First ITSO gateline?
 

The displays on the gateline at St Pancras High Level have now been
changed to state "ITSO/Tickets" instead of "Oyster/Tickets" as they
previously did. Whether they actually now accept ITSO cards is hard to
check without one.
(They have always rejected Oyster cards previously, even when FCC
trains are running from the high level platforms.)

I think this is the first gateline mentioning ITSO acceptance.

First ITSO gateline?
 

On 2 July, 01:10, Matthew Dickinson
wrote:
The displays on the gateline at St Pancras High Level have now been
changed to state "ITSO/Tickets" instead of "Oyster/Tickets" as they
previously did. Whether they actually now accept ITSO cards is hard to
check without one.
(They have always rejected Oyster cards previously, even when FCC
trains are running from the high level platforms.)

I think this is the first gateline mentioning ITSO acceptance.

EMT gatelines at St Pancras and Derby have ITSO readers, EMT had a
franchise committment to introduce smartcard season tickets, there are
also smartcard gate passes issued to certain people. Oyster was meant
to be updated to ITSO technology but it doesn't appear to be
happening. I believe its a similar situation at SWT.

First ITSO gateline?
 

"Andrew Cullen" wrote in message
...
On 2 July, 01:10, Matthew Dickinson
wrote:
The displays on the gateline at St Pancras High Level have now been
changed to state "ITSO/Tickets" instead of "Oyster/Tickets" as they
previously did. Whether they actually now accept ITSO cards is hard to
check without one.
(They have always rejected Oyster cards previously, even when FCC
trains are running from the high level platforms.)

I think this is the first gateline mentioning ITSO acceptance.

EMT gatelines at St Pancras and Derby have ITSO readers, EMT had a
franchise committment to introduce smartcard season tickets, there are
also smartcard gate passes issued to certain people. Oyster was meant
to be updated to ITSO technology but it doesn't appear to be
happening. I believe its a similar situation at SWT.

There are a fair number of ITSO smartcard gatelines already operational on
SWT's main routes (although outside London), so St Pancras is not the
first...

Paul S

First ITSO gateline?
 

On Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:47:15 -0700, Andrew Cullen wrote:

Oyster was meant to
be updated to ITSO technology but it doesn't appear to be happening. I
believe its a similar situation at SWT.

They have changed something, last year when in London, I discovered the
LU readers were responding to my Singapore CEPAS card, where as the
Oyster readers on the buses were ignoring it.

In fact they were responding to the CEPAS card while it was still in my
pocket and I was holding the Oyster in my hand next to the gate reader.

Experiments with the ticket machines at Earls Court revealed the ticket
machine would respond to the Singapore CEPAS card at 30-40cm where as the
Oyster had to be with in 10cm. It's actually a surprise the security
people didn't come over and ask what I was doing :-)

(Every time the Singapore card got anywhere near an LU Oyster terminal
it would respond with 'multiple cards presented', even if the proper
Oyster card was kept well away)

At a guess the Oyster terminal was interacting with the card and
discovering it had multiple 'products' loaded, generating the multiple
card error before noticing that none of the products were usable by it
anyway. (The Singapore CEPAS cards are used to pay road tolls via
hardware installed in each car as well as transit fares, so I assume have
multiple 'products' loaded).

First ITSO gateline?
 

Matthew Geier wrote on 02
July 2010 23:30:58 ...
On Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:47:15 -0700, Andrew Cullen wrote:

Oyster was meant to
be updated to ITSO technology but it doesn't appear to be happening. I
believe its a similar situation at SWT.

They have changed something, last year when in London, I discovered the
LU readers were responding to my Singapore CEPAS card, where as the
Oyster readers on the buses were ignoring it.

They made some changes a few months ago to enable the gates to accept
the new issue of Freedom Passes (free travel passes for elderly and
disabled Londoners). These now have both Oyster and ITSO technology on
the same card. Maybe you encountered an early version of the updated gates.
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

First ITSO gateline?
 

In message
,
Andrew Cullen writes

Oyster was meant to be updated to ITSO technology but it doesn't appear
to be happening. I believe its a similar situation at SWT.

I think that the basics for Oyster/ITSO compatibility must be in place,
because all Freedom passes issued in the last few months speak ITSO as
well as Oyster (although I imagine that the Oyster implementation is
quite basic on Freedom cards).
--
Paul Terry

First ITSO gateline?
 

