Asian chappie in the queue in front of me took three Oyster cards up to the
counter and after inserting his credit card in the reader and signing lots
of bits of paper, walked away without them, before waiting to one of the
terminals with his family (I assume to fly home).

I guess that he was getting a refund. I didn't know you could do that at a
station.

OTOH there's sign saying "drop them in this box and the remaining credit
will go to charity" - the railway children fund (or similar)

Oh and this week's entry in the most pointless holiday snap competition is
"Here's a picture of the (large) group of us standing in the queue at the
underground station" WTF! (not the Asian chappie, a bunch of Europeans)

Tim

"Oyster refund at LRH"? That is surprising, given that LRH is the code for La Rochelle airport in France - somewhat outside the zonal area ....

In message , at 22:02:14 on
Wed, 1 Jan 2014, Paul Corfield remarked:
Oh and this week's entry in the most pointless holiday snap competition is
"Here's a picture of the (large) group of us standing in the queue at the
underground station" WTF! (not the Asian chappie, a bunch of Europeans)

All part of that iconic LUL experience. You may mock but queues at a
LU ticket office will be a historic sight within 18 months or so.
Anyone who wants to capture a bit of Underground life should try and
get a few snaps of people using ticket offices before they disappear
and get replaced by coffee bars and Amazon lockers. It's a genuine
bit of Underground and London history and blink and it'll be gone. The
other aspect is the variation in the design of ticket offices (less
than there used to be but still there in places).

I recognise that the queues might be at ticket machines instead but
it's not the same thing.

If you go to Kings Cross or Euston you'll see there's no "might" about
it, even now. (And that's just two I use myself).
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 09:06:52 on
Thu, 2 Jan 2014, Paul Corfield remarked:
I recognise that the queues might be at ticket machines instead but
it's not the same thing.

If you go to Kings Cross or Euston you'll see there's no "might" about
it, even now. (And that's just two I use myself).

Yes I know that Roland. However I was talking about the future and at
this point in time we cannot be certain what queue lengths will be
like at some point in 2015. Several things may change by then which
might reduce queue lengths - that's what TfL must be hoping for.

I hope TfL has done some modelling of the situation, rather than just
hoping for the best!
--
Roland Perry

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 2 Jan 2014 08:58:20 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 22:02:14 on
Wed, 1 Jan 2014, Paul Corfield remarked:
Oh and this week's entry in the most pointless holiday snap competition
is
"Here's a picture of the (large) group of us standing in the queue at
the
underground station" WTF! (not the Asian chappie, a bunch of Europeans)

All part of that iconic LUL experience. You may mock but queues at a
LU ticket office will be a historic sight within 18 months or so.
Anyone who wants to capture a bit of Underground life should try and
get a few snaps of people using ticket offices before they disappear
and get replaced by coffee bars and Amazon lockers. It's a genuine
bit of Underground and London history and blink and it'll be gone. The
other aspect is the variation in the design of ticket offices (less
than there used to be but still there in places).

I recognise that the queues might be at ticket machines instead but
it's not the same thing.

If you go to Kings Cross or Euston you'll see there's no "might" about
it, even now. (And that's just two I use myself).

Yes I know that Roland. However I was talking about the future and at
this point in time we cannot be certain what queue lengths will be
like at some point in 2015. Several things may change by then which
might reduce queue lengths - that's what TfL must be hoping for.

If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying for
tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are tilting at
windmills

You only have to look at the number of suitably "qualified" individuals who
don't go through the self service passport check (at no risk and sometimes
considerable time cost) to see how "frightened" the average person is of
such technology

tim


--
Paul C

In article ,
(tim......) wrote:

If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying for
tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are tilting
at windmills

You only have to look at the number of suitably "qualified"
individuals who don't go through the self service passport check (at
no risk and sometimes considerable time cost) to see how "frightened"
the average person is of such technology

Now maybe but the use of such cards will grow over time.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

wrote in message
...
In article ,
(tim......) wrote:

If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying for
tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are tilting
at windmills

You only have to look at the number of suitably "qualified"
individuals who don't go through the self service passport check (at
no risk and sometimes considerable time cost) to see how "frightened"
the average person is of such technology

Now maybe but the use of such cards will grow over time.

but not withing the timetable that Boris wants to close the ticket offices
IMHO

tim

In article ,
(tim......) wrote:

wrote in message
...
In article ,
(tim......) wrote:

If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying for
tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are tilting
at windmills

You only have to look at the number of suitably "qualified"
individuals who don't go through the self service passport check (at
no risk and sometimes considerable time cost) to see how "frightened"
the average person is of such technology

Now maybe but the use of such cards will grow over time.

but not withing the timetable that Boris wants to close the ticket
offices IMHO

It's still some time till his 2015 deadline in terms of electronic payment
development timescales.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 12:13:42
on Thu, 2 Jan 2014, remarked:
If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying for
tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are tilting
at windmills

You only have to look at the number of suitably "qualified"
individuals who don't go through the self service passport check (at
no risk and sometimes considerable time cost) to see how "frightened"
the average person is of such technology

Also built-in problems for families travelling:

"Like Oyster, you can only pay for one person per journey with a
contactless payment card; if you are travelling in a group, each
person will have to use a separate contactless payment card or
other method of payment."

However, they have either withdrawn the restriction on using foreign or
prepay cards (and many tourists will have foreign prepay cards) or
they've just stopped mentioning it.

Now maybe but the use of such cards will grow over time.

Have they met the deadline set when first introduced [Dec 2012]:

"From the end of 2013, contactless payment cards will be accepted on the
Tube, Docklands Light Railway, London Overground and trams."

I'm not looking forward to that because it would seem it obsoletes my
"Onepulse Barclay/Oyster" - the system charges neither rather than one
or both, apparently. Will they be sending me an automatic refund for the
stored amount?
--
Roland Perry

On 03/01/2014 10:25, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 12:13:42
on Thu, 2 Jan 2014, remarked:
If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying for
tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are tilting
at windmills

You only have to look at the number of suitably "qualified"
individuals who don't go through the self service passport check (at
no risk and sometimes considerable time cost) to see how "frightened"
the average person is of such technology

Also built-in problems for families travelling:

"Like Oyster, you can only pay for one person per journey with a
contactless payment card; if you are travelling in a group, each
person will have to use a separate contactless payment card or
other method of payment."

However, they have either withdrawn the restriction on using foreign or
prepay cards (and many tourists will have foreign prepay cards) or
they've just stopped mentioning it.

How many (if any) prepaid cards have contactless enabled? I suspect they
won't have it, as contactless transactions are all about being
super-quick, 'touch and go', without time for online authorisation.
Enabling contactless would be a risk for the issuer - existing prepaid
cards have a zero floor limit (i.e. automatic online authorisation), for
example.



Now maybe but the use of such cards will grow over time.

Have they met the deadline set when first introduced [Dec 2012]:

"From the end of 2013, contactless payment cards will be accepted on the
Tube, Docklands Light Railway, London Overground and trams."

I'm not looking forward to that because it would seem it obsoletes my
"Onepulse Barclay/Oyster" - the system charges neither rather than one
or both, apparently. Will they be sending me an automatic refund for the
stored amount?

"the system charges neither rather than one or both, apparently" -
really? I'd expect it to continue acting as an Oyster card when
presented to an Oyster validator (though I'd also expect the product to
be discontinued soon - when-ish does your card expire, if you don't mind
me asking?).