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Project Oval: TfL win DfT contract to expand contactless system to 233 rail stations by May 2024, Railcards coming to contactless payment cards

BayPaul

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How do you equate that statement with TfL stating that “some Oyster card refund data may have been accessed”, which is where potentially upto 5000 bank account numbers and sort codes may have been leaked from?
That's a pretty small number of cards. It could be a more manual process that takes the card data out of the main Oyster system and into another application.
 
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bakerstreet

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SWT_USER

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Of course there has been another delay. Almost a year of higher fares for no benefit now :rolleyes:

Hopefully once the cyber attack issues are resolved things really are good to go. I assume all the back end work is now done and it is just a case of waiting to go live - which can presumably be done at fairly short notice.
 

Joe Paxton

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How do you equate that statement with TfL stating that “some Oyster card refund data may have been accessed”, which is where potentially upto 5000 bank account numbers and sort codes may have been leaked from?

I imagine they were not held on the core backoffice system for Oyster and contactless. You don't routinely provide your bank account details (a/c number and sort code) to TfL in connection with Oyster unless you specifically request a refund back to your bank account. Nonetheless TfL like any responsible entity should take great care with such information, and this has been a failure.

Seperately, for use with vehicle Auto Pay (for congestion and other road user charging in London), TfL do collect either payment card or bank account details - but there's no indication this system has been compromised. Hopefully that is very well protected too.
 

MikeWh

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Of course there has been another delay. Almost a year of higher fares for no benefit now :rolleyes:

Hopefully once the cyber attack issues are resolved things really are good to go. I assume all the back end work is now done and it is just a case of waiting to go live - which can presumably be done at fairly short notice.
That might depend on whether the rollout of data to the validators/gates has been affected. That may require schdeduling.
 

SWT_USER

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Is there any update on this? The posters at Ashford still have the 22nd September on them so anyone turning up at the station could reasonably expect to be able to tap in and travel, in the absence of any information to the contrary.
 

Goldfish62

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Is there any update on this? The posters at Ashford still have the 22nd September on them so anyone turning up at the station could reasonably expect to be able to tap in and travel, in the absence of any information to the contrary.
There was a mention on BBC local news on Monday that TfL have stated that there is no date for customers to be able to regain access their Oyster accounts or contactless customers to receive automatic refunds, so I'd take this to mean that everything is on indefinite hold. I understand that the vast majority of TfL staff are still unable to access any internal systems.
 

Tazi Hupefi

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Talking months, not weeks. If the rollout ends up coinciding with Christmas/New Year then there will be even more delay, as nobody is going to release it over that period.
 

Goldfish62

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Talking months, not weeks. If the rollout ends up coinciding with Christmas/New Year then there will be even more delay, as nobody is going to release it over that period.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's deferred until next year.
 

SynthD

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A FOI response highlighted by DiamondGeezer gives information on future plans for Oyster.

We have been considering integrating Oyster with Apple wallets, but do not yet have all the information we require to establish a viable business case for such an investment. However, we also know that we need to update our card readers on buses and in stations in order to do so. The project for this is in-flight, but will take a further 3-4 years to deliver. We have also asked bidders for our new Revenue Collection Contract to propose how we could implement Oyster in digital wallets, although it is not at this stage a mandatory deliverable in the new contract. This contract is due to take effect from August 2026.
 

Edvid

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The upcoming RCC (Proteus) award was still expected as of last month's contract opportunities listings to be made next week, but I don't think it will.

Anyhow - an interesting remark w.r.t. Trainline's view of Oval in relation to their expected revenue was made on another thread:
On the matter of Oval, Trainline informed it's investors yesterday that it anticipates a loss of £150m of it's annualised net ticket sales as a direct result of that project, and envisages that it will be delayed until the 2026 financial year (which obviously buys them a bit more time, and commission!)

"2026 financial year" meaning year ending February 2027, if their statement periods continue as before. 28 months to roll it out to the remaining 227 stations - Phase 1B (47 stations), the first piece of Phase 2 (45 stations, promised for 2025 just before the cyber attack widely came to light) and the rest of Phase 2 (135 stations, yet to be officially defined) - is probably optimistic, given the additional months the cyber attack has delayed Oval by. And that's before railcards are added to the mix.
 

MikeWh

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I believe that the only thing stopping phase 1B going live is data which was supposed to be released the week before as part of the September fare revision. My belief is that that fare revision did not happen at all. Once they confirm when that revision can happen then the 47 stations should go live shortly afterwards.
 

jon0844

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Are they close to sorting out the issue at Stevenage, where I believe contactless will only initially go to Watton-at-Stone and Knebworth until resolved, presumably so LNER and other IC operators calling at Stevenage don't end up with everyone using their services?
 

