On 15 Jun 2004 16:10:43 -0700, (Gareth
Davis) wrote:

"Ben Nunn" wrote in message ...

Capping needs to be introduced, and it needs to be smart and effective. The
£90/50 Prepay limit needs to be abolished and the 'nominate a specific
station to pick up your credit' thing must go. Also, a Non-prepay
Pay-as-you-go that bills your credit/debit card would also be far better
than having to add value to the card periodically.


For example if only the last 10 journeys are held and the period is 24
hours then a two zone tube journey could be made on peak (£2 prepay),
followed by 10 bus journeys (that would be capped at £2.50 for a one
day bus pass), followed by another £2 tube journey. The bus journeys
would have 'pushed off' the first tube journey resulting in a £6.50
total for the day rather than a £5.30 day travelcard because the first
journey can no longer be 'seen' by the program in the gate responsible
for the capping. While I admit this is a very contrived example it
illustrates the problem well - especially if the capping period is
scaled up substantially (to say, 1 week) without increasing the
journey storage capacity on the cards. And once you increase the
amount stored on the card it takes longer to read and write back -
causing lots of '96 Seek Assistance' errors as people pull the cards
away too fast without waiting for the green light. These are not easy
(or cheep) problems to solve - which probably explains the length of
time it is taking to come up with a 100% working solution - if one is
ever found.


Why not do a rebate system? Take all the single fares. Let a central
computer workout each night what rebates are do and then automatically
apply them at the next top up (or on demand).

PRAR
--
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In article , Gareth
Davis writes
For example if only the last 10 journeys are held and the period is 24
hours then a two zone tube journey could be made on peak (£2 prepay),
followed by 10 bus journeys (that would be capped at £2.50 for a one
day bus pass), followed by another £2 tube journey. The bus journeys
would have 'pushed off' the first tube journey resulting in a £6.50
total for the day rather than a £5.30 day travelcard because the first
journey can no longer be 'seen' by the program in the gate responsible
for the capping. While I admit this is a very contrived example it
illustrates the problem well

And the answer is obvious - don't program it that way. Instead, keep a
sufficient state to allow you to deduce what possibilities could come
up. So, for example, the pass slots can hold entries on the amount of
bus and rail fare paid that day. If I modify your example slightly, and
start with a completely blank card, the sequence would be:

Passes Last 10 journeys
1.00 0.00 Bus
1.00 2.00 Bus, Rail
2.00 2.00 Bus, Rail, Bus
BusP 2.00 Bus, Bus, Rail, Bus
BusP 2.00 Bus, Bus, Bus, Rail, Bus
BusP 2.00 Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Rail, Bus
BusP 2.00 Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Rail, Bus
BusP 2.00 Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Rail, Bus
BusP 2.00 Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Rail, Bus
BusP 2.00 Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Rail, Bus
BusP 2.00 Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Rail
BusP 2.00 Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus
T/card Rail, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus

- especially if the capping period is
scaled up substantially (to say, 1 week) without increasing the
journey storage capacity on the cards.

Same solution.

And once you increase the
amount stored on the card it takes longer to read and write back -

And doing it this was doesn't affect the amount to be transmitted (in
particular, you don't need to send the list of previous journeys).

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

On 15 Jun 2004 16:10:43 -0700, (Gareth Davis)
wrote:

"Ben Nunn" wrote in message ...

Capping needs to be introduced, and it needs to be smart and effective. The
£90/50 Prepay limit needs to be abolished and the 'nominate a specific
station to pick up your credit' thing must go. Also, a Non-prepay
Pay-as-you-go that bills your credit/debit card would also be far better
than having to add value to the card periodically.

Performing all the calculations required to get the 'instant' capping
to work (based on your last few journies) in the time you have your
card over the reader then to write back the refund to the card while
it is still in range is a non-trivial exercise - and is limited by the
length of the journey record kept on the card. This record needs to
hold every journey over the capping period for the calculation to be
correct.

