tube contactless trial

Interesting article on the pros and, it seems, mostly cons, on the tube contactless trial.
Hope it's ok to post link
http://www.stationmasterapp.com/blog/2014/05/tfl-contactless-cards-pilot/

very informative, thank you

Argh. So TfL aren't solving the contactless transaction limit after all then, which means I can't replace my Oyster with a CPC. Yet they're introducing 7-day capping on CPCs, which suggests they think a CPC can replace Oyster for regular use despite the statement to the contrary in bakerstreet's link. I don't get it.

Be3G said:

Argh. So TfL aren't solving the contactless transaction limit after all then, which means I can't replace my Oyster with a CPC. Yet they're introducing 7-day capping on CPCs, which suggests they think a CPC can replace Oyster for regular use despite the statement to the contrary in bakerstreet's link. I don't get it.

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As I've said before I don't think this will continue to be the case - the contactless trial has been taking place without using the current bus contactless system so capping on the bus didn't work either - but will once it's rolled out properly. I suspct the PIN issue will disappear at the same time.

Unfortunately I can't comment on the linked piece as they have not permitted comments.

Whilst I'd like to share your optimism, I interpreted TfL's question responses in the linked article to be their general position for the trial and beyond (particularly considering the one about CPCs not replacing Oyster), and therefore that the PIN problem still won't get fixed.

Be3G said:

Whilst I'd like to share your optimism, I interpreted TfL's question responses in the linked article to be their general position for the trial and beyond (particularly considering the one about CPCs not replacing Oyster), and therefore that the PIN problem still won't get fixed.

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They also state that capping of bus fares will not happen during the trial, but that will change during full rollout - and that's when the money for bus fares will start to be taken by the back-office system instead of at the point when you touch in.

Similarly I suspect the only reason for having to sign up before use was because it's a trial and they don't yet want to be charging random cards.

Yes, but it's just an educated guess that back-end processing will negate the PIN problem. The way it looks to me is that the processing is already taking place for the trialists' non-bus transactions, so if you're right the PIN problem shouldn't apply there – yet the TfL responses sound as though they apply to all modes, during and after the trial. Presumably, if it were only going to be an issue during the trial, TfL would have added something along the lines of ‘However, once the contactless payment rollout is complete PINs will never be required for verification’, and the article would duly end on a more positive note.

Well I have been using the pilot for a while now on trains. It all seems to be working fine. I've not been stopped to enter a PIN once at gates or validators, but I have at shops. I've even not used the same card when asked to insert it at a shop and then used it at the station immediately afterwards without a problem. I've also tested some other edge conditions and so far it all seems to work.

I ought to update the blog on my site though ...

MikeWh said:

I've even not used the same card when asked to insert it at a shop and then used it at the station immediately afterwards without a problem.

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Now that is interesting. Thanks for your input! Perhaps Deerfold's hunch is correct after all and maybe someone at TfL was misinformed.

... transactions probably only take place at the end of the day (when the card isn't there, so can't be asked to do a chip & pin transaction).

mulderpf said:

... transactions probably only take place at the end of the day (when the card isn't there, so can't be asked to do a chip & pin transaction).

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This was pretty much the consensus in one of the other recent threads on the subject of contactless payment on the tube.

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=93823&highlight=contactless

I work at a bank. I'm going to try to take one of the chaps from card operations for coffee and see what he knows about how this will all work.

Would just anyone in card operations know how it will work? I would have thought it would be for Visa, Mastercard & Amex to decide how it will work, not each individual bank?

Would they know - isn't it up to Mastercard, Visa, Amex to define how it works, rather than each individual bank?

Thanks! That'd be much more useful than us reading tea leaves.

Right. Where to start.

Contactless cards allow spend without cardholder verification or online authorisation. To reduce the obvious fraud risks arising from this, there are a series of limits that apply to contactless card use. There is a scheme-wide upper limit of £20 on a contactless transaction. Card issuers can also choose to place a limit on the number of contactless transactions that can be made, their aggregate size, or both, which if it is exceeded will require the card to perform an online chip & PIN transaction before the contactless functionality will work again. This works pretty decently in Tesco's/McDonald's/Caffè Nero/etc. But use in the manner of an Oyster card would be liable to hit the limits quite quickly.

