How might Oyster be replaced?

[Bletchleyite]

I think this is worth a thread in its own right.

It needs to switch to a system that can scale beyond the 15/16 zones that Oyster had, and move the account management off the card. Basically, become like an ITSO smart card and calculate the same as that, or contactless.

TfL can retain the Oyster branding and market it with season tickets or PAYG as now, with the main difference being that it can extend to not only where contactless goes but, presumably, anywhere ITSO cards can go.

Clearly there's going to be a big cost to implementing this, from backend systems within TfL's estate to the cost of replacing all existing cards by a certain time, the marketing to inform people and so on. It will be quite a big project, but one that needs to be done because Oyster was ahead of its time in many respects, but has not stood the test of time.

If TfL wants more control of lines outside of London, it becomes even more important. Imagine if they did take over the GN Inners for London Overground - they'd surely HAVE to extend Oyster to Stevenage, for example.

It is a long term plan mentioned in here on a few occasions previously to move Oyster onto the contactless back-end so it's all back-office processed with relatively dumb (cheaper) cards.

One question is whether you'd actually need to replace existing cards. It would presumably be possible to migrate existing balances across to the new system and just treat the cards as "blind" RFID cards, ignoring the stored value stuff on them.

 

[jon0844]

One question is whether you'd actually need to replace existing cards. It would presumably be possible to migrate existing balances across to the new system and just treat the cards as "blind" RFID cards, ignoring the stored value stuff on them.

If that can be done, it reduces a lot of the need to educate customers of the change at all (given the change is only a positive, not a negative, so those who aren't aware of it working further out aren't losing anything) and can save quite a bit on not having to get people to replace them.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If that can be done, it reduces a lot of the need to educate customers of the change at all (given the change is only a positive, not a negative, so those who aren't aware of it working further out aren't losing anything) and can save quite a bit on not having to get people to replace them.

It'll obviously depends how "off the shelf" they want to go, but as the cards can be read by the existing readers and have serial numbers I can't think of any technical reason why that wouldn't be achievable if it was considered desirable, and I'd agree that it very much is desirable.

They might well want to consider something like introducing an expiry date on balances unused at the point of the change (either by travel or topping up) for a fairly long period e.g. 5 years, though, as that way they would avoid having to maintain the data for cards that no longer exist as they have been thrown away or lost.

 

[Snow1964]

They might well want to consider something like introducing an expiry date on balances unused at the point of the change (either by travel or topping up) for a fairly long period e.g. 5 years, though, as that way they would avoid having to maintain the data for cards that no longer exist as they have been thrown away or lost.

Can they actually do that retrospectively under consumer law if they were sold on basis that you can use them forever.

If a tourist visits London after 10, 15, 20 years and has bought and retained credit on the card, then it is still valid because that was the purchase contract.

At the very least got to have facility to swap them for new system with balance carried over. Without having to go to weird locations or jump through hoops to do so. Probably means all main gateways to London, main stations, airports etc.

 

[Trainbike46]

Presumably, one thing you would want to do is have the option to write a small amount of data onto the new style oyster card, e.g. so that you can still put a flag on the physical card if any discounts set (e.g. Railcard)

 

[Bletchleyite]

Can they actually do that retrospectively under consumer law if they were sold on basis that you can use them forever.

If a tourist visits London after 10, 15, 20 years and has bought and retained credit on the card, then it is still valid because that was the purchase contract.

There is scope in consumer law to change consumer contracts provided the consumer is allowed to withdraw from them without penalty prior to the change, yes. An example is the mid-term price increases some mobile phone operators have applied which were in excess of what the contract allowed for.

As the balance on an Oyster card is refundable on demand, this would appear, as far as I'm concerned, to provide for that right. The card fee itself isn't refundable, but you effectively purchase the card - using the phone analogy they don't have to refund the phone you purchased to use with the airtime contract, you can simply keep that.

Of course most of these "lost" cards don't exist any more. There must be a fair few in landfill.

 

[Farigiraf]

If Oyster cards (and effectively paper tickets like the travelcard as well) were phased out, how would child tickets be dealt with? Say you have a family of tourists in London consisting of 2 adults and 2 children: If this family wants to explore the city using contactless, currently they could get a paper travelcard or kids' oysters for the two children. What would be the alternative, 4 debit cards?

IMO the Oyster should be kept, but function more as a TOC smart card, where you can load tickets onto it, such as a travelcard, or tickets for more than one person. This would solve the problem of how to integrate the Family & Friends and Two Together railcards to PAYG as well.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If Oyster cards (and effectively paper tickets like the travelcard as well) were phased out, how would child tickets be dealt with? Say you have a family of tourists in London consisting of 2 adults and 2 children: If this family wants to explore the city using contactless, currently they could get a paper travelcard or kids' oysters for the two children. What would be the alternative, 4 debit cards?

