Mike Bristow wrote:

In article . 170,
Adrian wrote:
Why not? Ticket inspectors already have hand-held Oyster wands.

That may not be sufficent for the more complex problems[1]. Y'know,
the ones the machines can't cope with, and that a person at a ticket
office needs to resolve.

The ones a person needs to resolve? Yeh, I'd reckon that could be arranged.
All you'd need to do is have a person holding the wand, and have a wand
with sufficient software. Shouldn't be difficult. Build a cheap PDA into
it.

And how is the PDA + wand etc going to talk to the oyster system
in real time? Not the card; the databases and stuff in the bowels
of 55 Broadway. Oh, and you're underground, so wireless will be
problematic.

I can't think of a real time use or need for the database. Tickets,
etc. are all stored on the card (hence working on buses). So all the
magic device needs to do is write to the card and then report back
later on that day... If someone loses their oystercard the details
will still get to the magic database