The card schemes have come up with a thing called an aggregated post-authorised contactless transit transaction. The way it works is that the transactions on a given card will be totted up and charged in one go at the end of the day. The contactless chip should realise this and not reject a transaction after it's been successfully used to enter the system. The first time you use a given card to enter the system on a given day the Oyster pad will ask the card if it would accept a contactless transaction to the value of a daily zone 1-W cap. If so, it will let you in; if not, you will get seek assistance and have to perform an online transaction (an ATM balance enquiry will do) to try again.

Presumably TfL will also realise when it comes around to the totting-up if a card has now reached the weekly cap, and charge accordingly.

The cool bit applies if the bank has programmed the chip properly. The Oyster pad will "tell" the card that it is incapable of doing a chip and PIN transaction (as opposed to your run of the mill terminal in a shop or café). Issuers have the facility to program the chip to apply a more generous upper limit on contactless transaction running totals and usages if the contactless terminal says it can't do a chip & PIN transaction. If this is done and done properly by the issuers*, the chance of a contactless card touch-in rejecting will be quite low.

It works messily with Maestro cards because these don't allow split authorisation and settlement.

Obviously I have no idea how ticket inspections are supposed to work, and all of the above is subject to an error having arisen between what I was told and what I'm typing, ten hours later.

*island makes no guarantee that issuers will be this sensible

That's extremely useful information. Thanks very much, island.

Edit: I've just remembered. In another thread some time ago, we were discussing the possibility of whether those little personal chip-and-pin verification devices for online banking would also effect a transaction reset – I don't suppose you got an answer to that too?

Ah, those horrid little things. I cannot think of a way of making online banking less convenient short of only offering it over dial up.

We don't issue them so it did not come up.

If I recall correctly they work by authorising a £0.00 transaction offline, so no they won't I'm afraid

Thank you very much for your detailed post island. Presumably terminals have to have a signed certificate from a bank to claim that they can't perform chip-and-PIN transactions, lest this be used for fraud?

Well explained Island - one thing that's different to the way it's been implemented - the Oyster readers do not actually talk directly to the banks - instead, transactions are sent to TfL's back office systems to determine if they need to get authority from the banks to take money (either because it's the first time you used that card or because you've reached some limits). The Oyster gates will only stop you if these transactions failed in the back office and you try to re-enter the system. The way that I understand it, there is no way that you can be stopped from entering because you've reached your card counter limit because the transaction takes place after the fact (it can take a while for data to reach the back office from the Oyster readers). (Thus nobody has reported ever being stopped at the gates for having to do chip and pin - the only reason this has happened on the buses, is because they implemented the retail model rather than transit - I believe this will change soon).

During the pilot they are already applying daily and weekly capping afaik.

island said:

Ah, those horrid little things. I cannot think of a way of making online banking less convenient short of only offering it over dial up.

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Indeed! I'm amazed that so far my bank hasn't foisted any annoying plasticky gadgets on me yet; how refreshingly old-fashioned. Apparently some customers are being given little random number generators, which are at least more convenient than the card readers.

Anyway, thanks again.

Having been using contactless on the buses since as soon as capping was introduced a few weeks ago, I thought I'd share my experience here as I was initially very concerned that the need for an occasional chip and pin verification would make life difficult for me. I'm pleased to say, however, that as of yet I haven't encountered such a verification request, so it seems that so far the special non-chip-and-pin allowances island talked about in May do seem to be set up and working correctly. (This is for a Visa CPC with First Direct, for what it's worth.)

The card I've been using has – with one exception – only been used for bus travel; since the capping facility was enabled (prior to which I used an Oyster) I've made 47 bus journeys across 11 different days. Touching in has nearly always worked OK (just one touch was met with a red light, which rectified itself on a second touch), with no unfeasible requests to enter a PIN. Of particular interest was the fact that yesterday I made a small contactless transaction in Tesco, at which point I'd have expected to be asked to enter a PIN owing to all the previous contactless bus journeys, but I wasn't.

