London Banter - View Single Post - Is pay-per-use Oystercard cheaper than... an annual travelcard?

Paul Corfield · January 5th 06, 05:20 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On Thu, 5 Jan 2006 01:07 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
(Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article , ] (Arthur Figgis) wrote:

Is Oyster technology proprietory, or can anyone get the specs and make
their own kit if they want?

I believe Transys own it.

You would be wrong. There are appropriate licensing provisions so other
manufacturers can make compatible kit. It was not acceptable for us to
create a contract that would lock everyone into Transys.

The government's problem with Oyster is the
risk of supplier lock-in.

No the government's problem is that it wants ITSO to be the standard
despite being 10 years behind the times. It also doesn't want to pay
anything to make any of this happen.

The government could make the TOCs adopt Oyster or any form of Smartcard
technology tomorrow if it was so minded. Given that it is going to slash
railway spending in about 12 months time I can't see that ITSO or Oyster
are anywhere on its priority list for dealing with the inevitable
political fall out of hacking our railway network to pieces. That,
however, is obviously another argument.
--
Paul C

Admits to working for London Underground!