Edinburgh Trams said:
It's official - TOTO is coming on Monday 19 May!
When Tap on, Tap off launches, you'll be able to use your contactless card or device to tap on at the platform validator to start your journey, and then you'll need to tap off at the validator on the platform again when you get off the tram.
More info:
https://edinburghtrams.com/news/tap-tap-launch-date-announced
It is excellent that this system is finally being introduced and with automatic fare capping in tandem with Lothian Buses.
It appears there will be only one type of reader which users will have to tap for both starting and ending their journey; in basic cases this would be simple to work out e.g. device taps at location A, 20 minutes elapses, device taps location B: the system would interpret the first tap as the "start" tap and the second as the "finish". I'm unsure how the system would calculate for incomplete journeys though (where the card has not been tapped out). For example if the device is tapped once at A, then wait 25 minutes, then once at B, then wait 65 minutes, then once at A again, how will the system know which journey was incomplete (did the user forget to tap out at the end of journey 1 or tap in at the start of journey 2)? Or does it not matter since both journeys are the same price anyway?
This could be further complicated if the user remembers later that they've forgotten and tries to fix it themselves e.g. tap at A, wait 180 minutes, tap at B, wait 0 minutes, tap at B (i.e. tap again immediately), wait 20 minutes, tap at A. Does anyone know how the system will deal with this?