In message , at
13:32:32 on Fri, 12 Sep 2014, Matthew Dickinson
remarked:
I'm not sure whether the ITSO only EMT gateline would be considered to be in a Travelcard zone.

Given the first stop of Luton Airport Parkway then until Oyster is
extended we shouldn't ever be using them. And even after it is extended,
a Z1-9 Travelcard won't be valid.
--
Roland Perry

wrote
(Matthew Dickinson) wrote:

TfL buses work fine. The ETM flashes up ITSO card. I haven't tried
Tramlink yet.

Curious. My National Bus Concession card did work this week. I tried it on
3
buses too.

If you mean 3 TfL buses they seem to go together.


--
Mike D

On Fri, 12 Sep 2014 16:12:03 -0500,
wrote:

In article ,
(Matthew Dickinson) wrote:

TfL buses work fine. The ETM flashes up ITSO card. I haven't tried
Tramlink yet.

Curious. My National Bus Concession card did work this week. I tried it on 3
buses too.

A card I saw yesterday showed "ITSO card" and something like "Show to
driver" with an error beep. So it's clearly on the way. I haven't
seen any announcement yet.

This was on a 507 in the usual configuration, air-conditioning on and
windows open. But that's another rant...

Richard.

In article ,
() wrote:

In article ,
(Matthew Dickinson) wrote:

TfL buses work fine. The ETM flashes up ITSO card. I haven't tried
Tramlink yet.

Curious. My National Bus Concession card did work this week. I tried
it on 3 buses too.

Aargh! It didn't work!

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Richard) wrote:

On Fri, 12 Sep 2014 16:12:03 -0500,
wrote:

In article ,
(Matthew Dickinson) wrote:

TfL buses work fine. The ETM flashes up ITSO card. I haven't tried
Tramlink yet.

Curious. My National Bus Concession card didn't work this week. I tried
it on 3 buses too.

A card I saw yesterday showed "ITSO card" and something like "Show to
driver" with an error beep. So it's clearly on the way. I haven't
seen any announcement yet.

This was on a 507 in the usual configuration, air-conditioning on and
windows open. But that's another rant...

I wrote to Caroline Pidegon and got this intriguing reply which I thought
would interest the team he

"Thanks for forwarding this on to us. I have looked into the matter and can
confirm that English National Concessionary Travel Scheme (ENCTS) passes
cannot currently be read electronically by our buses.

Passengers with an ENCTS issued by a council outside London can still use it
on our buses by showing it to the driver.

This is because of a deficiency in the ITSO technology. At present, it is
not compatible with buses which start with some letters (routes prefixed or
suffixed with _U_ being a particular problem, e.g. U1). Those bus routes
would not therefore be recognised by the ITSO system.

We are working with ITSO to resolve this problem effectively.

In the meantime, as noted above, passengers should be able to board the bus
by showing the driver the card."

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 12:51:11
on Fri, 14 Nov 2014, remarked:
This is because of a deficiency in the ITSO technology. At present, it is
not compatible with buses which start with some letters (routes prefixed or
suffixed with _U_ being a particular problem, e.g. U1). Those bus routes
would not therefore be recognised by the ITSO system.

Does ITSO use a capital U as some sort of escape code, or what else
could explain this very strange behaviour?
--
Roland Perry

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Fri, 14 Nov 2014 12:51:11 -0600,
wrote:

In article ,
(Richard) wrote:

On Fri, 12 Sep 2014 16:12:03 -0500,
wrote:

In article
,
(Matthew Dickinson) wrote:

TfL buses work fine. The ETM flashes up ITSO card. I haven't tried
Tramlink yet.

Curious. My National Bus Concession card didn't work this week. I
tried it on 3 buses too.

A card I saw yesterday showed "ITSO card" and something like "Show to
driver" with an error beep. So it's clearly on the way. I haven't
seen any announcement yet.

This was on a 507 in the usual configuration, air-conditioning on and
windows open. But that's another rant...

I wrote to Caroline Pidegon and got this intriguing reply which I thought
would interest the team he

"Thanks for forwarding this on to us. I have looked into the matter and
can confirm that English National Concessionary Travel Scheme (ENCTS)
passes cannot currently be read electronically by our buses.

Passengers with an ENCTS issued by a council outside London can still use
it on our buses by showing it to the driver.

This is because of a deficiency in the ITSO technology. At present, it is
not compatible with buses which start with some letters (routes prefixed
or suffixed with _U_ being a particular problem, e.g. U1). Those bus
routes would not therefore be recognised by the ITSO system.

We are working with ITSO to resolve this problem effectively.

In the meantime, as noted above, passengers should be able to board the
bus by showing the driver the card."

I find that explanation very odd. So all the unibus services run in
various cities in England with route numbers prefixed with "U" can't
accept ITSO cards? I frankly don't believe that.

There are 5 "U" routes in Southampton and a route called Unibus in
Canterbury. While designed for students they're normal public services
and will accept ITSO concessionary passes from English local
authorities. Exeter city services are famously lettered rather than
numbered.

There are also loads of letter prefixed routes across the UK and I'm
amazed that there could be even a partial situation whereby some
routes cannot read and accept ITSO smartcards. This is particularly
the case where local authorities rely on electronic data for usage
information for reimbursement purposes.

I trusted the denizens of u.t.l would come up with comments like this. I
agree it is a bizarre excuse. What is not revealed is the financial
consequences which I suspect mean that TfL lose money where drivers don't
register the cards shown to them.

Note I'm not saying Ms Pidgeon is "lying". I just don't buy the
explanation as surely the issue has arisen before now and should have
been resolved?

I agree. I wasn't expecting a response like this at all. Just to be clear.
What I quoted is from an email to Caroline Pidgeon's researcher from someone
in TfL, not her opinion in any way.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 14/11/2014 20:05, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Fri, 14 Nov 2014 12:51:11 -0600,
wrote:
[snip]

I find that explanation very odd. So all the unibus services run in
various cities in England with route numbers prefixed with "U" can't
accept ITSO cards? I frankly don't believe that.

There are 5 "U" routes in Southampton and a route called Unibus in
Canterbury. While designed for students they're normal public services
and will accept ITSO concessionary passes from English local
authorities. Exeter city services are famously lettered rather than
numbered.

There are also loads of letter prefixed routes across the UK and I'm
amazed that there could be even a partial situation whereby some
routes cannot read and accept ITSO smartcards. This is particularly
the case where local authorities rely on electronic data for usage
information for reimbursement purposes.

Note I'm not saying Ms Pidgeon is "lying". I just don't buy the
explanation as surely the issue has arisen before now and should have
been resolved?

[/snip]

Paul, you are right - it is a very opdd explanation.
It seems to have conflated two issues. Yes, there are some constraints
within ITSO which can prevent certain letters being used in certain
circumstances to record a route number in a trasnaction record. But that
can be circumvented, and in any case the transaction record doesn't have
to show the same route number that the public sees.

More likely the ITSO on Prestige rollout hasn't hit all the buses yet.
The buses need both the ITSO 'shell and product keys' so they can read
the ENCTS cards and the concession products on them., and they also need
the 'commercial rules' to know that they can accept these cards. My
guess would be that one or the other hasn't bee completed yet.

Just my £0.02 contribution

Kevin

In article ,
(Kevin Ayton) wrote:

On 14/11/2014 20:05, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Fri, 14 Nov 2014 12:51:11 -0600,
wrote:
[snip]

I find that explanation very odd. So all the unibus services run in
various cities in England with route numbers prefixed with "U" can't
accept ITSO cards? I frankly don't believe that.

There are 5 "U" routes in Southampton and a route called Unibus in
Canterbury. While designed for students they're normal public services
and will accept ITSO concessionary passes from English local
authorities. Exeter city services are famously lettered rather than
numbered.

There are also loads of letter prefixed routes across the UK and I'm
amazed that there could be even a partial situation whereby some
routes cannot read and accept ITSO smartcards. This is particularly
the case where local authorities rely on electronic data for usage
information for reimbursement purposes.

Note I'm not saying Ms Pidgeon is "lying". I just don't buy the
explanation as surely the issue has arisen before now and should have
been resolved?

[/snip]

Paul, you are right - it is a very opdd explanation.
It seems to have conflated two issues. Yes, there are some
constraints within ITSO which can prevent certain letters being used
in certain circumstances to record a route number in a trasnaction
record. But that can be circumvented, and in any case the transaction
record doesn't have to show the same route number that the public
sees.

More likely the ITSO on Prestige rollout hasn't hit all the buses
yet. The buses need both the ITSO 'shell and product keys' so they
can read the ENCTS cards and the concession products on them., and
they also need the 'commercial rules' to know that they can accept
these cards. My guess would be that one or the other hasn't bee
completed yet.

Just my £0.02 contribution

Don't they all have to handle ITSO cards now to allow Southern's "The Key"
card to be handled correctly and charges deducted?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Fri, 14 Nov 2014 18:20:00 -0600,
wrote:

In article ,
(Kevin Ayton) wrote:

Paul, you are right - it is a very opdd explanation.
It seems to have conflated two issues. Yes, there are some
constraints within ITSO which can prevent certain letters being used
in certain circumstances to record a route number in a trasnaction
record. But that can be circumvented, and in any case the transaction
record doesn't have to show the same route number that the public
sees.

More likely the ITSO on Prestige rollout hasn't hit all the buses
yet. The buses need both the ITSO 'shell and product keys' so they
can read the ENCTS cards and the concession products on them., and
they also need the 'commercial rules' to know that they can accept
these cards. My guess would be that one or the other hasn't bee
completed yet.

Just my £0.02 contribution

Don't they all have to handle ITSO cards now to allow Southern's "The
Key" card to be handled correctly and charges deducted?

You are right that Southern's Key does have to be handled by buses in
terms of processing a Travelcard held on the card. I am not sure that
any charges can be deducted because PAYG does not work on ITSO cards
in the same way as for Oyster. That does raise a little question in my
head as to what happens if someone has an Out Boundary Z26 travelcard
on a Key Card and travels by train into Zone 1. Do they get penalty
fared?

AIUI ITSO relies on "product definitions" being recognised by readers.
If the definitions of English concessionary permits haven't been
loaded then cards can't be processed. I do think the readers
recognise the presence of an ENCTS ITSO card though. I'm sure I've
seen people present them on TfL buses and the error beeps sound. I
assume the definitions for Travelcards and national rail tickets into
the zonal area have been loaded on the TfL readers for Key and C2C
Smart users.

Aha! The Southern product is more limited than I understood. We are looking
forward to their developments in Cambridge now of course. Indeed if you try
to buy a ticket from the GTR web sites they all go to the Southern site. We
are promised "The Key" real soon now.

--
Colin Rosenstiel