In article .com, MIG
writes



Makes you wonder why they would separately try to introduce ID cards
given that, once cash stops being accepted in most places, these smart
cards would effectively become a licence to exist that could be
withdrawn if the authorities don't like you.

'You had to take those pieces of paper with you when you went shopping,
though by the time I was nine or ten most people used plastic cards. It
seems so primitive ... before everything went on the Compubank.
I guess that's how they were able to do it, in the way they did, all at
once, without anyone knowing beforehand. If there had still been
portable money, it would have been more difficult.'
Margaret Atwood - 'The Handmaid's Tale'

Oh yes, and what 'they' did was to invalidate every woman's
Oyster-sorry-Compubank card at the same moment. All part of the grand
scheme to undo centuries of women's liberation. Very successfully, too.
--
Sue
The Sir Nigel Gresley Locomotive Preservation Trust is now at
http://www.sirnigelgresley.co.uk
Including - 00 gauge Hornby and Bachmann models for sale.

Ian Jelf writes:

But surely if we're working towards a paperless system, toilet roll
will be replaced with some smartcard alternative which one can just
swipe.......

No, three sea shells :-)

On Sun, 24 Sep 2006 23:44:45 +0000, Andrew wrote:

If things are done properly, it
should be relatively easy to update the hardware to accept other types

There is a standard for RFID cards. I don't know if Oyster follows it.

I've seen a Singapore 'EZlink' reader in a convenience store with a
sticker stuck on the back reading 'dual band antenna fitted', so I presume
these things CAN be made to work with multiple card types.

of card in the future so we're not stuck with something completely
non-standard (as Oyster appears to be).

My Oyster gets a reaction out of Sydney (Australia) T-Card readers. They
obviously use the same system. However my 5 year old Singapore EZlink card
doesn't get a reaction of of a London Oyster reader or a Sydney T-Card
reader.
Sydney haven't actually got their smart-card system past being used as a
student bus pass. One day, Ill try waving a Sydney card at a London reader
and watch what happens, but not today, as the only people that have cards
are school students...

Londoncityslicker wrote:

But if we are going to have cards being used like money then shouldn't
the banks be running it and not some transport quango? (I understand
Mint are already giving it a try)

Nottingham University and Mastercard (I think) tried it with contact
smartcards a number of years ago. Remember Mondex? I think it was
before its time, and it would work now if universally accepted.

Neil

In message om, at
00:45:18 on Tue, 26 Sep 2006, Neil Williams
remarked:
But if we are going to have cards being used like money then shouldn't
the banks be running it and not some transport quango? (I understand
Mint are already giving it a try)

Nottingham University and Mastercard (I think) tried it with contact
smartcards a number of years ago. Remember Mondex? I think it was
before its time, and it would work now if universally accepted.

The main trial was in Swindon Town, plus four Universities elsewhere.
Didn't work; but as you say it might have been a little early.
--
Roland Perry

In message
Roland Perry wrote:

In message om, at
00:45:18 on Tue, 26 Sep 2006, Neil Williams
remarked:
But if we are going to have cards being used like money then shouldn't
the banks be running it and not some transport quango? (I understand
Mint are already giving it a try)

Nottingham University and Mastercard (I think) tried it with contact
smartcards a number of years ago. Remember Mondex? I think it was
before its time, and it would work now if universally accepted.

The main trial was in Swindon Town, plus four Universities elsewhere.

Exeter was one.

Didn't work; but as you say it might have been a little early.

If the Exeter one was typical there were only a limited number of places that
would accept it, mainly on campus. The advantage Oyster has is that it
already in widespread use for its primary function, therefore any other
London business willing to use it will be opting into a large and growing
userbase from the start. However with the almost universal use of credit and
debit cards for transactions of more than a few pounds then what niche is it
going to fill? Automated newsagents would be one, now there's a thought...