TfL travel is presently free for accompanied children under 11. I can't see that changing. 12+ year olds will increasingly have some form of debit card anyway, be that something like a GoHenry or a proper one attached to their bank account. Thus the parent just puts the cost of the travel into their account by transfer and they use their own, yes.

However, I don't expect to see Oyster abolished entirely, rather a replacement scheme running on the contactless back end which would be quite low-cost to maintain. They might even consider partnering with a prepaid card provider (the likes of GoHenry) to have it manage the scheme for them, then the cost is effectively nothing?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Dec 2025 ==

IMO the Oyster should be kept, but function more as a TOC smart card, where you can load tickets onto it, such as a travelcard, or tickets for more than one person. This would solve the problem of how to integrate the Family & Friends and Two Together railcards to PAYG as well.

Actual smart cards that carry anything other than a serial number are 2000s tech, as always-online gatelines are now feasible, and always-online handheld inspection machines and bus ticket machines are close to it. There will need to be a means of applying Railcards to the contactless account online, assuming TfL doesn't just drop Railcard acceptance entirely or Great British Railways ends up doing something else entirely. This is probably a prerequisite of migrating Oyster onto contactless.

 

[Richardr]

The Railways Bill currently being discussed includes [34 (1)]:

Great British Railways must provide a scheme enabling persons who are young,
elderly or disabled to travel at discounted fares on railway passenger services provided
by participants in the scheme.

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/59-01/0325/240325.pdf

It would be a stretch to say they aren't going to do this throughout the South East because TfL runs the system used by GBR.

Of course the bill is currently going through parliament so far from finalized, but equally it is difficult to see that particular provision being removed by MPs.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The Railways Bill currently being discussed includes [34 (1)]:

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/59-01/0325/240325.pdf

It would be a stretch to say they aren't going to do this throughout the South East because TfL runs the system used by GBR.

Of course the bill is currently going through parliament so far from finalized, but equally it is difficult to see that particular provision being removed by MPs.

Paper tickets and e-tickets would appear to wholly fulfil this requirement.

 

[Snow1964]

Paper tickets and e-tickets would appear to wholly fulfil this requirement.

Although there lots of stations (especially on tube, but some joint stations) where non-magnetic stripe paper tickets and e-tickets are not yet accepted by gates.

No one should be discriminated against and forced to wait for a member of staff to be not doing something else so they can manually release a gate.

 

[ChrisC]

I recently read an article concerning the serious phone snatching crime situation in London. There’s been lots of publicity about phones being snatched out of people’s hands in the street by riders of e-bikes and scooters. In this article it also mentioned incidents of phone snatching becoming more numerous at tube station barriers and even as people are boarding buses. I only visit London a few times a year but much prefer to use an Oyster Card than a bank card or phone. I never have more than £50 loaded onto my Oyster Card and so even if it were to be lost or stolen it’s not a huge problem.

 

[fandroid]

The ITSO PAYG systems in use on National Rail store a holder's Railcard in the back-office system, together with a bank account for charging to. So as long as the old Oyster card is registered with TfL and the Railcard is registered to the same account, there's really no problem in applying the discount if Oyster becomes a "dumb" NFC card.

The problem lies with the "any old" contactless bank card acceptance, not Oyster (as we know already!).

TfL are caught between a rock and a hard place here. They'd just love the "hands off" convenience of contactless bank cards to be universal, but they've got Oyster!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Dec 2025 ==

I recently read an article concerning the serious phone snatching crime situation in London. There’s been lots of publicity about phones being snatched out of people’s hands in the street by riders of e-bikes and scooters. In this article it also mentioned incidents of phone snatching becoming more numerous at tube station barriers and even as people are boarding buses. I only visit London a few times a year but much prefer to use an Oyster Card than a bank card or phone. I never have more than £50 loaded onto my Oyster Card and so even if it were to be lost or stolen it’s not a huge problem.

Buses and Tube station barriers would be dodgy places to try that as they have close cover by CCTV.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Buses and Tube station barriers would be dodgy places to try that as they have close cover by CCTV.

It's not really a risk provided you hold your phone tight and put it away before leaving the station. Most of the snatching is people exiting the station and immediately starting texting/using Google Maps without being situationally aware.

 

[jon0844]

I recently read an article concerning the serious phone snatching crime situation in London. There’s been lots of publicity about phones being snatched out of people’s hands in the street by riders of e-bikes and scooters. In this article it also mentioned incidents of phone snatching becoming more numerous at tube station barriers and even as people are boarding buses. I only visit London a few times a year but much prefer to use an Oyster Card than a bank card or phone. I never have more than £50 loaded onto my Oyster Card and so even if it were to be lost or stolen it’s not a huge problem.

