In message , at 19:46:48 on
Tue, 24 Oct 2017, Richard remarked:

As a much travelled businessman (in general terms) I can assure you that
the lack of a paper receipt/ticket to attach to my expenses claim is a
huge disadvantage.

Like Neil, mine are on-line.

How do you get the dozens of transport operators you only use once a
year to push the receipts to this online system? And no, I'm not going
to set up accounts with Obscuristan bus company ahead of travelling to
facilitate it.
--
Roland Perry

On 24.10.2017 11:03 PM, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 16:07:00 on Tue, 24 Oct
2017, Clank remarked:

If HEX had wanted smartcards it would have introduced them by now as
it's a simple self contained operation. I expect it is far keener to
get TfL's contactless card system installed off the back of Oyster
acceptance. Being able to use bank cards will likely appeal to a
large proportion of their regular users.

I wonder how many foreign-issued bank cards will work with the
contactless system?

If anything the UK is backward compared to the rest of the world on
contactless acceptance,

I was more concerned about contactless issuing, and the risks of
accepting foreign cards whose creditworthiness status can't be
determined in real time.

No ticket purchase and no queues will appeal to business travellers.

As a much travelled businessman (in general terms) I can assure you
that the lack of a paper receipt/ticket to attach to my expenses claim
is a huge disadvantage.

Other systems solve this problem easily, as you've been told before. NS's
system for Chipkaart produces a very nice online expenses claim receipt
(which is specifically valid for Dutch tax purposes in the case of
nominal/registered cards,) which is far more convenient than toting around
bits of paper - the same can be done for contractless cards.

No doubt I'd have to set up accounts [remember to, and have time to] for
every balkanised transport operator I used on a trip.

I see no reason why a printout from the TfL website would be
unacceptable for exes purposes

That's one of the Balkanised systems one would need to register with.

You really use that word far too often, and completely inappropriately*.

To the best of my knowledge there has never been a UN World Transit Operator
that was once responsible for all the planet's metro systems but has sadly
fragmented into warring factions.

Please find another word to describe "it's inexplicable to me that the trams
in Istanbul are not run by the same company as the buses in Belgrade".


(Personally I find it not remotely frustrating - possibly partly because I'm
not so tight I try to put every 50 euro cent bus journey on expenses - and
indeed collecting transit cards from around the world is something of a
guilty pleasure of mine. Favourite for imperious imagery is Troika... I
do have a soft spot for my recently acquired JoJo though, mainly for the
irrepressible urge to say "Mojo-jojoooooooo" whenever using it. I'll be
rather sad when they're all replaced by EMV contactless.)




* There *is* an appropriate use in this context, and it's the situation here
in Bucharest where we used to have a single smartcard (ActivCard) for all
transport, but after a row over the surface transport operator (RATB) not
paying its bills to the underground operator (Metrorex) the latter started
refusing to accept the former's tickets. Rumours of a resumption of
relations are always in the air but never seem to come to fruition.
Meanwhile the world has moved on and Metrorex now accepts EMV contactless
at all stations so it'll be somewhat moot by the time they do.

In message , at 06:13:44 on Wed, 25 Oct
2017, Clank remarked:
On 24.10.2017 11:03 PM, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 16:07:00 on Tue, 24 Oct
2017, Clank remarked:

If HEX had wanted smartcards it would have introduced them by now
as it's a simple self contained operation. I expect it is far
keener to get TfL's contactless card system installed off the back
of Oyster acceptance. Being able to use bank cards will likely
appeal to a large proportion of their regular users.

I wonder how many foreign-issued bank cards will work with the
contactless system?

If anything the UK is backward compared to the rest of the world on
contactless acceptance,

I was more concerned about contactless issuing, and the risks of
accepting foreign cards whose creditworthiness status can't be
determined in real time.

No ticket purchase and no queues will appeal to business travellers.

As a much travelled businessman (in general terms) I can assure you
that the lack of a paper receipt/ticket to attach to my expenses
claim is a huge disadvantage.

Other systems solve this problem easily, as you've been told before. NS's
system for Chipkaart produces a very nice online expenses claim receipt
(which is specifically valid for Dutch tax purposes in the case of
nominal/registered cards,) which is far more convenient than toting around
bits of paper - the same can be done for contractless cards.

No doubt I'd have to set up accounts [remember to, and have time to]
for every balkanised transport operator I used on a trip.

I see no reason why a printout from the TfL website would be
unacceptable for exes purposes

That's one of the Balkanised systems one would need to register with.

You really use that word far too often, and completely inappropriately*.

To the best of my knowledge there has never been a UN World Transit Operator
that was once responsible for all the planet's metro systems but has sadly
fragmented into warring factions.

It's the payment methods which are Balkanised - currently in London (if
you ignore outboundary Travelcards bought with C&P) a war between cash,
Contactless Bank Cards, Oyster, and ITSO[1].

Even without the latter two, I have several Contactless Bank Cards, and
even TfL is minded to remind us to use the same one when touching out as
touching in. And then, when I'm trying to tot up the expenditure, I've
have to remember which card statements to rummage through for the data.