Tazi Hupefi

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It is possible that Trainline are being extremely optimistic in their investor announcements with regards to the FY2026/forecast £150m revenue loss, but because it's the stock market, they presumably have some basis for making that estimate, even if they don't reveal what that is. You can't make outright false claims or projections.

My understanding is that the delay is as much an issue with staff (specifically SMEs) at the relevant TOCs/RDG - just as much as data and the TfL cyber attack. Although I think the data issue is also a consequence of the people. People are taking early retirement, pay offs, secondments to GBR all over the place, and a lot of specialist knowledge is being lost or diluted. It's not just ticketing where this has had a major impact, pretty much every project from lineside engineering to new rolling stock is affected.
 

HerneHill

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My understanding is that the delay is as much an issue with staff (specifically SMEs) at the relevant TOCs/RDG
Exactly this, all these fare clusters don’t map themselves. There’s a huge tracker showing every relevant TOC’s progress, and last I heard from my Revenue team on this many TOCs’ fare managers are being very stretched. Doesn’t help that the TfL project leads don’t seem to be playing very nice with their TOC counterparties - lots of finger-pointing going on regarding the delays.

and a lot of specialist knowledge is being lost or diluted. It's not just ticketing where this has had a major impact, pretty much every project from lineside engineering to new rolling stock is affected.
On new rolling stock especially, the industry is so reliant on the same few contractors hovering around each TOC it’s not even funny!
 

Hadders

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Are they close to sorting out the issue at Stevenage, where I believe contactless will only initially go to Watton-at-Stone and Knebworth until resolved, presumably so LNER and other IC operators calling at Stevenage don't end up with everyone using their services?
The situation at Stevenage is becoming Stansted-esque. Practically everytime I exit the station someone is being dealt with for trying to use contactless.

I don't think LNER is the issue, I understood they'd been involved in Oval discussions from the start. If people want to use LNER to travel between Stevenage and London they are perfectly able to do so. This said, I'm certainly not looking forward to what I suspect will be a very substantial increase in fares if the weekend super off peak tickets are withdrawn.

It is possible that Trainline are being extremely optimistic in their investor announcements with regards to the FY2026/forecast £150m revenue loss, but because it's the stock market, they presumably have some basis for making that estimate, even if they don't reveal what that is. You can't make outright false claims or projections.

My understanding is that the delay is as much an issue with staff (specifically SMEs) at the relevant TOCs/RDG - just as much as data and the TfL cyber attack. Although I think the data issue is also a consequence of the people. People are taking early retirement, pay offs, secondments to GBR all over the place, and a lot of specialist knowledge is being lost or diluted. It's not just ticketing where this has had a major impact, pretty much every project from lineside engineering to new rolling stock is affected.
Trainline will take a hit if people switch to contactless as a result of Oval but they will take aditional revenue if fares keep increasing LNER-style.
 

Haywain

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I don't think LNER is the issue, I understood they'd been involved in Oval discussions from the start.
LNER have been involved from the off, specifically because of Stevenage being included.
 

jon0844

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LNER have been involved from the off, specifically because of Stevenage being included.
They almost certainly don't want trains filled up with commuters going one stop, and with many hybrid workers paying by contactless than bothering with flexible seasons or normal seasons, this must be a problem.

Unless checked onboard in that short space of time, the passenger is only tapping at gatelines that can't determine the train used. So no way to charge more like for Heathrow Express or Gatwick Express.

It has to be why it was said to be going one stop short of Stevenage as they look at this. Unless I was misinformed.
 

Hadders

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They almost certainly don't want trains filled up with commuters going one stop, and with many hybrid workers paying by contactless than bothering with flexible seasons or normal seasons, this must be a problem.

Unless checked onboard in that short space of time, the passenger is only tapping at gatelines that can't determine the train used. So no way to charge more like for Heathrow Express or Gatwick Express.

It has to be why it was said to be going one stop short of Stevenage as they look at this. Unless I was misinformed.
How does Oval impact passenger numbers between Stevenage and London on LNER?

There are no morning peak services between Stevenage and Kings Cross (well there is the 08:58 so I don’t think that going to worry anyone).

In the evening peak LNER already conveys passengers between Kings Cross and Stevenage. The existing tickets are Any Permitted or LNER only so I really don’t see how Oval risks overwhelming LNER between Kings Cross and Stevenage.
 