Hopefully phone snatching will reduce now Google (Android) and Apple have introduced security features in software to detect the forces of a phone being snatched/grabbed, immediately locking the phone*. While some phones are stolen for parts, one key reason this theft was so popular was getting a phone that was unlocked to gain access to emails and other apps.

The police have also been a lot more proactive and have caught a number of people.

People should obviously not become complacent, but this may well die down (I think there's strong evidence it already has).

* I think people need to be aware that I believe you must manually turn the feature on, so your phone may have had an update to add it and you're still not protected. On Google look for Theft Detection Lock and Offline Device Lock (the latter locks the phone out if the SIM card is removed or it's put into flight mode to try and avoid being tracked). I am not sure how Apple has done things.

[note to mods; I hope this is still on topic as it is about perceived risk from using a phone to pay for travel vs Oyster]

 

[SynthD]

However, I don't expect to see Oyster abolished entirely, rather a replacement scheme running on the contactless back end which would be quite low-cost to maintain.

I thought that had been confirmed years ago, though perhaps not in an announcement. They ended first-gen cards as the first step in this move. https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/refunds-and-replacements/first-generation-oyster-cards

 

[PLY2AYS]

Great thread… merely scanned through a few comments above.

Why can’t Oyster just extend to where the contactless extension is, and serve as the tap in service for railcards?

In essence instead of it being a TfL scheme, it becomes the mechanism for railcard discounts to be applied to travel.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Why can’t Oyster just extend to where the contactless extension is, and serve as the tap in service for railcards?

Because Oyster as it is can only cope with a certain number of zones (I forget how many now, it's slightly more than 9 as I think it works to Watford Jn which is effectively a zone on its own), it can't cope with the large number of different fares required for the contactless system. Hence why it needs to be replaced.

 

[PLY2AYS]

Because Oyster as it is can only cope with a certain number of zones (I forget how many now, it's slightly more than 9 as I think it works to Watford Jn which is effectively a zone on its own), it can't cope with the large number of different fares required for the contactless system. Hence why it needs to be replaced.

That explains a lot actually! Appreciate the insight, it’s always interesting to learn these things from those who are much more fares and systems savvy than I!

 

[Farigiraf]

Because Oyster as it is can only cope with a certain number of zones (I forget how many now, it's slightly more than 9 as I think it works to Watford Jn which is effectively a zone on its own)

It's 15 by the way:
Z10 being Watford Jn and the c2c Grays branches
Z11 being Potters Bar and stations up to Hertford North + East
Z12 is just Shenfield
Z13 is Merstham to Salfords
Z14 is Gatwick
Z15 was reserved for Elizabeth line stations out to Reading but never happened, presumably as they realised they'll need to extend PAYG out to the Thames branches (and everywhere else that's part of project Oval) anyway, putting it on the backburner indefinitely.

 

[Edvid]

Z11 being Potters Bar and stations up to Hertford North + East

Radlett too.

Z15 was reserved for Elizabeth line stations out to Reading but never happened, presumably as they realised they'll need to extend PAYG out to the Thames branches (and everywhere else that's part of project Oval) anyway, putting it on the backburner indefinitely.

Had Oyster been implemented west of West Drayton I suspect Z15 would have been Reading by itself and Iver-Twyford plus the branches would have been allocated to Z10-14.

If my understanding is correct fares/caps in each of Z10-14 are controlled by a particular TOC, and any TOC "guests" in those zones have to accept them even if they're on the opposite side of the commuter belt.

Additionally the cap in a higher-numbered zone cannot undercut the cap in a lower-numbered zone. For instance - an Off-Peak Day Travelcard from Gatwick Airport (route Not Gatwick Express) is cheaper than the Z14 - Z1 off-peak day cap, because it is also cheaper than the Z12 (i.e. Shenfield) - Z1 off-peak day cap.

 

[mmh]

It's not really a risk provided you hold your phone tight and put it away before leaving the station. Most of the snatching is people exiting the station and immediately starting texting/using Google Maps without being situationally aware.

Sorry, but I consider attitudes like that to be akin to victim blaming. Transport providers of all types have been pushing people to using their phones for many years now.

It's not a risk that should be accepted as "that's just the way it is, hide your phone."

Outside London and other places on the spiral to the bottom, it's not unusual to see people not treating their phones like gold dust. Phones on pub tables and bars is common where I live, North Wales, and I was pleasantly surprised to be sat at the next table to someone who left their phone on the table while he went to the toilet yesterday afternoon in a pub in central Manchester.

