In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 20:42:54 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 14:24:48
on Wed, 17 Sep 2014, remarked:
Now that CPC is fully rolled out, I expect we'll see more
information about both TfL's position on this issue and also war
stories from disappointed would-be travellers.

One question that occurs to me is whether railcard discounts will be
available with contactless cards if so, how?

Currently a bald "no". From the TfL FAQ:

"If you're eligible for discounted travel, you should carry on
using your existing Oyster card or Oyster photocard.

Discounts can't be added to contactless payment cards. This
includes all National Railcard discounts."

I thought so but wonder why. If the processing is all in the back office
why can't railcards be associated with the accounts there? Or is that
another one of your apparently simple developments we'll have to wait
for? :-)

It is indeed "apparently simple" About two lines of code could apply
such a discount to a suitably registered contactless account.

Maybe they have issues with the idea that people could lend such a card
to another unqualified family member (or even friend) to get cheaper
travel. A bit like a discounted Oyster, I agree, but maybe they already
have too much leakage from those and don't want to compound the felony?

I suspect the main issue is how, if people set up accounts on line,
TfL can possibly verify that someone saying they have a Railcard
actually does have one. I doubt there is any system to system link
between TfL and whatever system RSP have for railcards (if they even
have one!).

The way round that at present is that you physically present yourself
and your entitlement and a ticket clerk enters all the relevant
details. With a move to scrap ticket offices there has to be some way
of adding entitlement - and yes I know that is via a roving member of
staff logging on to a passenger machine and doing what the ticket
clerk currently does! However is anyone going to want to show a bank
card to a staff member to punch in to a ticket machine? I guess
someone could, at the relevant point in the process, stick their card
in the card reader so details are transferred electronically but it
all seems a dreadful faff.

I suspect discount entitlements will not move across to CPCs at all.
They'll remain on Oyster and later "dumb" Oyster with TfL simply
migrating the vast majority of entitlements as part of a card
"switchover" process when current Oyster is decommissioned (Phase 5 of
the Future Ticketing Project).

I don't get this. A contactless card will be linked to an account in th TfL
back office. So if a cardholder shows contactless card and railcard to staff
member why shouldn't they record the discount on the account just as they do
now sort of?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 17/09/2014 21:14, Paul Corfield wrote:

[Travel discounts, e.g. Railcards, and CPCs]

I suspect the main issue is how, if people set up accounts on line,
TfL can possibly verify that someone saying they have a Railcard
actually does have one. I doubt there is any system to system link
between TfL and whatever system RSP have for railcards (if they even
have one!).

The way round that at present is that you physically present yourself
and your entitlement and a ticket clerk enters all the relevant
details. With a move to scrap ticket offices there has to be some way
of adding entitlement - and yes I know that is via a roving member of
staff logging on to a passenger machine and doing what the ticket
clerk currently does! However is anyone going to want to show a bank
card to a staff member to punch in to a ticket machine? I guess
someone could, at the relevant point in the process, stick their card
in the card reader so details are transferred electronically but it
all seems a dreadful faff.

I suspect discount entitlements will not move across to CPCs at all.
They'll remain on Oyster and later "dumb" Oyster with TfL simply
migrating the vast majority of entitlements as part of a card
"switchover" process when current Oyster is decommissioned (Phase 5 of
the Future Ticketing Project).


Agree with what you say re discount entitlements.

Is there a vague notion of when the current (value stored on card)
Oyster system might end up being decommissioned? (Is that the echo of Mr
Perry frenziedly chanting 'vapourware' I can hear?)

Whenever it is, it'll be a big endeavour, what with all the great many
'old system' Oyster cards out in the wild (in bedrooms in Hong Kong,
down the back of sofas in Leytonstone, forgotten about in seldom-used
overcoats in Sheffield etc) which people will want to exchange or
cash-in for years to come.

On 17/09/2014 21:35, wrote:

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:
[...]
I suspect the main issue is how, if people set up accounts on line,
TfL can possibly verify that someone saying they have a Railcard
actually does have one. I doubt there is any system to system link
between TfL and whatever system RSP have for railcards (if they even
have one!).

The way round that at present is that you physically present yourself
and your entitlement and a ticket clerk enters all the relevant
details. With a move to scrap ticket offices there has to be some way
of adding entitlement - and yes I know that is via a roving member of
staff logging on to a passenger machine and doing what the ticket
clerk currently does! However is anyone going to want to show a bank
card to a staff member to punch in to a ticket machine? I guess
someone could, at the relevant point in the process, stick their card
in the card reader so details are transferred electronically but it
all seems a dreadful faff.

I suspect discount entitlements will not move across to CPCs at all.
They'll remain on Oyster and later "dumb" Oyster with TfL simply
migrating the vast majority of entitlements as part of a card
"switchover" process when current Oyster is decommissioned (Phase 5 of
the Future Ticketing Project).

I don't get this. A contactless card will be linked to an account in th TfL
back office. So if a cardholder shows contactless card and railcard to staff
member why shouldn't they record the discount on the account just as they do
now sort of?

Two answers...

(1) It gives you something to remain annoyed about.

(2) Using what (PCI DSS compliant) mechanism?

In article , (Mizter T) wrote:

On 17/09/2014 21:35, wrote:

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:
[...]
I suspect the main issue is how, if people set up accounts on line,
TfL can possibly verify that someone saying they have a Railcard
actually does have one. I doubt there is any system to system link
between TfL and whatever system RSP have for railcards (if they even
have one!).