For example if only the last 10 journeys are held and the period is 24
hours then a two zone tube journey could be made on peak (£2 prepay),
followed by 10 bus journeys (that would be capped at £2.50 for a one
day bus pass), followed by another £2 tube journey. The bus journeys
would have 'pushed off' the first tube journey resulting in a £6.50
total for the day rather than a £5.30 day travelcard because the first
journey can no longer be 'seen' by the program in the gate responsible
for the capping. While I admit this is a very contrived example it
illustrates the problem well - especially if the capping period is
scaled up substantially (to say, 1 week) without increasing the
journey storage capacity on the cards. And once you increase the
amount stored on the card it takes longer to read and write back -
causing lots of '96 Seek Assistance' errors as people pull the cards
away too fast without waiting for the green light. These are not easy
(or cheep) problems to solve - which probably explains the length of
time it is taking to come up with a 100% working solution - if one is
ever found.

Right - I have NOT seen the official documentation for capping but
surely the logic is something like this from your example.

Z12 peak Tube journey - automatically means that the ticket capping
price has to have Tube validity, cover Z12 and be peak priced. As NR
stations do NOT have validators you will be capped to the Z123456 One
Day LT Card price £8.20. All subsequent pre-pay journeys will simply
add up against this total until it is exceeded. If you travel to another
zone beyond Zone 6 then the cap will increase.

Where this gets horrendous is the complication with NR services. One Day
Travelcards are obviously valid on these services but if Pre-Pay
validation facilities are not available at the majority of stations -
and they aren't - then I do not see how TfL can introduce capping set at
Peak or even Off Peak One Day Travelcard prices because the validity of
the pre-pay capped product cannot match that of the paper encoded
ticket.

Another poster mentioned the Tramlink issues and while I understand that
issue as well as the DLR "within gateline" validation issues I think
these are small scale when compared with the fundamental pricing point.
I suppose TfL could introduce a surrogate LT Card pricing scale that
sets caps for Z12, Z1234 combinations as well as off peak prices to
avoid everyone howling that a cap of £8.20 is a rip off.

Other issues to be borne in mind include how capping works with rail
replacement services, when gates are in evacuation mode, when tube
passengers are transferred to local bus services and when a station
close to or at a zone boundary is closed and people have to travel
beyond their zone to exit. If such a journey was to trigger a higher cap
being activated then the public would be rightly annoyed. While the LU
system has features to cope with these eventualities and they were in
the very earliest documents I saw these need a significant amount of
testing in order to ensure they work seamlessly and that the public can
be told that they have not been financially disadvantaged.

--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 10:38:10 +0100, Ian Tindale wrote:

Typical of a money-grabbing transport system with an
unrealistically overpriced fat-cat fare structure. This is why there's no
industry or jobs in London any more - every time one goes out of the house
it costs a flaming fortune.

So I assume the transport system is shutting up shop tomorrow as there
is no industry in London and no jobs? What a stupid thing to say. You
might not like Oyster - that's fine but don't make stupid comments to
over inflate your position.

I presume you have now purchased a mega cheap car, insured it, filled it
full of nice cheap petrol and have set money aside for the maintenance
and repair costs? Happy travels.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Paul Corfield wrote:

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 10:38:10 +0100, Ian Tindale wrote:

Typical of a money-grabbing transport system with an
unrealistically overpriced fat-cat fare structure. This is why there's no
industry or jobs in London any more - every time one goes out of the house
it costs a flaming fortune.

So I assume the transport system is shutting up shop tomorrow as there
is no industry in London and no jobs? What a stupid thing to say. You
might not like Oyster - that's fine but don't make stupid comments to
over inflate your position.

I presume you have now purchased a mega cheap car, insured it, filled it
full of nice cheap petrol and have set money aside for the maintenance
and repair costs? Happy travels.

