"Richard J." wrote in message
om...
wrote:
In article , (Andrew
Heenan) wrote:

wrote:
But what's your problem with registration?
Is it a civil liberties thing, or is there a substantive objection?

Why is security not an issue for Mobile Phones?

Huh? Who knows? Who cares?
But what's your problem with registration?
Is it a civil liberties thing, or is there a substantive objection?

I don't see why TfL should know where I've been around London. Call
that Civil Liberties if you like. I think of it as a potential abuse
of IT myself.

You are a customer of TfL. You use their service. After registration,
they record details of your use, a record which you can both access.

Err, no.

quote
Journey history

Journey history displays records for journeys taken using pay as you go
credit.

Please note, customers will only be able to view this information if they
have purchased pay as you go credit (including Auto top-up) from Oyster
online.
/quote

Another problem with Oyster that does not seem to have a reason.

Sounds like a good use of IT to me. Do you also object to your bank
holding details of who has paid into your account and who has been paid by
you?

Public bodies don't have a good track record of keeping computer data very
secure.

--
regards

Stephen

I work in IT.

So what? So did I.

--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

In message , at 18:13:32
on Tue, 25 Nov 2008, remarked:

In both cases, I expect, I've had no problems using plastic at a ticket
office.

I think they charge you extra for buying a ticket at a manned
office (assuming there's one open).

In Switzerland? New since I lat went there, then.

The "both cases" above refers to Netherlands and Switzerland. The
surcharge is in the Netherlands.

And I don't speak a word of Dutch.

You do, but don't realise it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...f_Dutch_origin

Ho, ho. You'll be telling me I understand Hungarian next because I know
what a coach is.

I'm sure you speak a few words of Hungarian. Goulash, for example.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 18:13:32
on Tue, 25 Nov 2008, remarked:
So the employer is happy to pay for a ticket with a stopover, but
he's not happy to pay the tube fare to Putney??

I think the cheapest fares include the stopover.

While it's sometimes cheaper to buy a fare and hotel as a package and
get it cheaper, it's rare that a hotel+fare package is cheaper than the
cheapest fare.

(Sits back to wait for lots of anecdotes where it is...)
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 08:57:13 on Wed,
26 Nov 2008, Neil Williams remarked:
Don't shout at me! I was agreeing with you, and trying to put Neil
right.

In a sense. I don't see why it would make any difference to a visitor
if they got one of these pre-loaded Visitor's Oyster cards or a normal
one at the ticket office. They both do the same thing.

It's the marketing. They'll instantly know what the visitor card is all
about, but not necessarily be so sure about buying a regular Oyster.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 08:55:22 on Wed,
26 Nov 2008, Neil Williams remarked:
Interesting that there doesn't seem to be a sales outlet at Heathrow

Er, the ticket offices at the Tube stations?

Not according to the quoted web page.

All Tube ticket offices sell Oyster. Or isn't there a ticket office
at LHR?

Apparently they don't sell the visitor cards.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 18:13:33
on Tue, 25 Nov 2008, remarked:
The main issue is security, yours and TfL's
You need to know that if your account has been defrauded, you can
demonstrate that it's not your card that's been topped up (at,
least, not one that's registered to you).

But what's your problem with registration?
Is it a civil liberties thing, or is there a substantive objection?

Why is security not an issue for Mobile Phones?

It is, but surely you can see that the risk analysis could come up with
a different answer. For one thing, credit on phones can be cancelled
easily [1], and even if unregistered you can track where the phone is
and who they are calling, which I'm sure allows the possibility to track
down serious offenders (maybe those stealing thousands of pounds worth
of credits and then using the phones to call overseas).

[1] Maybe on Oysters too, but you don't hear people talking about it.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 22:08:58 on
Tue, 25 Nov 2008, Matthew Dickinson
remarked:
So why not at a ticket machine, if not the counter itself. Or does that
fail the "customer not present" test because they have a PIN pad?

It's still regarded as a Customer Present transaction,

That answers the question (the asylum has been taken over by the
pedants)

and AVS & CVV checking is even less practical at a ticket machine.

But don't apply to customer-present transactions.
--
Roland Perry

On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 08:41:19AM +0000, Roland Perry wrote:

The most confusing place for visitors to grapple with the UK's public
transport, ticketing especially, is probably Gatwick. Unless they ignore
the "local" trains and get Gatwick Express.

What's so confusing about it? The process is:

* go to ticket office
* ask for ticket
* pay using cash or card
* take ticket
* get on train

which is exactly the same as the way you buy a train ticket at any
station in any other country I've visited.

The only slight wrinkle might be being asked whether you want to use the
Express or a normal train.

