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c2c to stop retailing Oyster from March 2021

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sheff1

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"If you’re travelling in the London Zones 1-6 you can use a contactless card instead of Oyster – just look for the yellow Oyster card reader and don’t forget to touch in and out. You’ll be charged exactly the same fare."

So from the end of March we will be able to get a Railcard discount with contactless ...

OR ....

... c2c are lying.
 

mattdickinson

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Uxbridge
"If you’re travelling in the London Zones 1-6 you can use a contactless card instead of Oyster – just look for the yellow Oyster card reader and don’t forget to touch in and out. You’ll be charged exactly the same fare."

So from the end of March we will be able to get a Railcard discount with contactless ...

OR ....

... c2c are lying.

It only affects their ticket offices. They will still accept Oyster on their services.
 

357

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The machines will still do Oyster, just the ticket offices that will stop.
 

billyb750

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You can see why TOCs are moving away from Oyster, noting its 4bit architecture thus limiting its use to only 15 zones. Contactless can cope with more zones than this, however!
 

Deerfold

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You can see why TOCs are moving away from Oyster, noting its 4bit architecture thus limiting its use to only 15 zones. Contactless can cope with more zones than this, however!
This is isn't about TOCs accepting it, though. It's just about them selling it.
 

Hadders

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There's not a phase out of Oyster.

I doubt c2c do many transactions at ticket windows on Oyster so the cost of maintaining compatibility of the ticketing equipment with Oyster is probably not worth it.

One potential issue concerns season tickets. If you hold a Travelcard season issued on Oyster and wish to changeover to a National Rail point-to-point season then this can be done if was purchased and loaded via a National Rail ticket office. This will be done under National Rail changeover process so at a pro-rata rate with no admin fee. If the Travelcard season was purchased an loaded via London Underground then it's a refund and re-purchase under the appropriate refund rules so not pro-rata and therefore more expensive.

The diminishing number of National Rail ticket offices that deal with Oyster card transactions means this could become a larger problem, something that @LonTravelWatch should potentially look into.
 

CyrusWuff

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The basic issue is that only one supplier (i.e. Cubic) has a Ticket Issuing System that can handle Oyster Loads and Unloads (namely FasTIS+), and they're unwilling to licence the technology to other companies.

Given FasTIS is now 15 years old and no longer under active development, the TOCs still using it are in the process of withdrawal - with c2c being the latest example. It remains to be seen what London Overground will do, given I'd imagine the majority of their sales (at least on the NLL and ELL) are Oyster.
 

island

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The basic issue is that only one supplier (i.e. Cubic) has a Ticket Issuing System that can handle Oyster Loads and Unloads (namely FasTIS+), and they're unwilling to licence the technology to other companies.

Given FasTIS is now 15 years old and no longer under active development, the TOCs still using it are in the process of withdrawal - with c2c being the latest example. It remains to be seen what London Overground will do, given I'd imagine the majority of their sales (at least on the NLL and ELL) are Oyster.
This is the crux of the issue.
 

infobleep

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There's not a phase out of Oyster.

I doubt c2c do many transactions at ticket windows on Oyster so the cost of maintaining compatibility of the ticketing equipment with Oyster is probably not worth it.

One potential issue concerns season tickets. If you hold a Travelcard season issued on Oyster and wish to changeover to a National Rail point-to-point season then this can be done if was purchased and loaded via a National Rail ticket office. This will be done under National Rail changeover process so at a pro-rata rate with no admin fee. If the Travelcard season was purchased an loaded via London Underground then it's a refund and re-purchase under the appropriate refund rules so not pro-rata and therefore more expensive.

The diminishing number of National Rail ticket offices that deal with Oyster card transactions means this could become a larger problem, something that @LonTravelWatch should potentially look into.
Under those circumstances I would be tempted to stick with a paper season ticket. I do appreciate the negatives to do so though.

Could they make compatability with Oyster mandatory for all ticket office ticketing systems by a set date? I work in an industry where overtime rules get tightened and sometimes this requires mutiple software suppliers to either give up or do the necessary changes to their software and continue in the market.
 

Haywain

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Could they make compatability with Oyster mandatory for all ticket office ticketing systems by a set date?
Not a hope of this happening. Unless TfL want to pay for it, of course, but that won’t happen before hell freezes over (although that could be quite soon judging by tonight’s temperature!).
 

Hadders

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Under those circumstances I would be tempted to stick with a paper season ticket. I do appreciate the negatives to do so though.

Could they make compatability with Oyster mandatory for all ticket office ticketing systems by a set date? I work in an industry where overtime rules get tightened and sometimes this requires mutiple software suppliers to either give up or do the necessary changes to their software and continue in the market.
I agree that if I was getting an onboundary travelcard season (or one from places like Grays, Shenfield, Amersham, Chesham etc), and there was a likelihood that I'd need a changeover, then I'd look to get it issued on paper.
 

Hadders

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Why not ITSO?
ITSO is an option for somewhere like Chesham, Grays Shenfield but can you get something like a Zone 1-2 annual travelcard on ITSO? If so that's good but not as flexible as Oyster as you can't hold PAYG credit on ITSO for the occasional trip to a Zone 3 station.
 

Wallsendmag

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ITSO is an option for somewhere like Chesham, Grays Shenfield but can you get something like a Zone 1-2 annual travelcard on ITSO? If so that's good but not as flexible as Oyster as you can't hold PAYG credit on ITSO for the occasional trip to a Zone 3 station.
In boundary Travelcards apart from all zones , aren't available on ITSO, yet
 

infobleep

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I agree that if I was getting an onboundary travelcard season (or one from places like Grays, Shenfield, Amersham, Chesham etc), and there was a likelihood that I'd need a changeover, then I'd look to get it issued on paper.
I would do it anyway just in case as who knows what might happen.
 

Egg Centric

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The basic issue is that only one supplier (i.e. Cubic) has a Ticket Issuing System that can handle Oyster Loads and Unloads (namely FasTIS+), and they're unwilling to licence the technology to other companies.

Given FasTIS is now 15 years old and no longer under active development, the TOCs still using it are in the process of withdrawal - with c2c being the latest example. It remains to be seen what London Overground will do, given I'd imagine the majority of their sales (at least on the NLL and ELL) are Oyster.

Surely it's not hard to implement? Or did TFL stupidly give them exclusive rights?
 

CyrusWuff

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Surely it's not hard to implement? Or did TFL stupidly give them exclusive rights?
Cubic developed the hardware as part of the PFI contract that brought Oyster into existence, so it's their Intellectual Property rather than TfL's.
 
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