On Tue, 9 Sep 2014 13:00:11 +0100, Roland Perry wrote:
And with Oyster there's at least the chance that you can see your
balance disappearing, if you know exactly where to look on a gate for
the fraction of a second it displays the number. I'm quite sure there's
no such facility for the contactless cards.

I'm a member of the contactless pilot and on my journey home this
evening both gates gave me red lights while opening but the exit gate
also displayed my fare. I've just checked the online version and that
is matching what I expected to pay and what was shown on the gate.

I'm not really sure how that happened. I'll have to look more closely
at the displays next time and perhaps try and get a picture.

In message , at 23:44:13 on
Tue, 9 Sep 2014, David Walters remarked:
And with Oyster there's at least the chance that you can see your
balance disappearing, if you know exactly where to look on a gate for
the fraction of a second it displays the number. I'm quite sure there's
no such facility for the contactless cards.

I'm a member of the contactless pilot and on my journey home this
evening both gates gave me red lights while opening

What is the significance of a red light - it sounds like a "reject" (but
never underestimate the ability of hardware designers to mix their
metaphors).

but the exit gate also displayed my fare. I've just checked the online
version and that is matching what I expected to pay and what was shown
on the gate.

I'm not really sure how that happened.

If the gates are online to the "back office" it could be possible to
calculate and display the fare since the last 'touch', but this isn't
the same as a running total for the day.

I'll have to look more closely
at the displays next time and perhaps try and get a picture.

Wouldn't you need two people for that?
--
Roland Perry

On Wed, 10 Sep 2014 08:14:18 +0100, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 23:44:13 on
Tue, 9 Sep 2014, David Walters remarked:
And with Oyster there's at least the chance that you can see your
balance disappearing, if you know exactly where to look on a gate for
the fraction of a second it displays the number. I'm quite sure there's
no such facility for the contactless cards.

I'm a member of the contactless pilot and on my journey home this
evening both gates gave me red lights while opening

What is the significance of a red light - it sounds like a "reject" (but
never underestimate the ability of hardware designers to mix their
metaphors).

It is a reject and I wouldn't expect the gates to open with a red light,
rather than green, but they did. I thought I'd had a red light about
a week ago but hadn't been sure but last night I'm fairly sure that is
what happened.

I was using wide gates that were set for entry and exit and seem to
alternate between directions every second or so and perhaps the red light
was due to the card read time being slow and it switching directions
while reading but then opening because the read was successful?

but the exit gate also displayed my fare. I've just checked the online
version and that is matching what I expected to pay and what was shown
on the gate.

I'm not really sure how that happened.

If the gates are online to the "back office" it could be possible to
calculate and display the fare since the last 'touch', but this isn't
the same as a running total for the day.

I think another number was displayed in the space I would expect to see
remaining Oyster balance but I didn't get a proper look and was surprised
to see anything at all.

The journey was unusual for me as I normally start or end at a station
without gates and use a validator. I did that this morning and the exit
gate didn't display a fare.

I'll have to look more closely
at the displays next time and perhaps try and get a picture.

Wouldn't you need two people for that?

I just need two hands, not to be carrying anything and the station to
be not too busy.

In message , at 11:34:18 on
Wed, 10 Sep 2014, David Walters remarked:

but the exit gate also displayed my fare. I've just checked the online
version and that is matching what I expected to pay and what was shown
on the gate.

I'm not really sure how that happened.

If the gates are online to the "back office" it could be possible to
calculate and display the fare since the last 'touch', but this isn't
the same as a running total for the day.

I think another number

What sort of number - a sum of money, error message...

was displayed in the space I would expect to see
remaining Oyster balance

Hold on - are there two places at a gate that numbers are displayed, the
one you first mentioned and also the "Oyster balance space"?

but I didn't get a proper look and was surprised
to see anything at all.

--
Roland Perry

On Wed, 10 Sep 2014 12:27:23 +0100, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 11:34:18 on
Wed, 10 Sep 2014, David Walters remarked:

but the exit gate also displayed my fare. I've just checked the online
version and that is matching what I expected to pay and what was shown
on the gate.