--
David Cantrell | London Perl Mongers Deputy Chief Heretic

When one has bathed in Christ there is no need to bathe a second time
-- St. Jerome, on why washing is a vile pagan practice
in a letter to Heliodorus, 373 or 374 AD

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
.li...
On Tue, 25 Nov 2008, David Cantrell wrote:

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 08:08:28PM +0000, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sun, 23 Nov 2008, Stephen Osborn wrote:
But to get to a Tube station, as I live in SE London, I would have to
take an Overground train and so I would normally buy a one day
Travelcard at the train station. To use my Oyster at the Tube station
I
would either need to buy a train return ticket instead or use my Oyster
PAYG when I had a valid Travelcard. Either of those would mean I was
paying extra for the privilege of switching on auto top-up.
Yes. Paying one pound extra. Once.

Two pounds and ninety pence actually.

No, one pound.

You set up auto top-up, and nominate the most convenient station outside
Z1 for pickup.

And if one needs to get a train to get to a Tube station then nearest Tube
station will be inside Z1. So to get the lower excess price involves more
travel

You go to your local railway station or ticket seller and buy a paper
one-day travelcard. You travel to the nominated station using it. You
enter the system using your oyster card, activating auto top-up, and
travel to another station outside Z1. You leave the system, with your auto
top-up activated, and having paid a pound for the journey. You then
continue your day's travelling on the paper travelcard.

From the next day on, you use the oyster card.

The only extra cost over having auto top-up activated at a tube station is
the one pound cost of the tube trip.

There is the cost of my time in travelling to & from two Tube stations
outside Z1.


This is only one of a number of problems with Oyster that does not seem to
have a reason and which TfL does not seem to be doing anything about
resolving.
1. Journey history is only available to customers if they have purchased
pay as you go credit (including Auto top-up) from Oyster online. Why? The
data is in TfL's computers. They have software to publish that via a web
intertface. So why is only some data available.

2. Oyster retailers can sell seven day (and longer) Travelcards on Oyster
but not one day Travelcards.

3. The Tram terminus at Wimbledon is a mess. AFAIUI, if you are using
Oyster PAYG then you have touch out on the Tram platform before exiting
through the barriers. If you don't touch out on the Tram platform then you
are charged for a Tram journey to Wimbledon and a £5 minimum Tube fare for
using the barrier. Even if it does not get sorted out immediately at the
barrier then overnight the system should be able to work out that you
started at a Tram stop and ended at Wimbledon and only make the appropriate
charge.

The warning posters about this say that the same is true if you have a
Travelcard on Oyster but I know for a fact that that is not the case. So
either TfL don't know how their systems work or they are lying.

4. I read in another thread that if you start your journey, using Oyster
PAYG, in the peak period and make further journeys in the off-peak period
then those later journeys count towards the peak cap and not the off-peak
cap. Hence it can be cheaper to buy a single ticket [1] for the peak
journey and use Oyster PAYG for the off-peak journeys

[1] In the case quotes the person actually uses two Oyster PAYG cards.

5. TfL staff don't seem to understand how Oyster works. One example;
when I wanted to change my Z1-3 Travelcard to a Z1-4 Travelcard I was told
at one station that this is not possible and that I had to apply for a new
Oyster by filling out a form - but that I could not do that there as they
had run out of forms. So I went to the next station and there they changed
my Travelcard on the same Oyster card with problem and no paperwork.

--
regards

Stephen

That's the only explanation I can think of for how they could have
deployed a system with so many obvious design flaws.

Because *obviously* it wouldn't have been pushed through far too quickly
for mere political expediency!

We should have another utl meet, this time with a tinfoil hat making
workshop.

tom

--
The literature is filled with bizarre occurrances for which we have
no explanation

On 26 Nov, 10:33, John B wrote:
On Nov 25, 5:31*pm, Tom Anderson wrote:

That's the only explanation I can think of for how they could have
deployed a system with so many obvious design flaws.

Because *obviously* it wouldn't have been pushed through far too quickly
for mere political expediency!

We should have another utl meet, this time with a tinfoil hat making
workshop.

This. Also, is Oyster valid for travel in black helicopters?

[summary of Oyster threads:

A: "if I try and do something arcane and weird, Oyster is only
slightly easier and cheaper than paper tickets instead of
substantially easier and cheaper, therefore TfL are evil"

B: "No, because [sensible explanation]".

A: "Get lost, you're a Ken/Boris apologist and TfL are evil and I
should be allowed to do whatever I want whenever I want, waa waa waa"

B: "You're an idiot".

A: "Aha, personal abuse, you've lost the argument!".

[fx: sinister TfL secret police TfL track A down using his Oyster
details, and force him to ride from Stratford to Richmond on the
Overground whilst being charged for a fare via z1 FOREVER!!!]

I think the personal abuse has all come from Oyster apologists.

A more accurate description of the threads would be

A: I am faced with a problem when doing something quite normal, for
which there could be a simple solution. I wish that TfL would apply
that solution instead of saying "that's just the way it is".

B: Don't know you that you can get round it by doing something
complicated and time-consuming that will only cost you a little bit
extra?

A: Yes, I do know that, but wouldn't it be easier for TfL to solve one
problem than for a million individuals to solve a million individual
problems, particularly if TfL wants to encourage use of the system?

B: If you don't like it, get stuffed. Why don't you just walk
everywhere? You're an idiot.