On Jul 2, 9:47*pm, Andrew Cullen wrote:

On 2 July, 01:10, Matthew Dickinson
wrote:

The displays on the gateline at St Pancras High Level have now been
changed to state "ITSO/Tickets" instead of "Oyster/Tickets" as they
previously did. Whether they actually now accept ITSO cards is hard to
check without one.
(They have always rejected Oyster cards previously, even when FCC
trains are running from the high level platforms.)

I think this is the first gateline mentioning ITSO acceptance.

EMT gatelines at St Pancras and Derby have ITSO readers, EMT had a
franchise committment to introduce smartcard season tickets, there are
also smartcard gate passes issued to certain people. Oyster was meant
to be updated to ITSO technology but it doesn't appear to be
happening. I believe its a similar situation at SWT.

The plan in London was for validators to be able to handle both ITSO
and Oyster cards - there has never been a plan to replace the current
MiFare standard Oyster cards with ITSO standard ones. Given the usage
of the high-level platforms by FCC trains, the gates there should
handle Oyster cards - Matthew's experience (as he recounts above) is
that they don't.

First ITSO gateline?
 

On Jul 2, 10:15*pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

"Andrew Cullen" wrote:

On 2 July, 01:10, Matthew Dickinson
wrote:
The displays on the gateline at St Pancras High Level have now been
changed to state "ITSO/Tickets" instead of "Oyster/Tickets" as they
previously did. Whether they actually now accept ITSO cards is hard to
check without one.
(They have always rejected Oyster cards previously, even when FCC
trains are running from the high level platforms.)

I think this is the first gateline mentioning ITSO acceptance.

EMT gatelines at St Pancras and Derby have ITSO readers, EMT had a
franchise committment to introduce smartcard season tickets, there are
also smartcard gate passes issued to certain people. Oyster was meant
to be updated to ITSO technology but it doesn't appear to be
happening. I believe its a similar situation at SWT.

There are a fair number of *ITSO smartcard gatelines already operational on
SWT's main routes (although outside London), so St Pancras is not the
first...

You mean (I think) ITSO *and* Oyster compatible gates - all SWT
gatelines within the London zones (e.g. the massive array at Waterloo,
Surbiton, Earlsfield etc etc).

First ITSO gateline?
 

On Jul 2, 11:30*pm, Matthew Geier
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:47:15 -0700, Andrew Cullen wrote:
Oyster was meant to
be updated to ITSO technology but it doesn't appear to be happening. I
believe its a similar situation at SWT.

*They have changed something, last year when in London, I discovered the
LU readers were responding to my Singapore CEPAS card, where as the
Oyster readers on the buses were ignoring it.

*In fact they were responding to the CEPAS card while it was still in my
pocket and I was holding the Oyster in my hand next to the gate reader.

*Experiments with the ticket machines at Earls Court revealed the ticket
machine would respond to the Singapore CEPAS card at 30-40cm where as the
Oyster had to be with in 10cm. It's actually a surprise the security
people didn't come over and ask what I was doing :-)

*(Every time the Singapore card got anywhere near an LU Oyster terminal
it would respond with 'multiple cards presented', even if the proper
Oyster card was kept well away)

*At a guess the Oyster terminal was interacting with the card and
discovering it had multiple 'products' loaded, generating the multiple
card error before noticing that none of the products were usable by it
anyway. (The Singapore CEPAS cards are used to pay road tolls via
hardware installed in each car as well as transit fares, so I assume have
multiple 'products' loaded).

Interesting stuff - there is or was a programme to upgrade the Oyster
validators to handle ITSO standard cards as well as the MiFare type
(as used by Oyster cards) - afraid I'm not up on the details of this -
but it may be the case that these gates had been updated to have ITSO
capability.

My half-impression was that upgrading the validators would involve a
hardware modification, as opposed to just a software one, but I'm
really not clued up on that. Perhaps some of the newer Oyster
validators - such as the one you encountered - have always had the
ability to read ITSO cards as they are newer installations/
replacements, or something?

All that said, I realise I'm making the massive presumption that the
Singapore CEPAS card might be similar to the ITSO standard, but that's
hardly self-evident - ITSO is a British standard, of course that
doesn't mean that it can't be adopted elsewhere, but a quick glance at
the wiki article for CEPAS doesn't instantly betray it as being an
ITSO or ITSO-alike system (though it does appear to follow some ISO/
IEC smartcard standards). I wonder if there's anything MiFare-esque
about the CEPAS cards?

First ITSO gateline?
 

