Discount on my Oyster card

[danm14]

in the same way that the Railcard website has access to passport and driving licence systems in order to verify age and identity

Does it? My understanding was that it simply used the checksum function in the UK driving licence number and the machine readable zone of passports and national ID cards.

 

[Deerfold]

I thought LUL was wholly owned by TfL - TfL themselves refer to LU staff as "Our staff" on their own site, so I'm not sure this is particularly meaningful distinction to make.

Some LUL staff object to being seen as part of TfL. I'm not sure why. When I worked at London Buses, I realised I was part of TfL.

 

[island]

It really wouldn't be beyond the wit of mankind for TfL to get access to the RDG Railcard systems in order to verify that the Railcard details are correct - in the same way that the Railcard website has access to passport and driving licence systems in order to verify age and identity. It's just a matter of incentives; TfL have no incentive to improve the current situation, nor to rein their staff in when they refuse to set discounts, so the unsatisfactory situation will continue.

Does it? My understanding was that it simply used the checksum function in the UK driving licence number and the machine readable zone of passports and national ID cards.

You are correct. The Railcard website will accept any nationality passport (it would risk breaching the equality act otherwise). And there was a Tiktok going around a while back explaining the checksum rules for driving licence numbers with a suggestion on how to get a Railcard for which one was too old...

 

[Adam Williams]

Apart from the fact that anyone could make up a Railcard number and expiry date and use the card to pay discounted fares until such point as they met an inspector, which might be never.

A) 95% sure that a Railcard validation API exists
B) Isn't checking that the passenger has their Railcard literally the job of an RPI? The situation is no worse than on the national rail network where you can apply discount cards to fares via a TVM or online without any checks. What matters is what you have at travel time, as things stand.