On 24/01/2012 16:50, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Roland wrote:
at 15:53:07 on Tue, 24 Jan 2012, John remarked:

I expect the Europeans question the sanity of a country with thousands
of different sales tax rates that vary by what you buy, where you buy
it, and even who you are, and that require that the clerk compute the tax
at the time of the sale.

We had such a system in the UK, called "purchase tax". Dozens of
different rates. But it got simplified when we "joined Europe" and
converted to VAT (which has only about 4 rates in most places).

Does Europe pool collections from the VAT?

No

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read, substitute trains for rail.
Railway Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail

On Jan 24, 4:53*pm, John Levine wrote:

I expect the Europeans question the sanity of a country with thousands
of different sales tax rates that vary by what you buy, where you buy
it, and even who you are, and that require that the clerk compute the tax
at the time of the sale.

It seems to me to be pointless to tax anything requiring a subsidy, as
that just creates a money-go-round, as it were. Thus, the German VAT
on domestic rail services seems stupid to me - all that does is create
administration where you could instead simply reduce the subsidy.

Neil

On Jan 24, 5:50*pm, "Adam H. Kerman" wrote:

Does Europe pool collections from the VAT?

No, if you mean "between countries".

Neil

"Adam H. Kerman" schreef
: Does Europe pool collections from the VAT?

A sum calculated as a proportion of notional VAT receipts is paid into the
EU budget as one of its "own resources".

http://ec.europa.eu/budget/explained...ing/fin_en.cfm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_...European_Union ("VAT based own
resouces")

Colin Youngs
Brussels

On Jan 23, 8:06*pm, John Levine wrote:


The Caltrain commuter trains between San Francisco and San Jose let
you pay with the Clipper smart card. *All of the stations are ungated, but
there are Clipper readers on the platforms. *Before you get on the train,
you tap your card, after you get off, you tap it again.

If you don't tap in, and a conductor checks your ticket, you get
fined. *. . .

That seems like a good system, but it is a proof of payment
arrangement which would require conductors or fare inspectors to make
regular inspections to ensure passengers tapped in.

SEPTA has a challenge in that many of its commuter rail stations are
low platform (some in lousy condition) and many of its trains* have
manual traps. This will mean expensive labor intensive conductors are
still required.


* As of this writing almost _all_ of its trains have manual traps and
a good many have manual doors. When the SL-5 finally replace the
SL-2/3 the situation will improve, but the SL-4 still have manual
traps.

On Jan 23, 8:31*pm, Miles Bader wrote:

For many systems, I'm not sure it makes all that much difference: *as
soon as a large percentage of the passengers have to "tap-in / tap-out",
then you need pretty much exactly the same infrastructure as you do for
smart-card-based faregates... and practically speaking, it's a good idea
to organize platform access in a similar way too, to make
tapping-in/tapping-out simple[*] for passengers. *In other words,
smart-card-based POP essentially needs "optional" faregates (which
pass-holders can bypass).

A 'tap' reader is a heck of a lot simpler than a turnstile. Faster,
too.

But in a commuter rail system like SEPTA with numerous stations that
are lightly used, there is a steep infrastructure cost in the
installation of fare vending machines at every station, and in most
places, on every platform (going from one platform to another often
requires a long walk through a tunnel or over a bridge at the
street.) Fare machines need comm lines which would have to be
installed. They would need to be visited periodically to be emptied
of cash and refilled with ticket stock and ink, and repair vandalism.

If electronic tickets are used, then the fare inspectors will need
portable readers. Actually, if going to POP, a paper based system
like the River Line would do the job and I don't see any advantage to
an electronic ticket. To me, electronic tickets are only justified
with turnstiles.

On Jan 24, 5:02*pm, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 16:48:57 on Tue, 24 Jan
2012, Adam H. Kerman remarked:

several pretty lame insults

Is this misc.transport.pot.kettle ?

Bit of a shame that what was an otherwise perfectly legitimate and
interesting discussion has to degenerate in such a manner.

On Jan 24, 3:04*pm, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 14:13:48 on Tue, 24 Jan
2012, Adam H. Kerman remarked:

They aren't proximity cards? The standard is IEC 14443, which has
the "proximity cards" in its title. The standard doesn't define a
technology that uses radio frequencies in identification?

Sorry, I thought RFID could be used, generically, to describe any
proximity card that used radio frequencies in identification technology

Apparently not. The name seems to be PICC, with RFID reserved for tags
which are (broadly speaking) electronic serial numbers.

Looking at http://www.rfid.org/, there's a conspicuous absence of
anything to do with "paywave" credit cards or ICAO passports.

(But note that a US passport *card* does seem to qualify as an RFID due
to its very limited capabilities).

That doesn't mean that in the popular press the terms aren't often
blurred.

Though referring to it as "RFID technology" doesn't seem like the
greatest crime there is.

On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:57:21 -0800 (PST), wrote:
SL-2/3 the situation will improve, but the SL-4 still have manual
traps.

What do you mean by "traps" here?

Neil

--
Neil Williams, Milton Keynes, UK

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at 12:57:51 on Tue, 24
Jan 2012, d remarked:
FWIW one doesn't get pay-to-use trolleys at Waitrose. You must shop at
some right chavvy places

Oddly enough, the first place I ever encountered them was at the
Waitrose in Wokingham! Although it was a Safeway at the time.

ASDA complained to me that they had been made to add coin ops to their
trolleys by the council. More likely so many were being taken off site that
it was the only way they could stop the council fining them for recovery.

--
Colin Rosenstiel