On Jul 3, 7:34*am, Paul Terry wrote:

In message
,
Andrew Cullen writes

Oyster was meant to be updated to ITSO technology but it doesn't appear
to be happening. I believe its a similar situation at SWT.

I think that the basics for Oyster/ITSO compatibility must be in place,
because all Freedom passes issued in the last few months speak ITSO as
well as Oyster (although I imagine that the Oyster implementation is
quite basic on Freedom cards).

Though the Freedom Pass change need not necessarily have meant any
changes on the validator side of things - the new Freedom Pass being a
combined MiFare (Oyster) and ITSO standard card.

First ITSO gateline?
 

On 03/07/2010 07:40, Mizter T wrote:

On Jul 2, 10:15 pm, "Paul


There are a fair number of ITSO smartcard gatelines already operational on
SWT's main routes (although outside London), so St Pancras is not the
first...

You mean (I think) ITSO *and* Oyster compatible gates - all SWT
gatelines within the London zones (e.g. the massive array at Waterloo,
Surbiton, Earlsfield etc etc).

There are are readers (though not gates) at least as far away at
Brockenhurst and Sherbourne, and I don't those non-London ones take Oyster?

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

First ITSO gateline?
 

Mizter T wrote on 03 July 2010 07:58:32 ...

On Jul 3, 7:34 am, Paul wrote:

In message
,
Andrew writes

Oyster was meant to be updated to ITSO technology but it doesn't appear
to be happening. I believe its a similar situation at SWT.

I think that the basics for Oyster/ITSO compatibility must be in place,
because all Freedom passes issued in the last few months speak ITSO as
well as Oyster (although I imagine that the Oyster implementation is
quite basic on Freedom cards).

Though the Freedom Pass change need not necessarily have meant any
changes on the validator side of things - the new Freedom Pass being a
combined MiFare (Oyster) and ITSO standard card.

According to the London Councils site, TfL did have to make changes to
their gates and reader network to handle the new cards.
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

First ITSO gateline?
 

On 2 July, 23:30, Matthew Geier
wrote:
On Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:47:15 -0700, Andrew Cullen wrote:
Oyster was meant to
be updated to ITSO technology but it doesn't appear to be happening. I
believe its a similar situation at SWT.

*They have changed something, last year when in London, I discovered the
LU readers were responding to my Singapore CEPAS card, where as the
Oyster readers on the buses were ignoring it.

*In fact they were responding to the CEPAS card while it was still in my
pocket and I was holding the Oyster in my hand next to the gate reader.

*Experiments with the ticket machines at Earls Court revealed the ticket
machine would respond to the Singapore CEPAS card at 30-40cm where as the
Oyster had to be with in 10cm. It's actually a surprise the security
people didn't come over and ask what I was doing :-)

If that's not fixed it would be a disaster. It's about the distance
one's pocket would be from the reader when going through a gate with a
paper travelcard or other ticket, or walking past a reader in a
crowded corridor.

First ITSO gateline?
 

On Fri, 02 Jul 2010 23:52:20 -0700, Mizter T wrote:

All that said, I realise I'm making the massive presumption that the
Singapore CEPAS card might be similar to the ITSO standard, but that's
hardly self-evident

It would expect that like the 'over the air' protocol, the 'file system'
would also be covered by appropiate ISO standards.

- ITSO is a British standard, of course that doesn't
mean that it can't be adopted elsewhere, but a quick glance at the wiki
article for CEPAS doesn't instantly betray it as being an ITSO

I doubt there is any thing in common, BUT if the file system is
standard, an ITSO reader is going to authenticate with the card, list the
files and then find it can't actually make sense of any of them. One
would also hope that it would refrain from damaging any file it doesn't
understand the content of.

Particularly in Europe it's not going to be uncommon to find foreign
cards with in the reader field when people travel and forget to remove
the other card from their wallet. The long read range I was seeing with
the Singapore CEPAS card is a bit of a worry though.

My wife actually noticed it - I was putting my Oyster on the reader, the
gates were opening, but as I walked past the gate erupted in a beeping
frenzy as it tied to read the CEPAS card in my pocket.

First ITSO gateline?
 

On Jul 3, 9:15 am, Arthur Figgis wrote:

On 03/07/2010 07:40, Mizter T wrote:

On Jul 2, 10:15 pm, "Paul
There are a fair number of ITSO smartcard gatelines already operational on
SWT's main routes (although outside London), so St Pancras is not the
first...