--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html

Matthew Geier wrote:

My Oyster gets a reaction out of Sydney (Australia) T-Card readers

Did you have to touch in at Earls Court?
--
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p13309749.html
(43 008 at Crewe, 28 Apr 2001)

On 26/9/06 10:38, "Graeme Wall" wrote:

The advantage Oyster has is that it
already in widespread use for its primary function, therefore any other
London business willing to use it will be opting into a large and growing
userbase from the start. However with the almost universal use of credit and
debit cards for transactions of more than a few pounds then what niche is it
going to fill? Automated newsagents would be one, now there's a thought...

Vending machines for sweets, drinks?

On Tue, 26 Sep 2006 10:38:15 +0100, Graeme Wall
wrote:

In message
Roland Perry wrote:

In message om, at
00:45:18 on Tue, 26 Sep 2006, Neil Williams
remarked:
But if we are going to have cards being used like money then shouldn't
the banks be running it and not some transport quango? (I understand
Mint are already giving it a try)

Nottingham University and Mastercard (I think) tried it with contact
smartcards a number of years ago. Remember Mondex? I think it was
before its time, and it would work now if universally accepted.

The main trial was in Swindon Town, plus four Universities elsewhere.

Exeter was one.

Didn't work; but as you say it might have been a little early.

If the Exeter one was typical there were only a limited number of places that
would accept it, mainly on campus. The advantage Oyster has is that it
already in widespread use for its primary function, therefore any other
London business willing to use it will be opting into a large and growing
userbase from the start. However with the almost universal use of credit and
debit cards for transactions of more than a few pounds then what niche is it
going to fill? Automated newsagents would be one, now there's a thought...

In the Hong Kong system, they have (or did a couple of years ago)
Octopus (their version of Oyster) machines in places like shopping
centres that actually give you a small free credit (equivalent to 10p
or 20p or so), max once a day. So you would see a steady stream of
people going via that shopping centre and just touching their card on
the machine to collect a free 20p or whatever that machine gave. I
could see some places being keen to do things like that here, if
simply getting public footfall is important to them. I am sure you
could have variations on the above, e.g. every 1000th person gets a
£100 credit or something, to further encourage people to come via your
shopping centre.

Some burglar alarm or access systems I have programmed already have
the ability to read smart cards from other systems than their own -
you do not have to write anything to the "foreign system" smart card,
just read any sort of unique identifier off the card and use that in
the system's access control tables instead of expensive cards specific
to that system. I don't know if there are any commercially available
readers that can pull a unique id number of an Oyster yet, but there
is certainly potential for using them to control access to low
security things, like a vehicle barrier on a works car park or a
private road.

There are loads of interesting uses for smart cards that are in wide
public acceptance especially if you can disconnect from the thought
that they're a payment mechanism only.

As for payment I'm sure they had vending machines, parking meters etc
that accepted the card in Hong Kong and Singapore, I'm sure such
things will come here eventually too.

On 24 Sep 2006 10:32:55 -0700, "jonmorris"
wrote:

If every company could buy a working system 'off the shelf' then it
wouldn't be that much a problem to do. You don't have one person
(especially not a Government) trying to install it on buses, tubes,
trains, coaches etc - you have a recognised standard, then any number
of companies can produce the equipment to work with it. Every operator
can brand their own smartcards, but they are still interchangeable.

That is what ITSO is doing: http://www.itso.org.uk/

If Oyster became a default standard there could be problems with
everyone being locked into one supplier (a bit like Microsoft and
computer operating systems, perhaps).

Once Oyster equipment can talk to ITSO kit, everyone should be happy.


If the card system held credit, like Oyster, you could operate a simple
pay as you go system on anything - and why wouldn't that work abroad?
Well, apart from the currency conversion issue until we get the Euro.
Such a system could even be rolled out to taxis. Whoever debits the
card gets the money (less a commission fee) rather like a credit or
debit card (but unlike those, you can swipe in/out at gates etc).

Effectively, it becomes an e-cash system. Funnily enough, Oyster had
visions of their card working for loads of things - which presumably
fell down when it became clear that outside of the transport industry,
there probably wasn't much interest in installing the equipment.

AIUI the transport operators would risk getting bogged down in the
rules govering banks, credit cards, etc.
--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK