There are some rumours/reports (e.g. in
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...d-Sep-2010.pdf
page 46) that TfL is intending to accept contactless emv cards as an
oyster-payg replacement. But how is this supposed to work?

Oyster is an off line system. The card has some memory and stores the
last few touches, top-ups etc. So the readers have all necessary
information to calculate the fare. On the other hand emv bank cards do
not (as far as I know) provide memory for custom applications like a
fare collection system. So how can an oyster-like system work on these
cards? Will all readers finally be connected to a central database? Even
on the bus (via 3G)? Will that be fast and reliable enough? Or is there
another way to implement it?

Also the conditions of my maestro paypass card state that I will be
asked to enter my PIN on at least every fifth transaction. Is this
enforced by the card or can it be overridden by the merchant system? It
won't be much fun to enter a pin on the bus or at the tube gates in
morning rush hour...

Could somebody with insight on TfL fare collection technology (Paul C.?)
please clarify this?

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 15 Oct 2010 22:13:04 +0200, Michael Kaiser
wrote:

There are some rumours/reports (e.g. in
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...d-Sep-2010.pdf
page 46) that TfL is intending to accept contactless emv cards as an
oyster-payg replacement. But how is this supposed to work?

Oyster is an off line system. The card has some memory and stores the
last few touches, top-ups etc. So the readers have all necessary
information to calculate the fare. On the other hand emv bank cards do
not (as far as I know) provide memory for custom applications like a
fare collection system. So how can an oyster-like system work on these
cards? Will all readers finally be connected to a central database? Even
on the bus (via 3G)? Will that be fast and reliable enough? Or is there
another way to implement it?

Also the conditions of my maestro paypass card state that I will be
asked to enter my PIN on at least every fifth transaction. Is this
enforced by the card or can it be overridden by the merchant system? It
won't be much fun to enter a pin on the bus or at the tube gates in
morning rush hour...

Could somebody with insight on TfL fare collection technology (Paul C.?)
please clarify this?

Err I think my insight is quite limited these days.

I think the reasoning here is to reduce cost - particularly of cards by
encouraging a swap to standardised banking technology. It's an obvious
"win win"

Except for customers who don't want the risk of "cashless transaction" being
debited from their credit card

tim

On Oct 15, 9:13*pm, Michael Kaiser
wrote:
Also the conditions of my maestro paypass card state that I will be
asked to enter my PIN on at least every fifth transaction. Is this
enforced by the card or can it be overridden by the merchant system? It
won't be much fun to enter a pin on the bus or at the tube gates in
morning rush hour...
I've probably used my Visa Paywave card ~50 times, and not once been
asked for a PIN.

In message , at 22:01:06 on
Fri, 15 Oct 2010, Paul Corfield remarked:
I really have no idea about the merchant system / PIN validation issue
or your point about custom applications. I guess it depends on whether
you are assuming that the EMV cards would hold season ticket validity or
would only be for PAYG. If the latter I would guess the Oyster system
would be reconfigured to recognise the emv as a valid payment and would
system create a decrement or increment transaction on the card.

The "counting of transactions" is necessary *if* you are going to
require a PIN being entered from time to time. Which is required as an
anti-fraud measure (eg someone stealing a card). But a public transport
ticket doesn't have a "cost of materials" (let alone some materials
which can be bought a dozen times in the half hour after a card is
stolen), so as long as the card can be neutralised soon after its loss
is detected, the financial risk is lower.

There is some precedent with the Barclays tie-in with their "wave and
pay" cards being combined with Oyster plus standard "chip and pin"
banking capability.

I've always assumed that's simply two (well, three if you count the
conventional chip) things mounted in one bit of plastic.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 22:32:19 on Fri, 15 Oct
2010, tim.... remarked:
Except for customers who don't want the risk of "cashless transaction" being
debited from their credit card

That's what the current auto-topup does.
--
Roland Perry

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 22:32:19 on Fri, 15 Oct
2010, tim.... remarked:
Except for customers who don't want the risk of "cashless transaction"
being
debited from their credit card

That's what the current auto-topup does.

But that's an opt in system.

