On Fri, 28 Oct 2005 21:59:50 +0100, Barry Salter
wrote:

On Fri, 28 Oct 2005 17:54:37 +0100, Clive
wrote:

On the Parliamentary channel the other day was London assembly questions
to Ken Livingston who said that NR had been offered full installation of
oyster readers in the GLA but didn't want to know, so now was
considering taking all the railways in the GLA under the TfL umbrella.

What "Red Ken" neglects to mention is that Oyster isn't actually
compatible with the Integrated Transport Smartcard Organisation (ITSO)
specification, nor can the "APTIS replacement" Ticket Office machines
handle Oyster.

So? ITSO were nowhere to be found when the Oyster contract was awarded.
They've come up with precisely nothing compared to a working system in
London. The much vaunted Manchester smartcard has yet to materialise
into a working scheme. There was a window of opportunity where ITSO
compatibility could have been built into Oyster if ITSO have known what
it wanted. AFAIK it didn't and Oyster could not wait so that opportunity
was lost.

Old APTIS did work with Oyster because my local station had it. The TOCs
and ATOC have been pitiful when it comes to trying to work with TfL / LT
on Oyster. I should know - I was involved in the early discussions and
to describe the views as surreal is an understatement. They are now in
the situation of being overtaken by events - technically and politically
given DfT's likely decision to grant Ken more control over London rail
services.

Members of ITSO include the "Big 5" bus companies (Arriva, First,
Go-Ahead, NatEx and Stagecoach), ATOC, various ticketing system
manufacturers (Almex, Ascom, ATOS Origin and Cubic Transportation), most
of the PTEs, BT, BemroseBooth (who supply most of the ticket blanks to
the TOCs) and the Department for Transport.

And all of the manufacturers barring Cubic have sat and moaned rather
than try to work with Cubic (part of Transys) to develop compatible
equipment. Cubic have developed readers that can deal with more than one
form of card and the Oyster system contract recognises the requirement
for other cards to be read, written to and for data to move around
between different card management systems.

So it's not entirely unreasonable for the train companies to be
unwilling to spend a not unsubstantial sum of money installing gates
and/or Oyster validators at all the stations in the zonal area if
there's no guarantee that the same hardware will be capable of accepting
a potential future *national* smartcard system, as at the end of the
day, that money will have to come from their passengers, either directly
through the farebox, or via increased subsidy from the taxpayer.

As the TOCs don't have to spend anything I fail to see why that is being
quoted as an issue. This is all covered under existing agreements for
Travelcard, Through Ticketing and ticket technology changes. They knew
this years ago. They have done nothing apart from prevaricate about
whether they might lost out on some revenue if people switch
technologies or products. Perhaps it would have been more sensible for
them to actively participate in the debate and subsequent development of
Oyster so that their requirements were built in from day 1. Instead (I'm
convinced) they are going to be forced to accept something they have
little control over.

All very disappointing but let's hope someone can get their act together
to secure more effective ticket product integration.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!