On 1 Feb, 09:27, Colum Mylod wrote:
The Dutch version of Oyster (OV-chip) is being pushed harder and
harder with the plan to have it as the only way to pay by 2009. Just
heard it'll work on a 11cent/km basis, obliterating the current zone
scheme which obviously will affect people differently depending on
where they start/finish in the zones (zones being like cellphone ones,
not ringed like London's Westend centric one).

The card to push will be the "autoreload" version where you never need
to add dosh manually to it ever again. Which, as an interviewee said,
makes price rises easier!

Interesting that they charge on distance which is the opposite to the
expanded NR component of Oyster in S. London where zoning will be
used.

My regret is that NL stations will become closed with gated access. I
prefer the honour system (can't trust those Amsterdammers but surely
the rest are honest!).

All stations? That's quite a commitment. In the UK, gates need to have
human oversight for Heath and Safety rules. This doesn't seem to be
the case in Paris which obviously has a different set of rules. But
gating the whole NL network would be incredibly expensive.