[1] Where I would need two different ones depending of whether I
travelled Via Liverpool St or Kings Cross.

(Personally I find it not remotely frustrating - possibly partly because I'm
not so tight I try to put every 50 euro cent bus journey on expenses

Nor do I. Once I had a policy of ignoring all travel costs to clients in
London, but that was when I lived inside the M25, and my daily rate in
that industry was far higher than my current one in a different
industry.

Nowadays, the fare from where I live near Cambridge to a client in
London can easily be £50 in the peak.

- and indeed collecting transit cards from around the world is
something of a guilty pleasure of mine.

I just collect UK ones at the moment. Currently have 12 in my wallet, if
you include the Senior Railcard.
--
Roland Perry

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

It's the payment methods which are Balkanised - currently in London
(if you ignore outboundary Travelcards bought with C&P) a war between
cash, Contactless Bank Cards, Oyster, and ITSO[1].

Even without the latter two, I have several Contactless Bank Cards,
and even TfL is minded to remind us to use the same one when touching
out as touching in. And then, when I'm trying to tot up the
expenditure, I've have to remember which card statements to rummage
through for the data.

[1] Where I would need two different ones depending of whether I
travelled Via Liverpool St or Kings Cross.

You can use a GN "The Key" card from Ely to King's Cross? I don't think so.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 04:30:01
on Wed, 25 Oct 2017, remarked:

It's the payment methods which are Balkanised - currently in London
(if you ignore outboundary Travelcards bought with C&P) a war between
cash, Contactless Bank Cards, Oyster, and ITSO[1].

Even without the latter two, I have several Contactless Bank Cards,
and even TfL is minded to remind us to use the same one when touching
out as touching in. And then, when I'm trying to tot up the
expenditure, I've have to remember which card statements to rummage
through for the data.

[1] Where I would need two different ones depending of whether I
travelled Via Liverpool St or Kings Cross.

You can use a GN "The Key" card from Ely to King's Cross? I don't think so.

That's yet another failure in their implementation. But I could split
tickets, with a Travelcard season from say Royston held on a Southern
ITSO.

(GN won't let me have one of The theirs, because I've been signed up for
years with a Southern The Key. I suppose I could get the GN The Key if
used a The different The email address).

--
Roland Perry

"Clank" wrote in message
news
On 24.10.2017 11:03 PM, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 16:07:00 on Tue, 24 Oct 2017,
Clank remarked:

If HEX had wanted smartcards it would have introduced them by now as
it's a simple self contained operation. I expect it is far keener to
get TfL's contactless card system installed off the back of Oyster
acceptance. Being able to use bank cards will likely appeal to a large
proportion of their regular users.

I wonder how many foreign-issued bank cards will work with the
contactless system?

If anything the UK is backward compared to the rest of the world on
contactless acceptance,

I was more concerned about contactless issuing, and the risks of accepting
foreign cards whose creditworthiness status can't be determined in real
time.

No ticket purchase and no queues will appeal to business travellers.

As a much travelled businessman (in general terms) I can assure you that
the lack of a paper receipt/ticket to attach to my expenses claim is a
huge disadvantage.

Other systems solve this problem easily, as you've been told before.
NS's
system for Chipkaart produces a very nice online expenses claim receipt
(which is specifically valid for Dutch tax purposes in the case of
nominal/registered cards,) which is far more convenient than toting
around
bits of paper - the same can be done for contractless cards.

No doubt I'd have to set up accounts [remember to, and have time to] for
every balkanised transport operator I used on a trip.

I see no reason why a printout from the TfL website would be unacceptable
for exes purposes

That's one of the Balkanised systems one would need to register with.

You really use that word far too often, and completely inappropriately*.

To the best of my knowledge there has never been a UN World Transit
Operator
that was once responsible for all the planet's metro systems but has sadly
fragmented into warring factions.

I don't think the complaint was used internationally, but nationally

there is no obvious reason why a Stagecoach smart card shouldn't work in
every area Stagecoach have a presence.,

but they don't

FTAOD The complaint isn't that having bought a Cambridge Area Pass you
cannot use it on the bus in Sussex

It's that having acquired the Cambridge smart card, you cannot load onto it
a Sussex area pass.

tim

On 25.10.2017 2:43 PM, tim... wrote:


"Clank" wrote in message
news
On 24.10.2017 11:03 PM, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 16:07:00 on Tue, 24 Oct 2017,
Clank remarked:

If HEX had wanted smartcards it would have introduced them by now as
it's a simple self contained operation. I expect it is far keener to
get TfL's contactless card system installed off the back of Oyster
acceptance. Being able to use bank cards will likely appeal to a large
proportion of their regular users.

I wonder how many foreign-issued bank cards will work with the
contactless system?

If anything the UK is backward compared to the rest of the world on
contactless acceptance,

I was more concerned about contactless issuing, and the risks of accepting
foreign cards whose creditworthiness status can't be determined in real
time.

No ticket purchase and no queues will appeal to business travellers.

As a much travelled businessman (in general terms) I can assure you that
the lack of a paper receipt/ticket to attach to my expenses claim is a
huge disadvantage.

