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| London Transport (uk.transport.london) Discussion of all forms of transport in London. |
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#1
September 14th 14, 09:58 AM
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ITSO Travelcards
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#3
November 14th 14, 06:50 PM
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ITSO Travelcards
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 |
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#4
November 14th 14, 08:52 PM
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ITSO Travelcards
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 |
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#5
November 14th 14, 09:13 PM
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ITSO Travelcards
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 |
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#6
November 14th 14, 11:20 PM
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ITSO Travelcards
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 |
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#7
November 15th 14, 04:09 PM
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ITSO Travelcards
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#8
November 15th 14, 01:49 PM
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ITSO Travelcards
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 |
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#9
November 15th 14, 02:52 PM
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ITSO Travelcards
On Saturday, 15 November 2014 14:49:24 UTC, wrote:
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 Southern's version of PAYG is called Keygo. It requires a card auto-topup to be set, and the fares charged are calculated in the back office. It's only available at the moment in the Crawley and Brighton areas on rail, Metrobus and Brighton Buses. |
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#10
November 15th 14, 03:42 PM
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ITSO Travelcards
In article ,
(Matthew Dickinson) wrote: On Saturday, 15 November 2014 14:49:24 UTC, wrote: 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. Southern's version of PAYG is called Keygo. It requires a card auto-topup to be set, and the fares charged are calculated in the back office. It's only available at the moment in the Crawley and Brighton areas on rail, Metrobus and Brighton Buses. I was more thinking of automatic pickup at gates of tickets bought online. That's the desperate need at Cambridge where ticket vending capacity is stretched beyond breaking point at the strangest of times. Queues out of the door between 9 and 10 on Saturday mornings I knew about but 4 on a Friday afternoon (according to a Tweet by Mary Beard) was a new one yesterday. -- Colin Rosenstiel |
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