In message , at 18:14:58 on
Sat, 4 Aug 2007, Martin D. Pay
remarked:

It should not make any difference. An ITSO compatible card will be
recognised by all ITSO devices regardless of where that card was
originally used or where it is being used.

Unless you can convince me otherwise, ITSO is just a technical
specification. It's doesn't address the commercial relationships between
operators. For example, ITSO cards are used by Cheshire buses. But will
a Cheshire bus pass also be able to buy me a SWT ticket from Basingstoke
to Southampton? Not unless there is a commercial and financial tie-up.

I'm wondering if there will even be such a connection between different
ToC cards. (It's obvious there should be, but is that currently in the
plan?)

If the card held a ticket that was valid at the location you were at
then it would be accepted as being valid.

That assumes I have pre-bought a specific ticket, which removes the
majority of the flexibility. In other words I'm not just "touching in",
at a barrier, but previously have queue up to "touch in" at a machine
and tell it where I want to go to, so it can pre-load the ticket.

Oyster has a wrinkle which would I think cover this bit. When you
add money to your card online, you have to specify at which LUL
station you will next use the card; when you touch the card to
the reader the credit is verified/added to the card. This would
work perfectly for the 'specific ticket' scenario you cite - the
ticket would be activated when you pass through the barrier at
the commencement station...

That assumes you have ordered the ticket online first, and also that
your plans don't change and you set off from a different station (which
is exactly what happened to me the first time I tried to add credit
online to my Oyster - beginners bad luck perhaps).

Which ToC gets the money for a split journey is another matter,
but surely not an insurmountable one - if there's a genuine will
to solve it, of course...

As I keep saying, it's not dividing the money up, but needing to equip
the entire system (not just those routes operated by the most recent new
franchisees) with terminals for PAYG to work at all.
--
Roland Perry