The way round that at present is that you physically present yourself
and your entitlement and a ticket clerk enters all the relevant
details. With a move to scrap ticket offices there has to be some way
of adding entitlement - and yes I know that is via a roving member of
staff logging on to a passenger machine and doing what the ticket
clerk currently does! However is anyone going to want to show a bank
card to a staff member to punch in to a ticket machine? I guess
someone could, at the relevant point in the process, stick their card
in the card reader so details are transferred electronically but it
all seems a dreadful faff.

I suspect discount entitlements will not move across to CPCs at all.
They'll remain on Oyster and later "dumb" Oyster with TfL simply
migrating the vast majority of entitlements as part of a card
"switchover" process when current Oyster is decommissioned (Phase 5 of
the Future Ticketing Project).

I don't get this. A contactless card will be linked to an account in the
TfL back office. So if a cardholder shows contactless card and railcard
to staff member why shouldn't they record the discount on the account
just as they do now sort of?

Two answers...

(1) It gives you something to remain annoyed about.

Not that silly! Not handling railcards limits the ability of contactless to
replace Oyster.

(2) Using what (PCI DSS compliant) mechanism?

Huh? How does the suggestion I made differ from the current process which
records the entitlement on the Oyster card instead of in the back office?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 17/09/2014 21:58, wrote:
[...]
I don't get this. A contactless card will be linked to an account in the
TfL back office. So if a cardholder shows contactless card and railcard
to staff member why shouldn't they record the discount on the account
just as they do now sort of?

Two answers...

(1) It gives you something to remain annoyed about.

Not that silly! Not handling railcards limits the ability of contactless to
replace Oyster.

(2) Using what (PCI DSS compliant) mechanism?

Huh? How does the suggestion I made differ from the current process which
records the entitlement on the Oyster card instead of in the back office?

The current process doesn't involve dealing with payment cards, entering
payment card information into a system and transmitting it securely to a
database. Once you start dealing with payment cards it's a whole
different scenario.

Plus, obvious point but the current process is designed around the
existing Oyster card system - you couldn't just graft on CPCs to it.

On 17/09/2014 19:56, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at
19:32:32 on Wed, 17 Sep 2014, Arthur Figgis
remarked:
If I can by a coffee at Starbucks by waving a CPC, and it ends up on my
bill at the end of the month, it does seem as if waving a CPC at a gate
ought to register my presence with enough information to bill me
overnight once I've also registered a touch-out. But clearly it's all a
lot more complicated than that, given the kerfuffle to get it all in
place.

Because Starbucks knows how much to charge you before you wave your
card, but TfL doesn't know whether you will make more journeys today.

You've missed the point. The TfL gates "know" to charge you £0, and send
that message along with your location back to HQ. At the end of the day
someone looks at all the £0 charges and works out where you've been and
what non-zero charge to apply to the cardholder.

Which is only possible because TfL et al sat down and devised a system
of charging people £0. Coffee shops don't tend to do that, they charge
per transaction. I rarely use Starbucks, but I'd be surprised if it
tells a database somewhere what drinks you have had each day and then
the database calculates the price at the end of the week.

(I also doubt "someone" looks at it!)


Readers in shops can occasionally ask you for a PIN, but ticket gates
can't do that. This means new rules were needed,

That's a completely different bit of governance work which the card
companies claim was done years ago (at least two years for acceptance on
buses, obviously).

Same project.

as well as new software.

Not really, the terminals just have to desist from asking for a PIN if
they don't have a keyboard. That was sorted for acceptance on buses in
2012.

The Oyster terminals have presumably never been told to ask for PINs,
but the contactless system apparently needed them.

TfL also controls all(?) the buses (and carries revenue risk?), while
DfT controls (most of) the trains and has to agree to the contracts.
--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

On 2014-09-17 16:44:50 +0000, Roland Perry said:

But don't actually mention any examples of who, other than a couple of
uncaptioned photos from TfL.

Stagecoach Ribble were experimenting with it on a few of their routes,
though it was a more conventional setup of just using it to pay the
fare for the issue of a paper ticket.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

On 2014-09-17 19:39:59 +0000, Roland Perry said:

Unless, like mine, the sort of bank cards issued on business accounts
aren't contactless-enabled.

My corporate Barclaycard *is* contactless and has been for ages.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

On 2014-09-17 19:37:23 +0000, Roland Perry said:

If you can get onto one of the Virgin platforms at Manchester as a
result, maybe so.

At present Virgin platforms at both ends are not barriered. If a
manual grip is taking place, it's close enough to the train that it
isn't just checked that you have a ticket, it's checked that it is one
valid for that train. So not a problem.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

In article , (Mizter T) wrote:

On 17/09/2014 21:58, wrote:
[...]
I don't get this. A contactless card will be linked to an account in
the TfL back office. So if a cardholder shows contactless card and
railcard to staff member why shouldn't they record the discount on the
account just as they do now sort of?

Two answers...

(1) It gives you something to remain annoyed about.

Not that silly! Not handling railcards limits the ability of contactless
to replace Oyster.

(2) Using what (PCI DSS compliant) mechanism?

Huh? How does the suggestion I made differ from the current process
which records the entitlement on the Oyster card instead of in the back
office?

The current process doesn't involve dealing with payment cards,
entering payment card information into a system and transmitting it
securely to a database. Once you start dealing with payment cards
it's a whole different scenario.

Plus, obvious point but the current process is designed around the
existing Oyster card system - you couldn't just graft on CPCs to it.

But they ARE using contactless cards now. They add data to the back office
database to enable the card to be billed. Railcard status is just a bit of
status data to add in to the calculations. What's more complex?

--
Colin Rosenstiel