On 14 Dec, 17:39, Theo Markettos
wrote:

In uk.railway Andy wrote:

I seem to recall seeing somewhere that one of the ideas is the virtual
carnet. Buy 10 tickets for a journey, taken at irregular intevals, but
only pay for 8. This is something that should be relatively simple to
setup with smartcard ticketing.

It would make sense to provide metro-area ticket across modes. *So you'd buy
a DayRider which would be valid on local buses, and on trains (journeys like
Southampton Central to Redbridge). *If you ended up at Poole on a train or
Andover on a bus you've gone too far and aren't travelling with a valid
ticket. *Just like you can travelcard to Watford Junction but not Milton
Keynes.

Er Watford Junction is outside the London zones so a Travelcard is not
valid to travel there (a Travelcard plus boundary extension ticket
would be valid though). A Travelcard issued *from* Watford Junction is
valid for a single return journey from WJ into the zones - but then so
is a Travelcard issued *from* Milton Keynes (I presume such things
exist).


I believe the Welsh Assembly is keen on an Oyster-alike for Cardiff and the
Valleys, which would seem a sensible target area.

It would also work for PAYG, as passengers should know that the
ticket isn't valid outside the metro area. *But I don't know if you'd end up
with a separate PAYG balance for each place, or if someone would implement
a central 'bank of Oyster'.

See Paul Corfield's post downthread - if things do ever get off the
ground then the result will likely be a confusing mish-mash of
different and incompatible systems in different parts of the country,
none of which will offer any PAYG functionality.


(I know Barclaycard have PayWave, but that doesn't replace the Oyster
functionality because you really don't want PIN pads on ticket gates for the
N% of transactions that get referred).


And for the uninitiated N% of transactions would get referred not
because they were deemed suspicions but simply because that's how Visa
PayWave works - a PIN needs to be entered every now and then so as to
assure the system that the card is not stolen. Another issue is that
Visa PayWave is currently configured to only allow purchases below £10
to go through without a PIN. Any notion of there being a PIN pad on a
gate is of course totally unworkable.