On 12 Jan, 00:37, MIG wrote:

(snip)

A slight tangent, but whatever the situation is now, it will
presumably be different again once Oyster is accepted on NR in London.

Does this mean that paper travelcards will cease being available at NR
stations in London?

Who knows - that seems like such a distant prospect! It's a good
question, but it is a hypothetical one to which I'm pretty certain
there isn't any official answer as of yet.


If so, that means that anyone who declines to have all his/her
movements tracked will no longer be able to get anything longer than a
weekly and will have to pay more, as on LU already. You can't have a
monthly unless your card is registered.


AIUI the TOCs' new franchise agreements merely specify that they
should be working towards smartcard (i.e. ITSO) ticketing, and don't
actually compel them to issue Oyster standard smartcards. TfL is going
to modify its Oyster readers so they can read and validate ITSO, so
there will be some compatibility between the systems - whether TfL
starts issuing Oyster cards as ITSO standard smartcards, as opposed to
proprietary Philips Mifare smartcards, is another question (perhaps
they are tied to Mifare until 2015 when the Transys Prestige PFI
agreement finishes).

The point of the paragraph above is to illustrate that in the future
it seems that Oyster won't be the only smartcard in town - so perhaps
the TOCs (with the DfT's blessing) would wish to only issue season
tickets on smartcards (whether Oyster or ITSO).

If there ever was such a plan then I'd expect people to kick up a
fuss, citing similar concerns about the ability of such systems to
track movements. I dare suggest that such a debate might have a wider
impact than merely London, given that TOCs elsewhere could potentially
be looking to issue all season tickets on smartcards.

Regarding the situation now and for the foreseeable future - anyone
who wants a monthly or indeed annual Travelcard on paper as opposed to
on Oyster can purchase it from a National Rail station, or indeed from
several TOCs either by phone or online (photocard required).