with an error beep. So it's clearly on the way. I haven't
seen any announcement yet.

This was on a 507 in the usual configuration, air-conditioning on and
windows open. But that's another rant...

I wrote to Caroline Pidegon and got this intriguing reply which I thought
would interest the team he

"Thanks for forwarding this on to us. I have looked into the matter and
can confirm that English National Concessionary Travel Scheme (ENCTS)
passes cannot currently be read electronically by our buses.

Passengers with an ENCTS issued by a council outside London can still use
it on our buses by showing it to the driver.

This is because of a deficiency in the ITSO technology. At present, it is
not compatible with buses which start with some letters (routes prefixed
or suffixed with _U_ being a particular problem, e.g. U1). Those bus
routes would not therefore be recognised by the ITSO system.

We are working with ITSO to resolve this problem effectively.

In the meantime, as noted above, passengers should be able to board the
bus by showing the driver the card."

I find that explanation very odd. So all the unibus services run in
various cities in England with route numbers prefixed with "U" can't
accept ITSO cards? I frankly don't believe that.

There are 5 "U" routes in Southampton and a route called Unibus in
Canterbury. While designed for students they're normal public services
and will accept ITSO concessionary passes from English local
authorities. Exeter city services are famously lettered rather than
numbered.

There are also loads of letter prefixed routes across the UK and I'm
amazed that there could be even a partial situation whereby some
routes cannot read and accept ITSO smartcards. This is particularly
the case where local authorities rely on electronic data for usage
information for reimbursement purposes.

I trusted the denizens of u.t.l would come up with comments like this. I
agree it is a bizarre excuse. What is not revealed is the financial
consequences which I suspect mean that TfL lose money where drivers don't
register the cards shown to them.

Note I'm not saying Ms Pidgeon is "lying". I just don't buy the
explanation as surely the issue has arisen before now and should have
been resolved?

I agree. I wasn't expecting a response like this at all. Just to be clear.
What I quoted is from an email to Caroline Pidgeon's researcher from someone
in TfL, not her opinion in any way.

--
Colin Rosenstiel