I'm not really sure how that happened.

If the gates are online to the "back office" it could be possible to
calculate and display the fare since the last 'touch', but this isn't
the same as a running total for the day.

I think another number

What sort of number - a sum of money, error message...

Perhaps a sum of money but I'm really not sure.

was displayed in the space I would expect to see
remaining Oyster balance

Hold on - are there two places at a gate that numbers are displayed, the
one you first mentioned and also the "Oyster balance space"?

IIRC the Oyster pad display or gate display, depending on the age of the
gate, shows something like EXIT on the first line and your balance in
brackets at the start of the second line and the fare for the journey
at the end of the second line.

http://www.freetoursbyfoot.com/wp-co...2/Barriers.jpg
shows a gate on exit. The detail isn't there to read the numbers but
there are two shown.

In message , at 10:12:00 on
Wed, 10 Sep 2014, Paul Corfield remarked:
And with Oyster there's at least the chance that you can see your
balance disappearing, if you know exactly where to look on a gate for
the fraction of a second it displays the number. I'm quite sure there's
no such facility for the contactless cards.

I'm a member of the contactless pilot and on my journey home this
evening both gates gave me red lights while opening but the exit gate
also displayed my fare. I've just checked the online version and that
is matching what I expected to pay and what was shown on the gate.

I'm not really sure how that happened. I'll have to look more closely
at the displays next time and perhaps try and get a picture.

Hmmm interesting. I wonder if TfL have responded to the trial
feedback about people not liking the absence of the fare to the paid
being shown on the exit gate display.

Once you take into account any OSIs that might be in play for the
current journey, then it becomes more complicated than just a case of
"where did you last touch in, and here's the single fare from there to
here".

It suggests (I'll put it no more strongly than that) that something is
written to the bank card.

I've been corresponding today with an acquaintance who is very much into
a range of Card technology (and is a 'Member of ITSO' - whatever that
implies) and he assures me that nothing can be written to a CPC
(Contactless Payment Card).

On the other hand he says that ITSO cards *are* designed to be read, and
written back to, whenever they are 'touched', to do things like mark a
ticket it's carrying as 'active' or 'expired'.

I cannot see how else an exit gate could calculate and display a fare
within the few hundred millisecond processing time parameter. I can't
see there being contact with the "back room" system in that time
parameter.

And a displayed fare for just "the current journey" won't alert you to
issues with unresolved journeys earlier in the day, so perhaps it should
really be your "fare for everything so far today", but that would
require the back-office to run its reconciliation/capping program every
time someone touches out. And how would it deal with bus trips where the
"back room" won't have that information yet.
--
Roland Perry

On 10/09/2014 10:12, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Tue, 9 Sep 2014 23:44:13 +0100, David Walters
wrote:

On Tue, 9 Sep 2014 13:00:11 +0100, Roland Perry wrote:
And with Oyster there's at least the chance that you can see your
balance disappearing, if you know exactly where to look on a gate for
the fraction of a second it displays the number. I'm quite sure there's
no such facility for the contactless cards.

I'm a member of the contactless pilot and on my journey home this
evening both gates gave me red lights while opening but the exit gate
also displayed my fare. I've just checked the online version and that
is matching what I expected to pay and what was shown on the gate.

I'm not really sure how that happened. I'll have to look more closely
at the displays next time and perhaps try and get a picture.

Hmmm interesting. I wonder if TfL have responded to the trial
feedback about people not liking the absence of the fare to the paid
being shown on the exit gate display.

It suggests (I'll put it no more strongly than that) that something is
written to the bank card. I cannot see how else an exit gate could
calculate and display a fare within the few hundred millisecond
processing time parameter. I can't see there being contact with the
"back room" system in that time parameter.