You mean (I think) ITSO *and* Oyster compatible gates - all SWT
gatelines within the London zones (e.g. the massive array at Waterloo,
Surbiton, Earlsfield etc etc).

There are are readers (though not gates) at least as far away at
Brockenhurst and Sherbourne, and I don't [think] those non-London
ones take Oyster?

I can only assume that these standalone smartcard readers don't read
Oyster - because they have no need to read Oyster, given that Oyster
ticketing is not valid outside of London (ok - a Travelcard loaded on
Oyster in conjunction with a Boundary Zone extension ticket is valid,
but you know what I mean!).

So we have gatelines with smartcard readers that have dual-capability
- Oyster *and* ITSO (for the forthcoming SWT smartcard) - the question
in my mind is whether they'll manage to sort out standalone smartcard
readers that also have this dual-capability, for installation at non-
gated stations within the London zones.

Example - North Sheen is an SWT station within the London zones that's
unlikely to ever be gated. At present it has a standalone Oyster
reader - what needs to happen is for that reader to be capable of
reading ITSO-standard railway smartcard (e.g. the forthcoming SWT
smartcard). The situation that absolutely needs to be avoided is for
there to be two separate smartcard readers side-by-side - an Oyster
reader and an ITSO card reader - because this would just cause maximum
passenger confusion. The worry, of course, is that it's all to easy to
see something utterly daft like this happening!

I *think* part of the reason SWT were so difficult about coming round
to the idea of accepting Oyster PAYG within London was that they were
in some dispute with the DfT as to how their ITSO smartcard scheme
would function alongside Oyster - I speculate that one of the problems
may have been the details as to how to get these two systems to mesh -
with DfT perhaps attempting to wash their hands of the details, and
TfL only really being interested in deploying the Oyster system (what
with the ITSO smartcard system being an SWT franchise commitment,
rather than something that directly involves TfL).

First ITSO gateline?
 

On Jul 3, 10:05*am, MIG wrote:

On 2 July, 23:30, Matthew Geier
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:47:15 -0700, Andrew Cullen wrote:
Oyster was meant to
be updated to ITSO technology but it doesn't appear to be happening. I
believe its a similar situation at SWT.

*They have changed something, last year when in London, I discovered the
LU readers were responding to my Singapore CEPAS card, where as the
Oyster readers on the buses were ignoring it.

*In fact they were responding to the CEPAS card while it was still in my
pocket and I was holding the Oyster in my hand next to the gate reader.

*Experiments with the ticket machines at Earls Court revealed the ticket
machine would respond to the Singapore CEPAS card at 30-40cm where as the
Oyster had to be with in 10cm. It's actually a surprise the security
people didn't come over and ask what I was doing :-)

If that's not fixed it would be a disaster. *It's about the distance
one's pocket would be from the reader when going through a gate with a
paper travelcard or other ticket, or walking past a reader in a
crowded corridor.

Not sure there's much if anything TfL could do about it - it sounds
like it's an issue with the design of the Singaporean CEPAS card (or
card system) which is 'over-sensitive' and wakes up and pings back a
'hello I'm here' message when there's any RFID smartcard reader
vaguely close by. The fact this doesn't happen with an Oyster card
means the Oyster system was designed only to work in very close
quarters ('touching distance' away).

Of course this does mean the entire system is a white elephant and
should be abandoned immediately before the world falls apart. ;-)

First ITSO gateline?
 

On Jul 3, 9:55*am, "Richard J." wrote:

Mizter T wrote on 03 July 2010 07:58:32 ...

On Jul 3, 7:34 am, Paul *wrote:

Andrew wrote:
Oyster was meant to be updated to ITSO technology but it doesn't appear
to be happening. I believe its a similar situation at SWT.

I think that the basics for Oyster/ITSO compatibility must be in place,
because all Freedom passes issued in the last few months speak ITSO as
well as Oyster (although I imagine that the Oyster implementation is
quite basic on Freedom cards).

Though the Freedom Pass change need not necessarily have meant any
changes on the validator side of things - the new Freedom Pass being a
combined MiFare (Oyster) and ITSO standard card.

According to the London Councils site, TfL did have to make changes to
their gates and reader network to handle the new cards.

Yes, I recall that. I wonder whether those changes may have actually
been about equipping the gates to handle the new "MiFare DESFire" card
type that TfL is now using for Oyster cards (as opposed to the older
"MiFare Classic") - presumably the Oyster side of the Freedom Pass (as
opposed to the ITSO side) is a DESFire card, IYSWIM.

