Changes to the Oyster card deposit in London

[infobleep]

Can't see that being a problem either - read the 16 digit card number and cross reference it with a list of cards that have railcard discount applied. Doesn't seem any more complex than oyster railcards?

Surely that would be too intensive for a card checking reader.

 

[MikeWh]

Can't see that being a problem either - read the 16 digit card number and cross reference it with a list of cards that have railcard discount applied. Doesn't seem any more complex than oyster railcards?

The Oyster card stores the railcard discount on the card. You can't do that with contactless. I don't know whether the inspection device has capability for another list in it's software. It has white- and black-lists.

 

[mrmartin]

Surely that would be too intensive for a card checking reader.

Why? Any smartphone with NFC can read the 16 digit number off a contactless card (it's not encrypted, it's simple to read: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.devnied.emvnfccard&hl=en_GB).

Getting a daily list of cards with railcard discounts applied would be very simple. Even if 1 million cards had railcard discount applied, that would still only be 16mbit or 2megabytes of data to sync daily, which in this day and age is peanuts.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The TOCs will not allow railcard discounts to be applied if they have no way of knowing that a railcard should be asked for when the contactless card/device is checked by a revenue inspector.

As long as it's only possible to register a given numbered Railcard against one contactless account (a further check could be done at that point that the card and the Railcard are in the same name, e.g. by submission of a photo of the Railcard for someone to check), the scope for fraud is fairly low. Most people won't give their own named debit card to someone else to use as there's a risk of them spending all their money. That itself provides a level of security.

I think this is being overthought in the same manner as people who said the present e-ticket system was impossible. The forum is good for "naysaying" of that kind.

Particularly as in-person inspection of Oyster/contactless cards is minimal other than on open boarding buses, trams and DLR, and I bet those inspectors mostly don't bother checking Railcards. I have had an in-person inspection on the Tube once ever.

 

[TrafficEng]

I don’t think this is the main reason. The actual issue is that if Oyster cards had no deposit requirement, individuals could buy Oyster Cards loaded with just the minimum fare to enter at their starting station, and travel significant distances, abandoning the Oyster card after touching out at the end of the journey with a negative balance. The deposit removes that possibility, hence deposit + minimum fare = approximately maximum fare.

I'm not sure to be honest. My recollection is of a briefing given by TfL and responses to concerns about the cost and waste involved in a system using plastic/electronic cards vs paper tickets.

I'm also struggling to remember the technical capabilities of the system in the early days in relation to your analysis. As far as I remember, from the start the barriers wouldn't open if you attempted to exit without enough PAYG credit to cover the fare from your entry point. So although a minimal balance Oyster would allow you into the system, you wouldn't be able to exit unless the exit point wasn't barriered or you knew the barriers would be open.

In that regard there would be no real advantage travelling on an (deposit-free) Oyster touched-in with a minimum fare against travelling on a minimum fare paper ticket.

Again, if I remember correctly, one of the issues with the introduction of Oyster to National Rail were concerns over (potentially) higher fares, and validators rather than barriers, making fare avoidance more likely. This was one of the reasons for taking an 'entry charge' at the start of the journey.

Having a minimum entry charge deducted at the start of the journey would have been a more effective way of addressing situation you describe than taking a deposit (with the administrative challenges this may cause).

 

[MikeWh]

Particularly as in-person inspection of Oyster/contactless cards is minimal other than on open boarding buses, trams and DLR, and I bet those inspectors mostly don't bother checking Railcards. I have had an in-person inspection on the Tube once ever.

Just because LNWR don't do ticket checks doesn't mean the same goes for other TOCs. I've been checked on board Southeastern several times and GTR are out and about too.

 

[paddington]

I'm not sure to be honest. My recollection is of a briefing given by TfL and responses to concerns about the cost and waste involved in a system using plastic/electronic cards vs paper tickets.

I'm also struggling to remember the technical capabilities of the system in the early days in relation to your analysis. As far as I remember, from the start the barriers wouldn't open if you attempted to exit without enough PAYG credit to cover the fare from your entry point. So although a minimal balance Oyster would allow you into the system, you wouldn't be able to exit unless the exit point wasn't barriered or you knew the barriers would be open.

In that regard there would be no real advantage travelling on an (deposit-free) Oyster touched-in with a minimum fare against travelling on a minimum fare paper ticket.

Again, if I remember correctly, one of the issues with the introduction of Oyster to National Rail were concerns over (potentially) higher fares, and validators rather than barriers, making fare avoidance more likely. This was one of the reasons for taking an 'entry charge' at the start of the journey.

Having a minimum entry charge deducted at the start of the journey would have been a more effective way of addressing situation you describe than taking a deposit (with the administrative challenges this may cause).

I believe oyster started in 2003. I moved to London in 2006, so I can't speak as to how it worked before that.

I paid a £3 deposit for my first oyster, but if you bought a (weekly) travel card at the same time as a new oyster, there was no deposit. You could return oysters at ticket offices where I presume they were reused, but maybe not (like the current system where the card becomes a useless piece of plastic after refunding at ticket machines).

As I recall, it was possible to exit with a negative balance but not if more than -£3. So if you had paid the deposit it would be pointless. However, those who bought travelcards every week could buy a new oyster with no deposit then use it to -£3 when they were making a longer journey then their regular one, then throw it away. This was probably why a deposit was soon introduced for all new oysters.

I'm pretty sure that the appropriate fare to zone 6 or zone 1 was deducted every time you touched in, unless you had a travelcard valid in that zone. Not sure (and still not sure now there's so many more zones) what happened if you started in zone 9 (D back then) and you could probably spend more than the deposit if going there (no barriers at chorleywood northbound...)

