In message om, at
09:45:33 on Sat, 4 Aug 2007, W14_Fishbourne
remarked:
On Aug 4, 4:51 pm, Roland Perry wrote:


Sounds great; so it's "Bank of ATOC" and not "Bank of ToC" that my money
gets debited from by whatever ToC I finish my journey at and who does
the sums about how much it should have cost to get there from where I
started. Presumably grippers on the train will do stuff like alerting
the card as one that's been used on a "savers banned" train, so I'm
charged a full open fare rather than a saver when I wave out?

As things stand at present, your money won't be debited by anyone. No-
one has yet discussed having a Pay As You Go facility on National Rail
AFAIK and that's certainly not included in the recent franchise
commitments. How many people do you think will keep their cards topped
up with a couple of hundred quid on the off-chance that they're going
to have to buy an SOR from London to Leeds?

While I agree that using one of these cards for a big purchase will
require it to be linked to a Direct Debit facility, you can get the
train from Nottingham to Derby (a typical commute in the Midlands for a
fiver - which is no more than an Oyster fare).

The intention is that you will buy your ticket in advance either
through the internet or by phone, quoting your smartcard number. When
you get to the station you'll simply tap your card on a reader to
upload the ticket.

That's a pretty lame model. Barely better than cinema tickets (and
London Eye and Eurostar) where you order online then get delivered a
paper ticket as soon as you pop your credit card in a slot (and a
contactless credit card is on the way, as we know).

How easy is it going to be to get paper receipts for these proposed
e-tickets (other than a printout form your PC, which assumes you have a
printer and are somewhat easy to forge).
--
Roland Perry