London Fare Zones - Contactless Payment Start 16 Sept 14

[swt_passenger]

With the full roll out tomorrow (16th Sept) of Contactless payment in the zones, on both tube and National Rail, here's the ATOC instructions added to the National Rail web site:

Contactless in London
From 16 September 2014, you'll be able to use your contactless payment card on the bus, Tube, tram, DLR, London Overground and most National Rail services in the Oyster pay as you go area.
Travelling with contactless is cheaper than paying with cash and normally costs the same as an adult-rate Oyster pay as you go fare.
It is a great alternative to Oyster and paper tickets. Use your contactless payment card in exactly the same way as you use your Oyster card, touching in and out for every journey.
Please note, for National Rail services contactless is only available for use in standard class.

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ticket_types/82370.aspx

Goes on to explain card clash etc, weekly capping, max cash fares etc etc.

 

[Deerfold]

With the full roll out tomorrow (16th Sept) of Contactless payment in the zones, on both tube and National Rail, here's the ATOC instructions added to the National Rail web site:

Goes on to explain card clash etc, weekly capping, max cash fares etc etc.

Odd, given that one of the benefits is Monday - Sunday capping that it didn't launch on a Monday.

 

[swt_passenger]

Odd, given that one of the benefits is Monday - Sunday capping that it didn't launch on a Monday.

Didn't notice that but it does seem odd in that context. Maybe there should be an introductory offer... 14% off for the first short week!

 

[Tetchytyke]

The blogger Diamond Geezer's been talking about the contactless scheme will work when you've "forgotten" to touch your contactless payment card in properly. Wonder how long it will be before SouthEastern try and charge a £20 Penalty Fare straight to the card?

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/contactless-fare-evasion.html

 

[BlueFox]

There's a video about it here: http://the10group.isebox.net/visa-tfl-contactless-launch/

It's from a Visa press release and is embargoed until 00:01 tomorrow, so don't watch it until then.

 

[Realfish]

Sounds good.

It's a pity that NR Railcards can't be associated to the nominated debit / credit card (Oyster therefore remains the only way to benefit). I wouldn't have though it wouldn't have been to much of an issue to resolve.

 

[SS4]

Sounds like a decent emergency method but not as good as Oyster. I would want to see some terms and conditions especially about how they can charge your card before using it. On the other hand it may mean being allowed to credit refunds to your account

 

[dzug2]

Sounds good.

It's a pity that NR Railcards can't be associated to the nominated debit / credit card (Oyster therefore remains the only way to benefit). I wouldn't have though it wouldn't have been to much of an issue to resolve.

There is the minor issue of the nominated card not being used by its owner and therefore not entitled to the discount

 

[Paul Kelly]

There is the minor issue of the nominated card not being used by its owner and therefore not entitled to the discount

Isn't that less of an issue with credit/debit cards than with Oyster cards, since credit/debit cards will have the name of the associated railcard holder printed on them? Checking that the two match could be part of the procedure a clerk performs when associating the railcard with the credit/debit card.

Edit: I suppose the issue is that since the railcard association would be stored in the backend database and not on the card, there is no chance of the railcard being inspected whilst travelling. So yes actually, that could be a rather large loophole!

 

[andrewkeith5]

Sounds like a decent emergency method but not as good as Oyster. I would want to see some terms and conditions especially about how they can charge your card before using it. On the other hand it may mean being allowed to credit refunds to your account

It doesn't actually take payment when you use it - you actually have to supply the TfL website with your card details as with an online transaction, including authorising through Verified by Visa/MasterCard SecureCode. When you travel, the Oyster system keeps track of your touches, then processes them all on the backend server at the end of the day. When the processing gets done, your payment is charged like a recurring authorised payment online (same principle as Oyster auto top up, but imagine you never have pay as you go credit and it just tops you up with the amount you would have needed each day).

 

[Mojo]

It doesn't actually take payment when you use it - you actually have to supply the TfL website with your card details as with an online transaction, including authorising through Verified by Visa/MasterCard SecureCode.

There is no need to pre-register your CPC or enter your card details into the TfL website unless you want to benefit from having a journey history or have access to the online service to resolve journeys, etc. You can simply touch your CPC onto the card reader at the station or on a bus immediately before travel.

 

[radamfi]

Odd, given that one of the benefits is Monday - Sunday capping that it didn't launch on a Monday.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was deliberate. So that they don't have to worry about weekly capping in the first week.

 

[Be3G]

I don't know, a weekly cap can still be reached despite the missing Monday – particularly thanks to the prior removal of non-zone-1 daily caps, meaning a weekly cap can cost as little as one and a half peak daily caps!

 

[Paul Kelly]

Southeastern are now playing pre-recorded announcements warning about card clash. I heard one at Hither Green this afternoon.