The issue with NR was that many stations are unbarriered meaning that it is easy to travel beyond a travelcard's zones, so they wanted you to specify your journey before starting which kind of defeats the purpose of not buying single tickets.

Staff would just let you out if your oyster didn't open the gates because you hadn't touched in, or you were going to a more negative balance than -£3.

 

[TUC]

The fee seems unfair to visitors to London without bank accounts or without contactless cards. The notion of adding the £5 to the Oyster card balance after a year seems to be built around Londoners and regular commuters.

 

[MikeWh]

The fee seems unfair to visitors to London without bank accounts or without contactless cards. The notion of adding the £5 to the Oyster card balance after a year seems to be built around Londoners and regular commuters.

Most visitors probably buy the visitor Oyster card which currently has a £5 fee anyway.

 

[dutchflyer]

The fee seems unfair to visitors to London without bank accounts or without contactless cards. The notion of adding the £5 to the Oyster card balance after a year seems to be built around Londoners and regular commuters.

There are since more as 1 year several countries where its virtually Impossible to travel at all on trainbus without such things. Sweden started this and here in Nederland its near complete for buses-you can still buy traintix from a machine with cash-but only coins and this makes several higher priced options thus out of reach (max 20 coins in 1 payment=40 eur, if you manage to scrape that much together). And for several nonNS trains this is now also history.
In general this discussion about required min balance or chance on fraud is much more prevalent in NL, due to the chipcardsystem being nationwide with a set 20 eur MIN to be had on the card (if no discount applies) and a MAX fare on NS of around 26/27 eur. The card cost 7,50 and to enter a bus you need no balance-and there are several very long buslines that would cost till over 10 eur for the full trip. The nr of people doing that is minimal, but still on long expressbuslines there is now also MIN balances needed. In Danmark its even more complicated as fares can go much higher. However the system (oh privacy! does not exist there) is quite simple: anyone who travels regularly does it on a personal card in credit and the total cost due will be taken from her/his account after the month has ended and all sums done. But then in DK even your taxdeclaration is open for anyone to see.
Back to this subject: I once bought an oldstyle Oyster for 3 GBP and never bothered to register it. Visit LON once, sometimes 2x/yr and then put some money on it to cover the cost for that trip-the balance mostly remains as 5p. How will this new regime affect me when I return? Card refused and go to window? Hesitant to use my VISA as I´ḿ still in the idea that foreign cards bring too many problems for TfL

 

[paddington]

The fee seems unfair to visitors to London without bank accounts or without contactless cards. The notion of adding the £5 to the Oyster card balance after a year seems to be built around Londoners and regular commuters.

Yes, but it's still cheaper than buying any more than one single ticket. And many cities in the world charge a fee for smartcards which is not even refundable. Hopefully in the future there will be prepaid contactless cards that can be purchased with cash (or card) at typical visitor arrival points that don't have too onerous fees. Visitors seem to be an easy target as they can't really complain, plus many visitors have an attitude of not worrying about small amounts.

Most visitors probably buy the visitor Oyster card which currently has a £5 fee anyway.

I don't think so. Maybe the gullible ones who arrive in London with no idea how they are going to get to their hotel, or the ones who book non-refundable flights and hotels before going to travel forums and asking for advice.

There are since more as 1 year several countries where its virtually Impossible to travel at all on trainbus without such things. Sweden started this and here in Nederland its near complete for buses-you can still buy traintix from a machine with cash-but only coins and this makes several higher priced options thus out of reach (max 20 coins in 1 payment=40 eur, if you manage to scrape that much together). And for several nonNS trains this is now also history.

It was 35 coins the last time I tried. And the real problem is that it doesn't tell you, and once you insert the 36th coin it just errors out and spits them back at a rate of one every 2 seconds, so it takes 3 minutes before you can try again. SNCB machines tell you they take 25 coins. For DB it's 45 and SBB 35, but these take notes too. In Italy I bought a €3 ticket and the machine indicated it would take a €500 note and give change...

In Sweden you can in many cases buy tickets using cash at convenience stores, but they may charge a fee. And buses which take bank card payments directly have proper readers, so you don't need to have contactless, but I'm not sure if magstripe transactions are supported if you don't have a chip card.

I have yet to get an OV-Chipkaart as in the past 5 years I have only bought 5 NS tickets at stations (using coins) in NL, so the €7.50 fee and working out what min balance I needed would not have been worth it, other tickets were bought online or I used Amsterdam Travel Tickets which have no additional fee.

Back to this subject: I once bought an oldstyle Oyster for 3 GBP and never bothered to register it. Visit LON once, sometimes 2x/yr and then put some money on it to cover the cost for that trip-the balance mostly remains as 5p. How will this new regime affect me when I return? Card refused and go to window? Hesitant to use my VISA as I´ḿ still in the idea that foreign cards bring too many problems for TfL

Nothing will change with your Oyster. In 5-10 years time they may possibly want to replace them with new cards. If your bank card is issued in the EEA there is no problem for TfL.

The main problems have been with cards from the USA, or Asia/South America/Africa (although it is usually not a good idea to use these due to high fees even if they have a contactless function).

 

[smsm1]

I have yet to get an OV-Chipkaart as in the past 5 years I have only bought 5 NS tickets at stations (using coins) in NL, so the €7.50 fee and working out what min balance I needed would not have been worth it, other tickets were bought online or I used Amsterdam Travel Tickets which have no additional fee.

I was in The Netherlands at the start of the month and used the NS app to buy and use mobile tickets thus avoiding the €1 fee for the disposable tickets. For the travel from the Hook of Holland to the NS trains, there's also an app for the metro now, plus the Rotterdam Metro 2 hour tickets work out cheaper than the OV Chipkart price (without discounts).