Paul,

the current generation of CPC (aka EMV) cards can't be written to by the
'transit application' in the gate or validator, but they are updated by
the reader. They contain a transaction counter and a cumulative sum
recording the contactless transactions. If either of these reach a set
threhold then the card will require a Chip'n'PIN transaction so that it
can go online and ge tthe counters reset. This is a design feature to
minimise some of the risks if the card is lost or stolen.

If all you do is buy a coffee at Starbucks (or whatever), then the
occasional Chip'n'PIN operation won't be a problem. IN the transit world
I'm not 100% sure whether the card can go on for ever, or whether you
will need to buy a coffee every so often.

Future generations of EMV cards will have 'transit sectors' so that they
can carry tranit-related data.

With ITSO cards there is a lot of capability - depending on the
technical product (IPE in ITSO speak) - to store data on the card. A
Stroed Travel Rights IPE (TYP 2) is very like an Oyster APYG, and can
maintain a number of counters and accumlators on the card. Other IPE
TYPs are used for singles/returns and season/period products. But there
does seem to be a move at present to use the card - whether EMV or ITSO
- as just an ;entitlement to travel' token, with the cost of travel
being worked out in a commercial back office after the travel has taken
place.

I could go on and on about this, so if you have any more specific
questions I'd be happy to take them via private email.

Time to get off my hobby horse...

Kevin

In message , at 20:32:42 on Wed, 10 Sep
2014, Kevin Ayton remarked:
the current generation of CPC (aka EMV) cards can't be written to by
the 'transit application' in the gate or validator, but they are
updated by the reader. They contain a transaction counter and a
cumulative sum recording the contactless transactions.

But neither of these have any details about the individual transactions.

If either of these reach a set threhold then the card will require a
Chip'n'PIN transaction so that it can go online and ge tthe counters
reset. This is a design feature to minimise some of the risks if the
card is lost or stolen.

If all you do is buy a coffee at Starbucks (or whatever), then the
occasional Chip'n'PIN operation won't be a problem. IN the transit
world I'm not 100% sure whether the card can go on for ever, or whether
you will need to buy a coffee every so often.

My understanding is that transit operators such as TfL have managed to
negotiate an exemption (possibly at their own risk, but let's face it a
blagged journey on a tube train costs them nothing, a blagged Starbucks
coffee costs the franchisee real money).

I don't know exactly how this exemption has been implemented, but I
wouldn't be surprised if all TfL readers were excluded from the
requirement to increment either of the two counters mentioned.

Clearly, there's no possibility of anyone typing in a PIN.

If a card is reported (or maybe even suspected by usage patterns) to
have been stolen, then TfL will block it from being used any more by
having hot-lists at the gates. We know they do this because of the way
they describe what happens if you travel on a CPC card whose previous
day's journeys have run up a "bad debt" because the most recent
overnight funds transfer was refused by the bank.
--
Roland Perry

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

Thank you for the detailed info. I'm less bothered about ITSO because
it's clear it can cater for various product definitions and after
extraordinary efforts it is now working on the TfL estate and with
Southern. If I'm ever sufficiently enthused then I can always
download the ITSO spec and read it.

Not (for my national bus concession pass) on any of the 3 buses I used on
Tuesday.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 23:06:11 on
Wed, 10 Sep 2014, Paul Corfield remarked:
I'm much less informed about the CPC stuff. I understand the issue of
requiring PIN validation after so many "wave and pay" ones. I thought
TfL had negotiated a way round this but again I can't point to
anything in detail.

Building on my posting from yesterday, I think we know that TfL CPC
transactions are all "zero pence", so that would mean the CPC's internal
"money spent since the last PIN transaction" counter won't be
incrementing each time.

All we'd need then is for, either built in by default, or as a special
TfL feature, for the "number of waves" counter not to increment either
when it sees a zero-value transaction or a TfL transaction. Perhaps such
functionality would be inherent in TfL's readers.

Of course, the most recent conventional transaction might have been the
one which tripped the counters into the state of "ask for a PIN next
time", but that can't be done at a TfL gate so postponing it for the
next conventional transaction must be inherent in the design.
--
Roland Perry