On Wednesday, 6 November 2013 23:59:35 UTC, Paul Corfield wrote:

Can you explain what you mean by "so much human intervention"? What
would be your example of a system or facility not requiring so much
intervention?

My aims perhaps differ from TfL's (with union pressure) given my experience of German systems which are generally completely unstaffed except drivers and the odd security guard, but I would have had a core requirement that all ticket offices could be closed when the system was fully implemented, and that it could fully replace paper tickets. This wouldn't necessarily result in redundancies, but rather I would have roving staff to assist in the use of ticket machines. I'd do the same for the mainline, FWIW.

So, some examples of how I would have done it differently:-

1. No unresolved journeys. The way I would work this is the same way as many other systems do it, such as Singapore - touching in charges the maximum Oyster single fare to the card that could apply from that station (subject to cap if appropriate for London), and touching out refunds back the difference back to the journey you actually made. If you don't touch out, you don't get it back, tough. That is powerful motivation, and far, far less complicated.

2. OSIs (out of station interchanges) seem to be the biggest cause of this. I've posted about ways these could be tidied up before - one way is to always close the journey on touching out, but reopen it when touching back in at an OSI location. Leaving journeys open was a silly piece of design again asking for a need for intervention.

3. All card transactions, be that dispensing, refunding or whatever, possible ONLY from automated ticket machines, NOT from ticket offices.

4. A full abolition of paper tickets except accepting cross-London NR tickets (requiring a smaller number of accepting barriers, thus lower maintenance cost). Singles/returns could either be issued on Oyster cards returnable for refund later, or on retained contactless "tokens" like Delhi's system (I think) which are inserted into and retained by the barriers for re-use.

I just remain amazed that a system designed in the 21st century for the 21st century has so many holes in it that it requires so much human intervention.

Neil

On Thursday, 7 November 2013 13:50:38 UTC, Neil Williams wrote:

1. No unresolved journeys. The way I would work this is the same way as many other systems do it, such as Singapore - touching in charges the maximum Oyster single fare to the card that could apply from that station (subject to cap if appropriate for London), and touching out refunds back the difference back to the journey you actually made. If you don't touch out, you don't get it back, tough. That is powerful motivation, and far, far less complicated.

Failure to touch in and touching out would do the same thing. Maximum fare that could apply to that station would be charged. Or in the case of National Rail, an automatic Penalty Fare.

Neil

On Thursday, 7 November 2013 13:52:31 UTC, Neil Williams wrote:

Failure to touch in and touching out would do the same thing. Maximum fare that could apply to that station would be charged. Or in the case of National Rail, an automatic Penalty Fare.

One more... maximum journey lengths set very high (perhaps 6 hours or something, or closed by next touch-in), but if exceeded would result in two separate maximum fares, again non-appealable.

Neil

In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On Thursday, 7 November 2013 13:52:31 UTC, Neil Williams wrote:

Failure to touch in and touching out would do the same thing.
Maximum fare that could apply to that station would be charged. Or
in the case of National Rail, an automatic Penalty Fare.

One more... maximum journey lengths set very high (perhaps 6 hours or
something, or closed by next touch-in), but if exceeded would result
in two separate maximum fares, again non-appealable.

And when you get the sort of common failures like my wife experienced where
she passed through gates but the exits were not recorded on her Oyster. She
knew nothing about anything being wrong (enough credit for a maximum fare at
the outset) and then didn't use the card for a year by which time TfL
refused to do anything about it.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at
05:50:38 on Thu, 7 Nov 2013, Neil Williams
remarked:
1. No unresolved journeys. The way I would work this is the same way as many other systems do it, such as Singapore - touching in charges the
maximum Oyster single fare to the card that could apply from that station (subject to cap if appropriate for London), and touching out refunds
back the difference back to the journey you actually made. If you don't touch out, you don't get it back, tough. That is powerful motivation,
and far, far less complicated.

The last one I had to sort out was my wife who arrived at Waterloo (on a
paper ticket) who was clutching her Oyster to make an onward trip on the
tube, and got psycho-babbled into "always touching" when she exited the
platform to the concourse.

TfL assumes this means "I've blagged a trip to here from somewhere
without a touch-in barrier" whereas to the traveller it means "I've
arrived in Oyster country, so start logging my trips from here onwards".
--
Roland Perry

Neil Williams wrote:
On Wednesday, 6 November 2013 23:59:35 UTC, Paul Corfield wrote:

Can you explain what you mean by "so much human intervention"? What
would be your example of a system or facility not requiring so much
intervention?

My aims perhaps differ from TfL's (with union pressure) given my
experience of German systems which are generally completely unstaffed
except drivers and the odd security guard, but I would have had a core
requirement that all ticket offices could be closed when the system was
fully implemented, and that it could fully replace paper tickets. This
wouldn't necessarily result in redundancies, but rather I would have
roving staff to assist in the use of ticket machines. I'd do the same
for the mainline, FWIW.

So, some examples of how I would have done it differently:-

1. No unresolved journeys. The way I would work this is the same way as
many other systems do it, such as Singapore - touching in charges the
maximum Oyster single fare to the card that could apply from that station
(subject to cap if appropriate for London), and touching out refunds back
the difference back to the journey you actually made. If you don't touch
out, you don't get it back, tough. That is powerful motivation, and far,
far less complicated.

