Paul Corfield wrote to uk.transport.london on Fri, 13 Aug 2004:


If you had one day travelcards stored on the Oyster card you need to
tell a machine to activate it on the card as there could be several
cards of different zone combinations stored on the card and a dumb
device like a reader cannot know which one you want to activate. This
means you have to queue at a machine or ask a bus driver to activate
your card which slows down the bus - not what Oyster is about.

Ah yes, I hadn't really thought of that - I was thinking of buying the
ODTC on the day you use it, as you do with paper tickets! Actually,
could that not happen? I know it *doesn't* happen, but it might be
feasible to buy and store dated ODTCs on your Oyster, no?

With period Travelcards the validity is simply there because you bought
it at the station or wherever. Therefore you can happily travel about
and if you encounter a gate it can typically be read or if you encounter
an inspector or conductor they have a device to read it. I don't know if
people still get the paper inspection ticket still or not.

Oh indeed they do!
--
Annabel - "Mrs Redboots"
(trying out a new .sig to reflect the personality I use in online forums)