 

[maniacmartin]

Metro Bank have emailed account holders informing them of the new CPC option on TfL, and also warning about card clash

 

[Be3G]

I've been reading through the detailed information about contactless payments on TfL's website and have a few thoughts/queries to raise…

Firstly, I noticed this:

If you don't touch in at the start of your journey, you could be charged a maximum fare (up to £8.60), face a Penalty fare of £80 or be prosecuted. If you don't touch out at the end of your journey you could be charged a maximum fare

Does anyone know how, exactly, a penalty fare could be charged to a contactless user? Seeing as the revenue inspection devices don't read any data off the card – they merely tell ‘the system’ that you've been inspected – I don't see how someone could ever be eligible for a PF. I did also read this:

Sometimes payments may be declined by your card issuer, this may be because your card account does not have enough funds to pay for your journey.

If you get a red light when you touch your card on a reader, our staff will be able to tell you if your card issuer has declined payment. If this happens:

• You must contact your card issuer to resolve this
• Your card will need to be reauthorised before you can use your contactless payment card to travel on our services again
• Sign into your TfL online account.
• You will have a notification which will prompt you to reauthorise your card
• Alternatively call TfL Customer Services on 0343 222 1234 to get your card reauthorised for travel
• Once your card has been reauthorised, you will need to wait 30 minutes before you can use it again to travel

So could it be that the handheld inspection devices can tell if someone's card needs reauthorisation (if so, how?) and that's when a PF might be issued?

Secondly, I thought people might be interested to note this bit of information about pending transactions, a hitherto unknown aspect of the CPCs' operation on TfL's services:

When you touch in at the start of a journey, the card issuer takes a nominal charge when authorising the transaction. Depending on the issuer, this could be for £0.00, £0.01 or £0.10.

I wonder if, if one's card issuer applies the £0.10 pending charges, the CPC starts counting those up and could theoretically request a PIN when the cumulative contactless transaction value limit is reached? I admit it would take a while at just 10p per journey. Having said that, I haven't seen anything in TfL's detailed contactless information about the possibility of being declined travel due to the need to enter a PIN.

Finally, a question. One bugbear I always had with the Oyster capping was that the appropriate cap wouldn't always be chosen if I did lots of travel within one set of zones, with one or two journeys beyond those zones; I would then be subject to a cap for the larger collection of zones rather than the smaller subset plus the cost of the extra journeys. (Example: various journeys in 1–6 plus a trip to Grays and back would result in a 1–G cap, rather than the cheaper combination of 1–6 plus two G singles.) Has this been fixed with CPC capping, does anyone know?

Oh, and something else I've just discovered: some NR fares tables on the TfL site say ‘applicable from 16 September 2014’, so it would seem some kind of fares update took place today, which might explain why CPCs were enabled today too.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Does anyone know how, exactly, a penalty fare could be charged to a contactless user? Seeing as the revenue inspection devices don't read any data off the card – they merely tell ‘the system’ that you've been inspected – I don't see how someone could ever be eligible for a PF.

The inspection devices tell the backend that you've been inspected. If you've touched in and out properly then everything will tally up and you'll be ok. If you've not touched in and out properly then the back end will pick up on this and charge you a maximum fare, just like you'd be charged a maximum fare at the gateline with Oyster.

If you've not touched in properly then you may be liable for a Penalty Fare or prosecution, just as with Oyster. The only difference is that the RPI doesn't know who's touched in and who hasn't, unlike with Oyster, as everything only gets sorted out at the end of the day.

What I can't work out from the information is whether, by using contactless, you're giving TfL authorisation to deduct a penalty fare straight from your card that evening, or whether they would separately write to you with the Penalty Fare notice.

I'm also assuming that the TOCs will not have access to TfL's back end systems, so I don't see how the TOCs will ever be able to charge a Penalty Fare to anyone on their trains who has no ticket so long as they have a convenient CPC.

 

[Be3G]

The inspection devices tell the backend that you've been inspected. If you've touched in and out properly then everything will tally up and you'll be ok. If you've not touched in and out properly then the back end will pick up on this and charge you a maximum fare, just like you'd be charged a maximum fare at the gateline with Oyster.

If you've not touched in properly then you may be liable for a Penalty Fare or prosecution, just as with Oyster. The only difference is that the RPI doesn't know who's touched in and who hasn't, unlike with Oyster, as everything only gets sorted out at the end of the day.

Indeed, this is all explained on the TfL site which I spent a while reading.

What I can't work out from the information is whether, by using contactless, you're giving TfL authorisation to deduct a penalty fare straight from your card that evening, or whether they would separately write to you with the Penalty Fare notice.