First ITSO gateline?
 

"Mizter T" wrote

I *think* part of the reason SWT were so difficult about coming round
to the idea of accepting Oyster PAYG within London was that they were
in some dispute with the DfT as to how their ITSO smartcard scheme
would function alongside Oyster - I speculate that one of the problems
may have been the details as to how to get these two systems to mesh -
with DfT perhaps attempting to wash their hands of the details, and
TfL only really being interested in deploying the Oyster system (what
with the ITSO smartcard system being an SWT franchise commitment,
rather than something that directly involves TfL).

From the point of view of the passenger with a travelcard season from
Guildford to Zone 2 he wants a ticket which will open gates wherever his
ticket is valid. He also wants to load PAYG on to it for journeys into zone
1. His card will presumably have to be both ITSO and Oyster compatible, but
he won't want complications (or double charging) if he goes through a gate
with both capabilities.

Peter

First ITSO gateline?
 

"Mizter T" wrote in message
...

On Jul 2, 10:15 pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

There are a fair number of ITSO smartcard gatelines already operational on
SWT's main routes (although outside London), so St Pancras is not the
first...

You mean (I think) ITSO *and* Oyster compatible gates - all SWT
gatelines within the London zones (e.g. the massive array at Waterloo,
Surbiton, Earlsfield etc etc).

No, I meant 'outside' the London zonal area, where they are ITSO compatble,
but not Oyster compatible, and the 'Stagecoach Smart' card is in use.

AFAICT the ITSO/Oyster dual operation within the zones is still not ready.

Paul S

First ITSO gateline?
 

"Mizter T" wrote in message
...



I *think* part of the reason SWT were so difficult about coming round
to the idea of accepting Oyster PAYG within London was that they were
in some dispute with the DfT as to how their ITSO smartcard scheme
would function alongside Oyster - I speculate that one of the problems
may have been the details as to how to get these two systems to mesh -
with DfT perhaps attempting to wash their hands of the details, and
TfL only really being interested in deploying the Oyster system (what
with the ITSO smartcard system being an SWT franchise commitment,
rather than something that directly involves TfL).

AIUI, in SWT's franchise spec [mostly now redacted information] it stated
that DfT would ensure that TfL would make Oyster compatible with ITSO cards.
This hasn't happened in the timescales DfT stated, hence SWT possibly
believe DfT have defaulted.

Paul S

First ITSO gateline?
 

On 3 July, 11:44, Mizter T wrote:
On Jul 3, 10:05*am, MIG wrote:





On 2 July, 23:30, Matthew Geier
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:47:15 -0700, Andrew Cullen wrote:
Oyster was meant to
be updated to ITSO technology but it doesn't appear to be happening.. I
believe its a similar situation at SWT.

*They have changed something, last year when in London, I discovered the
LU readers were responding to my Singapore CEPAS card, where as the
Oyster readers on the buses were ignoring it.

*In fact they were responding to the CEPAS card while it was still in my
pocket and I was holding the Oyster in my hand next to the gate reader.

First ITSO gateline?
 

Mizter T wrote on 03 July 2010 11:48:28 ...

On Jul 3, 9:55 am, "Richard wrote:

Mizter wrote on 03 July 2010 07:58:32 ...

On Jul 3, 7:34 am, Paul wrote:

Andrew wrote:
Oyster was meant to be updated to ITSO technology but it doesn't appear
to be happening. I believe its a similar situation at SWT.

I think that the basics for Oyster/ITSO compatibility must be in place,
because all Freedom passes issued in the last few months speak ITSO as
well as Oyster (although I imagine that the Oyster implementation is
quite basic on Freedom cards).

Though the Freedom Pass change need not necessarily have meant any
changes on the validator side of things - the new Freedom Pass being a
combined MiFare (Oyster) and ITSO standard card.

According to the London Councils site, TfL did have to make changes to
their gates and reader network to handle the new cards.

Yes, I recall that. I wonder whether those changes may have actually
been about equipping the gates to handle the new "MiFare DESFire" card
type that TfL is now using for Oyster cards (as opposed to the older
"MiFare Classic") - presumably the Oyster side of the Freedom Pass (as
opposed to the ITSO side) is a DESFire card, IYSWIM.

Yes, it is. My understanding is that TfL have moved to the DESFire card
for Oyster, and that the 1.3 million new Freedom Passes were the first
of them. TfL procured the cards and loaded the Oyster application on
them, and some other organisation then added an ITSO application to
enable use on ITSO-enabled buses outside London.