So, suffice it to say, so far I'm very pleased – it seems my fears of being stranded in Crews Hill after the last bus of the day had left at 2pm owing to the need to find a cash machine were unfounded. (OK, Crews Hill does have a train station too… but that costs more.) My only complaint would be that reading a CPC feels like it takes about 1.5× longer than an Oyster does, which takes a bit of adjustment as I'm not someone who waves an Oyster near the reader as I walk past; I always stop to make sure it's accepted before continuing, so having formed a habit of pausing by the reader for just long enough I now need to adjust that habit to pause for a bit longer. Not a great crisis in the grand scheme of things!

Be3G said:

Having been using contactless on the buses since as soon as capping was introduced a few weeks ago, I thought I'd share my experience here as I was initially very concerned that the need for an occasional chip and pin verification would make life difficult for me. I'm pleased to say, however, that as of yet I haven't encountered such a verification request, so it seems that so far the special non-chip-and-pin allowances island talked about in May do seem to be set up and working correctly. (This is for a Visa CPC with First Direct, for what it's worth.)

The card I've been using has – with one exception – only been used for bus travel; since the capping facility was enabled (prior to which I used an Oyster) I've made 47 bus journeys across 11 different days. Touching in has nearly always worked OK (just one touch was met with a red light, which rectified itself on a second touch), with no unfeasible requests to enter a PIN. Of particular interest was the fact that yesterday I made a small contactless transaction in Tesco, at which point I'd have expected to be asked to enter a PIN owing to all the previous contactless bus journeys, but I wasn't.

So, suffice it to say, so far I'm very pleased – it seems my fears of being stranded in Crews Hill after the last bus of the day had left at 2pm owing to the need to find a cash machine were unfounded. (OK, Crews Hill does have a train station too… but that costs more.) My only complaint would be that reading a CPC feels like it takes about 1.5× longer than an Oyster does, which takes a bit of adjustment as I'm not someone who waves an Oyster near the reader as I walk past; I always stop to make sure it's accepted before continuing, so having formed a habit of pausing by the reader for just long enough I now need to adjust that habit to pause for a bit longer. Not a great crisis in the grand scheme of things!

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TfL negotiated with the banks / card providers to ensure you are never required to enter a PIN.

I know – have a look at island's post earlier in the thread which went in to lots of detail. As island said at the time though, there was no guarantee it'd work correctly…

It is also interesting to check your online account. I was surprised to see that the account gets updated in real time. 9 minutes after I boarded a bus, while I was still on that bus, I could see details of the trip in my online account. I previously assumed that the trip information would have to be downloaded when the bus got back to the depot.

If buses are transmitting location information, I guess it could be using that method to send the data - but wouldn't that result in a load of data being transmitted? And is it secure enough? I assume it is for the banks to have accepted it, but you never know if this is another story for Watchdog in the coming years...

jonmorris0844 said:

If buses are transmitting location information, I guess it could be using that method to send the data - but wouldn't that result in a load of data being transmitted? And is it secure enough? I assume it is for the banks to have accepted it, but you never know if this is another story for Watchdog in the coming years...

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The location information is sent over 3G, so yes.

Oyster journey information is downloaded at the depot but the contactless payment information has to be transmitted as soon as possible. This is so that the card can be authorised if it hasn't already been so that day. If the authorisation fails then the system will be programmed to reject the card for entry at gates in the next update which I believe happens every 5 minutes or so. It will not be blocked at validators or exit gates until the next day so that you are not stuck in the system.

Fahad said:

The location information is sent over 3G, so yes.

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I hope TfL has a good data tariff!

jonmorris0844 said:

I hope TfL has a good data tariff!

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There's not a lot of data sent - the location is only sent every 30 seconds (although it's resent if not acknowledged).

There's also plenty of data sent by (mostly) 3G to the signs. It's cheaper than the old signs which each had a landline (and quicker to set up a connection).