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[email protected] · February 28th 17, 12:38 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(David Walters) wrote:

On Tue, 28 Feb 2017 09:56:02 +0000 (UTC), d
wrote:
On Tue, 28 Feb 2017 09:45:53 +0000
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 09:38:56 on Tue, 28 Feb
2017, d remarked:
My understanding is that current Oyster cards will be dealt with as
now, newly issued Oyster cards will be contactless style.

Err, Oyster have been contactless since they were introduced.

I read the comment as meaning the "new" Oyster card will be in effect a
contactless pre-paid credit card with zero credit loaded, but an
arrangement to auto-topup from a bank account by the exact amount of
any journeys made.

I wonder if one will be able to use it in shops? If not there seems
to be scarcely any difference between that and a current auto top up.

It allows TfL to do things like weekly capping that the current Oyster
cards can't do.

While that is true it's also moving with the technology. If each card is in
effect just a token, with all the data held centrally, the scope for all
sorts of failure modes is reduced. When Oyster started continuous
communication to readers wasn't practical. It is now.

Communications is a very fast-developing field, as I've seen in a past
career in the field.

--
Colin Rosenstiel