For new Oyster cards, LU ticket offices were intending to use up their
stocks of MiFare Classic cards before switching to the DESFire cards.
That may have happened by now.

--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

First ITSO gateline?
 

On Jul 3, 12:27*pm, "Peter Masson" wrote:

"Mizter T" wrote
I *think* part of the reason SWT were so difficult about coming round
to the idea of accepting Oyster PAYG within London was that they were
in some dispute with the DfT as to how their ITSO smartcard scheme
would function alongside Oyster - I speculate that one of the problems
may have been the details as to how to get these two systems to mesh -
with DfT perhaps attempting to wash their hands of the details, and
TfL only really being interested in deploying the Oyster system (what
with the ITSO smartcard system being an SWT franchise commitment,
rather than something that directly involves TfL).

From the point of view of the passenger with a travelcard season from
Guildford to Zone 2 he wants a ticket which will open gates wherever his
ticket is valid. He also wants to load PAYG on to it for journeys into zone
1. His card will presumably have to be both ITSO and Oyster compatible, but
he won't want complications (or double charging) if he goes through a gate
with both capabilities.

The short answer to that scenario is that I'd say we're some way off
an outboundary Travelcard (e.g. from Guildford) being issued on a
smartcard.

First ITSO gateline?
 

On Jul 3, 1:27*pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

"Mizter T" wrote:

On Jul 2, 10:15 pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

There are a fair number of ITSO smartcard gatelines already operational
on SWT's main routes (although outside London), so St Pancras is not
the first...

--------------------

You mean (I think) ITSO *and* Oyster compatible gates - all SWT
gatelines within the London zones (e.g. the massive array at Waterloo,
Surbiton, Earlsfield etc etc).

No, I meant 'outside' the London zonal area, where they are ITSO compatble,
but not Oyster compatible, and the 'Stagecoach Smart' card is in use.

Indeed - sorry, misread that bit.


AFAICT the ITSO/Oyster dual operation within the zones is still not ready..

No, doesn't appear to be.

First ITSO gateline?
 

On Sat, 3 Jul 2010 03:34:06 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:


On Jul 3, 9:15 am, Arthur Figgis wrote:

On 03/07/2010 07:40, Mizter T wrote:

On Jul 2, 10:15 pm, "Paul
There are a fair number of ITSO smartcard gatelines already operational on
SWT's main routes (although outside London), so St Pancras is not the
first...

You mean (I think) ITSO *and* Oyster compatible gates - all SWT
gatelines within the London zones (e.g. the massive array at Waterloo,
Surbiton, Earlsfield etc etc).

There are are readers (though not gates) at least as far away at
Brockenhurst and Sherbourne, and I don't [think] those non-London
ones take Oyster?

I can only assume that these standalone smartcard readers don't read
Oyster - because they have no need to read Oyster, given that Oyster
ticketing is not valid outside of London

pantomime
Oh yes it is !
/pantomime
Oyster validity does not stop at all parts of the Greater London
boundary. See zones 7, 8 and 9 and various bus routes.


(ok - a Travelcard loaded on
Oyster in conjunction with a Boundary Zone extension ticket is valid,
but you know what I mean!).

So we have gatelines with smartcard readers that have dual-capability
- Oyster *and* ITSO (for the forthcoming SWT smartcard) - the question
in my mind is whether they'll manage to sort out standalone smartcard
readers that also have this dual-capability, for installation at non-
gated stations within the London zones.

Example - North Sheen is an SWT station within the London zones that's
unlikely to ever be gated. At present it has a standalone Oyster
reader - what needs to happen is for that reader to be capable of
reading ITSO-standard railway smartcard (e.g. the forthcoming SWT
smartcard). The situation that absolutely needs to be avoided is for
there to be two separate smartcard readers side-by-side - an Oyster
reader and an ITSO card reader - because this would just cause maximum
passenger confusion. The worry, of course, is that it's all to easy to
see something utterly daft like this happening!

I *think* part of the reason SWT were so difficult about coming round
to the idea of accepting Oyster PAYG within London was that they were
in some dispute with the DfT as to how their ITSO smartcard scheme
would function alongside Oyster - I speculate that one of the problems
may have been the details as to how to get these two systems to mesh -
with DfT perhaps attempting to wash their hands of the details, and
TfL only really being interested in deploying the Oyster system (what
with the ITSO smartcard system being an SWT franchise commitment,
rather than something that directly involves TfL).