A S Leib

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Thameslink to St. Pancras is only ~5 minutes longer than LNER services to King's Cross, more convenient for the City and London Bridge and is twice as frequent (now the KGX – Cambridge stoppers are back with Great Northern, it's 4 tph vs 2 tph), so I doubt LNER services would be overwhelmed anyway.
 

Starmill

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They almost certainly don't want trains filled up with commuters going one stop, and with many hybrid workers paying by contactless than bothering with flexible seasons or normal seasons, this must be a problem.
LNER costs less than Thameslink between Stevenage and London, not more. Clearly this isn't a problem because if it were trains would call with pick up / set down restrictions, or would simply all skip Stevenage at particular times of day. That's how it's been for decades now.

Unless checked onboard in that short space of time, the passenger is only tapping at gatelines that can't determine the train used. So no way to charge more like for Heathrow Express or Gatwick Express.
Why would they pivot to charging more?

Unless I was misinformed.
Sounds like the person you were talking to isn't aware of the times of day when LNER serve Stevenage and it what directions to me.
 

Tazi Hupefi

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It's fairly trivial in any event to work out what train someone probably got, so long as they tap in and out at each end of their journey, and don't hang about for ages on the platform at their destination.

If I tap in at King's Cross at 16.08 today and tap out at Stevenage at 16.55 - clearly the only train I could have taken is the 16.33 LNER departure.

If I tapped out at 17.10, I would have got the 16.27 GN stopper.

When you have split gatelines at station, each gateline covering a specific number of platforms, it becomes even easier and accurate as you can include/exclude specific services.

This is how automatic delay repay works for smartcards.
 

CyrusWuff

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It's fairly trivial in any event to work out what train someone probably got, so long as they tap in and out at each end of their journey, and don't hang about for ages on the platform at their destination.
Except the TfL system doesn't work like that. To apply the Gatwick/Heathrow premiums it relies on you tapping on specific gates at the London end, which have a separate location code to the rest of the gates at that station. (In the case of Victoria, the Southeastern side also has a separate NLC.)

Journey time doesn't come into it unless you exceed the maximum journey time for what the back office thinks you've done.
 

Tazi Hupefi

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Except the TfL system doesn't work like that. To apply the Gatwick/Heathrow premiums it relies on you tapping on specific gates at the London end, which have a separate location code to the rest of the gates at that station. (In the case of Victoria, the Southeastern side also has a separate NLC.)

Journey time doesn't come into it unless you exceed the maximum journey time for what the back office thinks you've done.
I understand that, but that's a constraint of Oyster rather than EMV/Contactless.

The Tap2Go, Key and other contactless schemes do work like that.
 

DynamicSpirit

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It's fairly trivial in any event to work out what train someone probably got, so long as they tap in and out at each end of their journey, and don't hang about for ages on the platform at their destination.

... and as long as the system that calculates the fares has complete up-to-date knowledge of the ACTUAL arrival times of trains on each day, including delays, as well as the timetabled arrival times.
 

Robski

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It's fairly trivial in any event to work out what train someone probably got, so long as they tap in and out at each end of their journey, and don't hang about for ages on the platform at their destination.

If I tap in at King's Cross at 16.08 today and tap out at Stevenage at 16.55 - clearly the only train I could have taken is the 16.33 LNER departure.

If I tapped out at 17.10, I would have got the 16.27 GN stopper.

When you have split gatelines at station, each gateline covering a specific number of platforms, it becomes even easier and accurate as you can include/exclude specific services.

This is how automatic delay repay works for smartcards.
Here's a counter-example: 11th November, passenger taps in at Stevenage at 08:45, taps out at Kings Cross at 09:23. Which train did they take, the 08:51 Great Northern service (arrives 09:17) or the 08:58 LNER service (arrives 09:22)?
 

Haywain

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Here's a counter-example: 11th November, passenger taps in at Stevenage at 08:45, taps out at Kings Cross at 09:23. Which train did they take, the 08:51 Great Northern service (arrives 09:17) or the 08:58 LNER service (arrives 09:22)?
Why does it matter? In a contactless system they will be charged the same fare.
 

Robski

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Why does it matter? In a contactless system they will be charged the same fare.
My point was more to do with it being nigh on impossible to define a system for accurately determining which service(s) someone used purely based on tap in/out data.

I agree that once contactless reaches Stevenage, the LNER only fares will most likely be withdrawn.
 

Haywain

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I agree that once contactless reaches Stevenage, the LNER only fares will most likely be withdrawn.
I think they could be retained as paper/eTicket returns if they undercut the Oval fares. Arguably, that isn't in the spirit of Oval but that's another matter.
 

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