If TfL go for a system of only accepting (whatever it is called) enabled
credit cards then every (SE based) credit card is going to have to be
(whatever it is called) enabled whether the customer wants it for other
purchases or not! Unless, that is, the customer is prepared to pay the cash
"fine".

I'm not worried about having my credit card enabled to buy travel, I'm
worried that by having it enabled to buy travel it becomes automatically
enabled to buy things for 5 quid in WHS without verification.

tim

On Oct 16, 12:09*pm, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 22:01:06 on
Fri, 15 Oct 2010, Paul Corfield remarked:

I really have no idea about the merchant system / PIN validation issue
or your point about custom applications. *I guess it depends on whether
you are assuming that the EMV cards would hold season ticket validity or
would only be for PAYG. *If the latter I would guess the Oyster system
would be reconfigured to recognise the emv as a valid payment and would
system create a decrement or increment transaction on the card.

The "counting of transactions" is necessary *if* you are going to
require a PIN being entered from time to time. Which is required as an
anti-fraud measure (eg someone stealing a card). But a public transport
ticket doesn't have a "cost of materials" (let alone some materials
which can be bought a dozen times in the half hour after a card is
stolen), so as long as the card can be neutralised soon after its loss
is detected, the financial risk is lower.

There is some precedent with the Barclays tie-in with their "wave and
pay" cards being combined with Oyster plus standard "chip and pin"
banking capability.

I've always assumed that's simply two (well, three if you count the
conventional chip) things mounted in one bit of plastic.

Whilst functionally that's what it appears to be to the end user, I
believe the Barclays OnePulse card actually has one RFID chip that
handles both the Oyster and Visa payWave elements - I assume that
simply hosting two RFID chips in physical card would not have worked
as they would/could have conflicted with each other (like what happens
when you hold up two RFID cards together next to an RFID reader - i.e.
the reader often can't deal with it).

I think the reasoning here is to reduce cost - particularly of cards
by encouraging a swap to standardised banking technology. It's an
obvious "win win" because the banks would love to have the card
volume for cashless transactions that Oyster has.

Yes, the Why is obvious. But I have some doubts about the How.

Here we are
http://www.nfc-forum.org/resources/p...for_London.pdf

Thanks. "Centralised fare calculation system – Reduce dependency on
read/write cycle & complex calculations at 20,000 card readers" (Slide
19). So they are going for a centralized, on-line, solution. Lets hope
this won't be too bad in terms of speed and reliability. ("No Sir, you
can't board this bus. There's no signal round here, so we can't check
your ticket. Enjoy the walk.")

If the Japanese can do it successfully I don't see why London can't
achieve the same thing.

Well, they seems to have expanded a system similar to oyster - where the
card stores all necessary information - to other purposes. This is, as
far as I can see, more a political than a technical issue and would be
possible with oyster as well. But the current proposal seem to be to use
an existing payment card -without storage for travel information- as an
oyster payg replacement. And that's a different and probably much harder
task.

I've probably used my Visa Paywave card ~50 times, and not once been
asked for a PIN.

That might be different for credit and debit cards. Also there might be
differences in how much risk the actual card issuer is willing to
accept. I've yet to do five paypass transactions in a row (without a
usual chip and pin transaction in between) to see if they really enforce
this. But I have no reason to doubt it.

And the question is - does contactless emv allow a merchant (he TfL)
to override a pin requirement (and take the risk, of course) or is this
technically impossible.

In message , at 12:29:46 on Sat, 16 Oct
2010, tim.... remarked:

Except for customers who don't want the risk of "cashless transaction"
being
debited from their credit card

That's what the current auto-topup does.

But that's an opt in system.

If TfL go for a system of only accepting (whatever it is called) enabled
credit cards

That won't work because half the population isn't credit-worthy enough
to support a credit card. That's why mobile phones went to a PAYG model,
after they'd exhausted all the people with a good enough credit rating.

I'm not worried about having my credit card enabled to buy travel, I'm
worried that by having it enabled to buy travel it becomes automatically
enabled to buy things for 5 quid in WHS without verification.

After it's been lost or stolen? That's what the occasional PIN
requirement is for - and won't the credit card company refund you for
any fraudulent losses?

--
Roland Perry