Other systems solve this problem easily, as you've been told before.
NS's
system for Chipkaart produces a very nice online expenses claim receipt
(which is specifically valid for Dutch tax purposes in the case of
nominal/registered cards,) which is far more convenient than toting
around
bits of paper - the same can be done for contractless cards.

No doubt I'd have to set up accounts [remember to, and have time to] for
every balkanised transport operator I used on a trip.

I see no reason why a printout from the TfL website would be unacceptable
for exes purposes

That's one of the Balkanised systems one would need to register with.

You really use that word far too often, and completely inappropriately*.

To the best of my knowledge there has never been a UN World Transit
Operator
that was once responsible for all the planet's metro systems but has sadly
fragmented into warring factions.

I don't think the complaint was used internationally, but nationally

there is no obvious reason why a Stagecoach smart card shouldn't work in
every area Stagecoach have a presence.,

but they don't

FTAOD The complaint isn't that having bought a Cambridge Area Pass you
cannot use it on the bus in Sussex

It's that having acquired the Cambridge smart card, you cannot load onto it
a Sussex area pass.

That's a complaint, and a valid one at that, although no worse than the
status quo (if I have a two different paper tickets or passes they don't
get printed on one card,) so again not balkanisation.

But if that was Roland's complaint, he would of course welcome EMV
contactless ticketing which solves the problem at a stroke. But as he
notes above he considers this a huge step back and a case of
"balkanisation" because he'd need to log into a different website for his
NS exes receipts to the one for his TfL expenses receipts. (He may be a
goatherder, but he is one with terribly first world problems.)

He also considers every new product released which he doesn't want to use
evidence of "balkanisation". (E.g. mobile tickets.) Among many other
misuses of his Word of 2017.

On Tue, 24 Oct 2017 21:11:19 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 19:46:48 on
Tue, 24 Oct 2017, Richard remarked:

As a much travelled businessman (in general terms) I can assure you that
the lack of a paper receipt/ticket to attach to my expenses claim is a
huge disadvantage.

Like Neil, mine are on-line.

How do you get the dozens of transport operators you only use once a
year to push the receipts to this online system? And no, I'm not going
to set up accounts with Obscuristan bus company ahead of travelling to
facilitate it.

That's a good point, but I might not bother for small amounts, and
equally my company might not need evidence in these cases, I haven't
checked. Anything major is paid by the company, using a corporate
booking tool that finds hotels at prices more than I could get, but
oddly finds cheap flights.

Richard.

John Levine wrote:

FWIW, my US issued cards work fine as Oyster cards.

I can use my US issued Visa card to top up my Oyster card at an Oyster terminal
in the station, and I can enter it as a payment card on my Oyster account web
page, but when I attempt to actually top up my Oyster card, the transaction
fails. It also failed last week when I attempted to use the same card through
Android Pay on my phone.

Interestingly enough, when I tried my Amex card, I actually got an alert from
AMex stating that they had processed the transaction, but it never actually
completed on the Oyster end and failed the same way.

In message , at 15:44:33 on Wed, 25 Oct
2017, Clank remarked:

That's one of the Balkanised systems one would need to register with.

You really use that word far too often, and completely inappropriately*.

To the best of my knowledge there has never been a UN World Transit
Operator that was once responsible for all the planet's metro
systems but has sadly fragmented into warring factions.

I don't think the complaint was used internationally, but nationally

there is no obvious reason why a Stagecoach smart card shouldn't work
in every area Stagecoach have a presence.,

but they don't

FTAOD The complaint isn't that having bought a Cambridge Area Pass you
cannot use it on the bus in Sussex

It's that having acquired the Cambridge smart card, you cannot load
onto it a Sussex area pass.

I have two Stagecoach ITSO cards, one for EMT and anther for Cambus.
They are not interoporable. Nor would have been an SWT ITSO card had
they ever sent me one.

That's a complaint, and a valid one at that, although no worse than the
status quo (if I have a two different paper tickets or passes they don't
get printed on one card,) so again not balkanisation.

But a paper season ticket from Cambridge to Basingstoke would work as
one bit of paper, you can't load such a thing onto one ITSO card.

But if that was Roland's complaint, he would of course welcome EMV
contactless ticketing which solves the problem at a stroke. But as he
notes above he considers this a huge step back and a case of
"balkanisation" because he'd need to log into a different website for his
NS exes receipts to the one for his TfL expenses receipts. (He may be a
goatherder, but he is one with terribly first world problems.)

The problem is caused precisely by the division of the evidence (I
almost wrote paper-trail) between different backoffices.

The other issue is that for example, if I look at my Card statement this
week there's an entry for:

25/10/17 GREATER ANGLIA T/O PURCHASE £13.30

It doesn't tell me *which* ticket office, what product (or how many
people travelling), where the end points were, or even in this case the
correct date of either purchase or travel [in this case both on Monday
23rd].

He also considers every new product released which he doesn't want to use
evidence of "balkanisation". (E.g. mobile tickets.) Among many other
misuses of his Word of 2017.

As they are a further fragmentation of the ticketing system (I need to
use the correct booking site, and an associated new user account, to buy
them, rather than "any booking site") it's a perfectly correct use of
the word.
--
Roland Perry