It seems you're interpreting things differently to me. As I understand/interpret things, TfL would never charge a PF to the card or send one in the post, as I would imagine there'd be something to that effect written on their website if they did, as with the maximum fares you discussed above. Furthermore, there's no indication given about how they'd differentiate between charging a maximum fare or a PF. I think, therefore, that when they talk about someone being given a penalty fare, they mean on-the-spot in the same way they always have been issued. The question is, how do they achieve that?

 

[swt_passenger]

I think the T&C are generic for all TfL and National Rail travel. Apparently when revenue protection board a bus they can print a download of all currently touched in contactless payment card numbers. Hence they could in theory charge a PF for not being touched in. Agree it seems not possible on a train or tube, as we've discussed in earlier threads.

 

[Feathers44]

Has this been fixed with CPC capping, does anyone know?

Having only got the website to go on in the same way as you have, I can't see that this will be any different with CPCs.

Being a language pedant, I have to say that nothing I've ever read about Oyster or CPC capping has ever offered the cheapest cap based on geography so I tend not to think of this as 'broken' and needing 'fixing' but as an 'enhancement' that could be implemented.

On the flip side, having heard so many times that 'Oyster will ensure you pay no more than you have to' (or words to that effect) I agree that this really should be a feature of the system (or they ought to stop making the claim). I wonder how many people this actually affects though?

 

[radamfi]

If you've not touched in properly then you may be liable for a Penalty Fare or prosecution, just as with Oyster. The only difference is that the RPI doesn't know who's touched in and who hasn't, unlike with Oyster, as everything only gets sorted out at the end of the day.

I thought a Penalty Fare can only be given on the spot, and not retrospectively? In any case, the website explains that transactions may not always be available the same day, so if the transaction turns up a few days later a refund can be given if the maximum fare is levied.

 

[Be3G]

On the flip side, having heard so many times that 'Oyster will ensure you pay no more than you have to' (or words to that effect) I agree that this really should be a feature of the system (or they ought to stop making the claim). I wonder how many people this actually affects though?

Yes, exactly. Only today I read a claim that said something like ‘it's normally cheaper to use contactless than a paper travelcard’ – to be fair, it didn't say it's always cheaper, but clearly they want Londoners to have the general impression that Oyster/CPCs are cheaper than the old-fashioned paper ticket method, which is why it's always bugged me. I suppose it probably still is cheaper, if you're amongst the vast majority of the population who don't realise boundary zone tickets even exist!

Edit: I wanted to add that one of the reasons I've been pondering this is because of the introduction of weekly capping. There are far more zonal permutations for weekly caps than daily, and there're similarly many more possible permutations of zones used during the course of the weekly cap than the daily one. (By which I mean, the longer the capping period, the greater the chance of an ‘erratic’ journey being made which doesn't conform to the traveller's usual habits in terms of zones used.) As I see it, weekly capping can only work if it functions on a geographical basis, else if anyone makes the odd journey out of their usual zones (e.g. a 3–6 commuter going out in zone 1 Saturday night) it'll cost them more than an Oyster with a weekly travelcard and a PAYG balance. So, it'd be pleasing if the same geographical capping logic were to be applied to daily caps too.

 

[Paul Kelly]

What I can't work out from the information is whether, by using contactless, you're giving TfL authorisation to deduct a penalty fare straight from your card that evening, or whether they would separately write to you with the Penalty Fare notice.

But how would they know your address? I wouldn't have thought they'd be allowed to ask the bank for it.

 

[radamfi]

I can see that some people might be concerned that contactless might be a loophole to avoid Penalty Fares/prosecution, but that would only be the case for trips between two stations without gates. There can't be that many people who make trips that don't pass through at least one gate.

 

[MikeWh]

I wonder whether the first time a CPC is found not to have been in the system you'll get a maximum charge, but the second or third time might result in your card being disabled until a stiffer penalty is paid.

 

[sonic2009]

How will using a contactless card work when travelling via different routes that utilise the pink readers?

 

[MikeWh]

How will using a contactless card work when travelling via different routes that utilise the pink readers?

Exactly the same as Oyster. Touch the pink reader as you pass it.

 

[cjp]

I can see that some people might be concerned that contactless might be a loophole to avoid Penalty Fares/prosecution, but that would only be the case for trips between two stations without gates. There can't be that many people who make trips that don't pass through at least one gate.

there are quite few stations on the Hounslow loop without gates
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
The video mentions using a mobile phone how does that work?

 

[greatkingrat]

If you have a compatible mobile phone and your bank supports it, then you just touch your phone to the reader in the same way you would a card.

Not sure what would happen if your battery runs out during a journey though - you may get stuck inside the barriers forever!

 

[radamfi]

there are quite few stations on the Hounslow loop without gates

Yes, but many of them will be travelling to a station with gates.