"Mizter T" wrote ...
Bzzt... that's basically all wrong Andrew! With regards to the limited
number of existing National Rail (NR) routes that accept Oyster PAYG -
e.g. FGW, c2c - then agreement has indeed been reached individually
between the TOC and TfL. However with regards to the rest of the
network, all the London TOCs are negotiating through ATOC with TfL to
reach an agreement - this appears to have been tortuous, and as yet no
word has come out that the final agreement has actually been signed.

Are you sure?
I'm happy to accept that I could be wrong about the details of the players -
ATOC / TfL / Franchisee, etc., but I find it hard to believe they are
starting installation before the deal is totally done; I've certainly read
nothing in the national or railway press to suggest that; and with the
overlapping of routes and operators, that could take forever, with
passengers being unable to predict what a journey would cost in the
meantime.

My reading suggests that the arguments have been about the *formula* for
payment, not about line-by-line.

But if you know better, I withdraw my comments (you usually do!).

Andrew


Much more likely that installation is being phased to spread the financial
pain, and where possible to tie in with other work. It's not the readers
that are expensive, but installing them and making them part of the
system.
There's even planning issues; though they may appear random, someone has
decided where they should go. The apparent randomness may indicate
shortcuts
to share cable runs with other items, etc., etc.

See my comments above. Installation of Oyster readers at NR stations
does at least show that the TOCs ha eventually agreed in principle to
the inevitable, i.e. accepting Oyster PAYG. But the nitty gritty dirty
detail of revenue allocation is almost certainly what's holding
everything up.