Of course not. I am not a murderer. I don't have anything to do with cars,
and I don't like to be accused of killing people slowly and sometimes
quickly as do all other arrogant selfish moronic car drivers. I hate cars
and car drivers. All of those items would cost far more than can be
afforded anyway. The current cost of a travelcard usually entails borrowing
enough to cover it as it is, but from time to time this is achievable.
Where on earth do you think the money that covers the cost of driving
lessons, numerous tests after tests until somehow a pass is obtained, the
capital cost of a car, the poisonous fuel, the other complicated costs that
go with it is suddenly going to appear from? There is none.
--
Ian Tindale

On 2004-06-15 18:59:34 +0100, Ian Tindale said:

Paul Corfield wrote:

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 10:38:10 +0100, Ian Tindale wrote:

Typical of a money-grabbing transport system with an
unrealistically overpriced fat-cat fare structure. This is why there's no
industry or jobs in London any more - every time one goes out of the house
it costs a flaming fortune.

So I assume the transport system is shutting up shop tomorrow as there
is no industry in London and no jobs? What a stupid thing to say. You
might not like Oyster - that's fine but don't make stupid comments to
over inflate your position.

I presume you have now purchased a mega cheap car, insured it, filled it
full of nice cheap petrol and have set money aside for the maintenance
and repair costs? Happy travels.

Of course not. I am not a murderer. I don't have anything to do with cars,
and I don't like to be accused of killing people slowly and sometimes
quickly as do all other arrogant selfish moronic car drivers. I hate cars
and car drivers. All of those items would cost far more than can be
afforded anyway. The current cost of a travelcard usually entails borrowing
enough to cover it as it is, but from time to time this is achievable.
Where on earth do you think the money that covers the cost of driving
lessons, numerous tests after tests until somehow a pass is obtained, the
capital cost of a car, the poisonous fuel, the other complicated costs that
go with it is suddenly going to appear from? There is none.

meanwhile, back on the planet Earth...

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 10:38:10 +0100, Ian Tindale
wrote:

This is why there's no
industry or jobs in London any more - every time one goes out of the house
it costs a flaming fortune.

That must be why all the trains run empty, and the streets are all
deserted?
--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

Ian Tindale wrote the following in:


*and that's another thing - why was I penalised £3 just to carry
around this useless card for a while?

I don't know for sure, but I suspect it's because pyster will let you
through the gates with no money and leave you with a negative balance
at the other end. If there was no deposit for getting a card, people
could get an Oyster, go through the gates, chuck it away with the
negative balance and then get another Oyster for getting back home.

--
message by Robin May-Silk and my close friend, Robert Kilroy-Kotton
"GIVE IN! IT'S TIME TO GO!" - The NHS offers a high standard of care.

http://robinmay.fotopic.net
Spelling lesson: then and than are different words.

Robin May wrote:

Ian Tindale wrote the following in:


*and that's another thing - why was I penalised £3 just to carry
around this useless card for a while?

I don't know for sure, but I suspect it's because pyster will let you
through the gates with no money and leave you with a negative balance
at the other end. If there was no deposit for getting a card, people
could get an Oyster, go through the gates, chuck it away with the
negative balance and then get another Oyster for getting back home.

That's interesting. How many times are you allowed to rack up successive
negative balance on the one card?

--
Ian Tindale

Ian Tindale wrote the following in:


Robin May wrote:

Ian Tindale wrote the following in:


*and that's another thing - why was I penalised £3 just to
carry around this useless card for a while?

I don't know for sure, but I suspect it's because pyster will let
you through the gates with no money and leave you with a negative
balance at the other end. If there was no deposit for getting a
card, people could get an Oyster, go through the gates, chuck it
away with the negative balance and then get another Oyster for
getting back home.

That's interesting. How many times are you allowed to rack up
successive negative balance on the one card?

As far as I'm aware, only once. If you have negative balance you can't
go through the gates again until it's sorted out.

--
message by Robin May-Silk and my close friend, Robert Kilroy-Kotton
"GIVE IN! IT'S TIME TO GO!" - The NHS offers a high standard of care.

http://robinmay.fotopic.net
Spelling lesson: then and than are different words.