But isn't that exactly what Oyster does?

2. OSIs (out of station interchanges) seem to be the biggest cause of
this. I've posted about ways these could be tidied up before - one way
is to always close the journey on touching out, but reopen it when
touching back in at an OSI location. Leaving journeys open was a silly
piece of design again asking for a need for intervention.

But isn't that exactly what Oyster does?

3. All card transactions, be that dispensing, refunding or whatever,
possible ONLY from automated ticket machines, NOT from ticket offices.

Well, that's probably going to happen. Most suburban ticket offices are
already open only for very limited periods, and the plan is apparently to
close them altogether.

In message

, at 11:12:57 on Thu, 7 Nov 2013, Recliner
remarked:
1. No unresolved journeys. The way I would work this is the same way as
many other systems do it, such as Singapore - touching in charges the
maximum Oyster single fare to the card that could apply from that station
(subject to cap if appropriate for London), and touching out refunds back
the difference back to the journey you actually made. If you don't touch
out, you don't get it back, tough. That is powerful motivation, and far,
far less complicated.

But isn't that exactly what Oyster does?

No, because you can phone them up and argue about it.

2. OSIs (out of station interchanges) seem to be the biggest cause of
this. I've posted about ways these could be tidied up before - one way
is to always close the journey on touching out, but reopen it when
touching back in at an OSI location. Leaving journeys open was a silly
piece of design again asking for a need for intervention.

But isn't that exactly what Oyster does?

A slight variation on this... Isn't one of the known problems that when
you travel A-B complete your business rapidly and then travel B-A,
when B has OSI? In other words the initial exit doesn't complete the
journey, and when you re-enter the network and go back where you came
from it gets confused.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at 11:12:57 on Thu, 7 Nov 2013, Recliner remarked:
1. No unresolved journeys. The way I would work this is the same way as
many other systems do it, such as Singapore - touching in charges the
maximum Oyster single fare to the card that could apply from that station
(subject to cap if appropriate for London), and touching out refunds back
the difference back to the journey you actually made. If you don't touch
out, you don't get it back, tough. That is powerful motivation, and far,
far less complicated.

But isn't that exactly what Oyster does?

No, because you can phone them up and argue about it.

The reason you can argue is if the system has gone wrong (eg, gates not
working, or train failed/delayed excessively), not because the basic
algorithm is wrong.


2. OSIs (out of station interchanges) seem to be the biggest cause of
this. I've posted about ways these could be tidied up before - one way
is to always close the journey on touching out, but reopen it when
touching back in at an OSI location. Leaving journeys open was a silly
piece of design again asking for a need for intervention.

But isn't that exactly what Oyster does?

A slight variation on this... Isn't one of the known problems that when
you travel A-B complete your business rapidly and then travel B-A, when
B has OSI? In other words the initial exit doesn't complete the journey,
and when you re-enter the network and go back where you came from it gets confused.

I think it 'provisionally' completes the journey, but reopens it if the
station is re-entered through another exit within a specified time.

In message

, at 16:13:34 on Thu, 7 Nov 2013, Recliner
remarked:
1. No unresolved journeys. The way I would work this is the same way as
many other systems do it, such as Singapore - touching in charges the
maximum Oyster single fare to the card that could apply from that station
(subject to cap if appropriate for London), and touching out refunds back
the difference back to the journey you actually made. If you don't touch
out, you don't get it back, tough. That is powerful motivation, and far,
far less complicated.

But isn't that exactly what Oyster does?

No, because you can phone them up and argue about it.

The reason you can argue is if the system has gone wrong (eg, gates not
working, or train failed/delayed excessively), not because the basic
algorithm is wrong.

It seems to me that the "less complicated" solution being proposed would
not have the possibility to argue in those circumstances. You'd just
lose the money. That's an operational failing, not an algorithmic one.

2. OSIs (out of station interchanges) seem to be the biggest cause of
this. I've posted about ways these could be tidied up before - one way
is to always close the journey on touching out, but reopen it when
touching back in at an OSI location. Leaving journeys open was a silly
piece of design again asking for a need for intervention.

But isn't that exactly what Oyster does?

A slight variation on this... Isn't one of the known problems that when
you travel A-B complete your business rapidly and then travel B-A, when
B has OSI? In other words the initial exit doesn't complete the journey,
and when you re-enter the network and go back where you came from it gets confused.

I think it 'provisionally' completes the journey, but reopens it if the
station is re-entered through another exit within a specified time.

That's right, but if you end up back at A (or a station C, near A) it is
then likely to penalise you because your journey A-C apparently took
"too long", and the current algorithm wishes to penalise slow-coaches,
presumably because they see it as evidence of some form of fare-dodging.

A better algorithm (but it requires more hardware too, and makes the
system more complex to navigate)) is some sort of validator at B which
allows the traveller to say "please force a completion of journey A-B".
Only then would the person be charged [a pair of] correct fares (which
also work within the cap), rather than a penalty fare (which I believe
are outwith the capping regime).
--
Roland Perry

On Fri, 8 Nov 2013 08:24:25 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:
A better algorithm (but it requires more hardware too

Or just allow the journey and up fares a bit to cover the cost of the
small number of people doing journeys like that.

The biggest mistake was trying to replicate a fare structure designed
for paper tickets.

Neil

--
Neil Williams. Use neil before the at to reply.