 

[Farigiraf]

If my understanding is correct fares/caps in each of Z10-14 are controlled by a particular TOC, and any TOC "guests" in those zones have to accept them even if they're on the opposite side of the commuter belt.

Although strangely, here the zones are divided up further, e.g. there is a Zone 10G which is managed by c2c and a Zone 10W which is managed by LNWR.

For some reason, every station in zone 11 is in 'Zone 11B' but despite that, GA manage Broxbourne - Hertford East part, TL manage Radlett and GN manage the Potters Bar, Bayford and Hertford East. Though it's not clear from Wikipedia and the (rather limited) other sites discussing this whether 'manage' means they control fares as well, and if they don't then which TOC decides for all. Especially concerning when it comes to the Hertford portion, as GA could start slightly reducing Hertford-London fares on their route, while slightly increasing the Hertford-London fares on the Great Northern route. Unlikely to happen, but if one TOC controls fares to both, it's a possibility.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Sorry, but I consider attitudes like that to be akin to victim blaming. Transport providers of all types have been pushing people to using their phones for many years now.

It's not a risk that should be accepted as "that's just the way it is, hide your phone."

Do you also object to locking your house when you go out? It's a sensible, simple precaution that will ensure you are not a victim of this particular crime.

It'd only be victim blaming if I said "it's your fault for using your phone". Though to be honest given how much of a scourge "mobile phone zombies" have become, walking down the street with no attention paid to where they are going...

Outside London and other places on the spiral to the bottom, it's not unusual to see people not treating their phones like gold dust. Phones on pub tables and bars is common where I live, North Wales, and I was pleasantly surprised to be sat at the next table to someone who left their phone on the table while he went to the toilet yesterday afternoon in a pub in central Manchester.

It's pretty negligent not to take care of an item costing over a thousand pounds. Aside from house and car it's the most valuable single item I own.

 

[Edvid]

I thought that had been confirmed years ago, though perhaps not in an announcement. They ended first-gen cards as the first step in this move. https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/refunds-and-replacements/first-generation-oyster-cards

TfL switched from MIFARE Classic to DESFire card supply circa 16 years ago, and I doubt they were seriously planning to replace the Prestige system that early in its lifetime. Probably not even when the previous Oyster app was launched with DESFire-only compatibility in 2017.

It may have been the decision not to extend Oyster beyond West Drayton on GWR and - more importantly - TfL Rail that did it.

The design, creation, testing and implementation of Proteus (the account-based Oyster system) will be the responsibility of whoever gets the Integrated Revenue Collection Contract. With Cubic taking TfL to the courts over their decision in recent months it's currently 36 months and change since the IRCC went out to tender.

 

[DaveB10780]

I think this is worth a thread in its own right.



It is a long term plan mentioned in here on a few occasions previously to move Oyster onto the contactless back-end so it's all back-office processed with relatively dumb (cheaper) cards.

One question is whether you'd actually need to replace existing cards. It would presumably be possible to migrate existing balances across to the new system and just treat the cards as "blind" RFID cards, ignoring the stored value stuff on them.

Is it really a long term plan. Seems to me everyone thinks it is in the "too hard pile" and hopes it will go away. I see no evidence of anyone planning this, they are too busy implementing new features elsewhere.

 

[jon81uk]

I recently read an article concerning the serious phone snatching crime situation in London. There’s been lots of publicity about phones being snatched out of people’s hands in the street by riders of e-bikes and scooters. In this article it also mentioned incidents of phone snatching becoming more numerous at tube station barriers and even as people are boarding buses. I only visit London a few times a year but much prefer to use an Oyster Card than a bank card or phone. I never have more than £50 loaded onto my Oyster Card and so even if it were to be lost or stolen it’s not a huge problem.

I've never felt like anyone would take my phone at the barrier, its too narrow and plenty of CCTV and other people around, its outside the station wiating at the pedestrian crossing that is more of a risk. I've also lost more Oyster cards than phones in the past (two wallets and Oyster cards lost, including cash and I've never lost a phone).

It's not really a risk provided you hold your phone tight and put it away before leaving the station. Most of the snatching is people exiting the station and immediately starting texting/using Google Maps without being situationally aware.

Eaxactly, using it inside the station isn't the issue.

A friend recently had his phone stolen when it was on a pub table between the two of us, but a begger came in with cap outstretched, covered the phone with the cap and took it.

 

[Edvid]

The standard Oyster card fee became non-refundable shortly before TfL published the Proteus tender notice. I don't think that was a coincidence.

As per T&R Update 157 it'll likely increase by another 50p to £10.50 next month, which suggests fee increases will be a regular feature of fare revisions.