Smart Cards

[wimbledonpete]

Got my Southeastern Key today but mention of Travelcards seems to have disappeared. Is there a problem with loading them on? If I do get it loaded on will gates recognise my ticket more widely - eg at the moment Canterbury West gates don't recognise my paper Walmer to Z1-6 as being valid, which I know is to do with limits in coding. Thanks

 

[mattdickinson]

Got my Southeastern Key today but mention of Travelcards seems to have disappeared. Is there a problem with loading them on? If I do get it loaded on will gates recognise my ticket more widely - eg at the moment Canterbury West gates don't recognise my paper Walmer to Z1-6 as being valid, which I know is to do with limits in coding. Thanks

The website offers weekly Smart Travelcards but not monthly or annual at the moment. It appears to offer in-boundary travelcards, 1st class Travelcards and pick up at Southeastern stations within Greater London, all of which I think is a first for ITSO.

Dual Availability seasons should be technically possible by loading 2 seasons onto 1 card. (There are 5 slots available.)

 

[87 027]

Dual Availability seasons should be technically possible by loading 2 seasons onto 1 card. (There are 5 slots available.)

That's exactly what I thought. However, Southeastern's reply states:



"I'm sorry to say that the Southeastern Key is not accepting dual-availability season tickets at this time. I can understand the inconvenience this must cause. This is due to how our Key facilities are currently processing the online transactions. We are still updating and adapting our systems, so it is possible that in future this option will be available."



Sounds a bit technically lazy to me!

 

[jon0844]

How many years has it been since The Key first rolled out? There's clearly no sense of urgency whatsoever.

 

[wimbledonpete]

Southeastern's Twitter feed is saying that out-boundary annuals are fine to be put on the Key but as mentioned I can't work out how to do that online. Will go to the station and see if they can actually do it. Really, really shouldn't be this difficult.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Update - went to the station, very helpful person basically said "we've had no training how to do this", flicked through a little manual for bit and was clearly uncomfortable with the whole thing. I told them not to worry - would rather have a paper ticket than end up queuing at barriers throughout London because the transfer's not happened properly. I'm sure Southeastern will get their finger out soon.

 

[mattdickinson]

Southeastern's Twitter feed is saying that out-boundary annuals are fine to be put on the Key but as mentioned I can't work out how to do that online. Will go to the station and see if they can actually do it. Really, really shouldn't be this difficult.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Update - went to the station, very helpful person basically said "we've had no training how to do this", flicked through a little manual for bit and was clearly uncomfortable with the whole thing. I told them not to worry - would rather have a paper ticket than end up queuing at barriers throughout London because the transfer's not happened properly. I'm sure Southeastern will get their finger out soon.

Out boundary monthly and annual Travelcards and dual availability seasons do seem to be on offer now.

 

[CockneySparrow]

What I think Chris999999 is getting at is to load any ticket on any ITSO smartcard.

For example, a ticket for the journey Southend Central - Shoeburyness can be bought online on the c2c website to be loaded on to a c2c smartcard, but cannot be loaded on to a Greater Anglia smartcard. (I have both c2c and Greater Anglia smartcards. Both TOC websites allow you to add additional smartcards to your account by entering the smartcard number. c2c rejects GA smartcard numbers, and vice-versa.)

Yes so does Stagecoach smart cards, the train card isn't accepted on the bus system either

 

[cool110]

Yes so does Stagecoach smart cards, the train card isn't accepted on the bus system either

Actually, that's changed recently. SWT are now saying that Stagecoach bus tickets can be loaded onto their cards, however the website doesn't accept cards issued from the bus side.

 

[FlippyFF]

I received my Southeaster Key through the post on Monday and took it to the ticket office at Ashford International on Tuesday morning asking if they could transfer my now illegible annual season to it. "No, we haven't got the equipment" was the reply.
I've asked the Southeastern Twitter team every day since which stations do have the equipment and they can't be bothered to reply.
The OBM on the train yesterday commented on my ticket and said I should get one of the smart cards......

Does anyone here know which stations between AFK and London (that an annual +HS1 ticket is valid to/through) do have the equipment?


TIA

Simon

 

[jon0844]

GTR haven't given ticket office staff equipment to deal with The Key. It's mad as TVMs refer you to the ticket office if there's a problem (or did, as I haven't used my card for ages).

 

[Deerfold]

I received my Southeaster Key through the post on Monday and took it to the ticket office at Ashford International on Tuesday morning asking if they could transfer my now illegible annual season to it. "No, we haven't got the equipment" was the reply.
I've asked the Southeastern Twitter team every day since which stations do have the equipment and they can't be bothered to reply.
The OBM on the train yesterday commented on my ticket and said I should get one of the smart cards......

I know your ideal solution is a smart card, but why did the station not issue a replacement season ticket as an interim measure?

 

[Alteran Ancient]

If we've already had Oyster in the Greater London area for the past 6 years+ and they've not given the TOs the ability to interact with Oyster up to now, why should we ever believe they'll give any of them the facility to manipulate "The Key" branded Smartcards now?

If they're already prepared to retro-fit or replace ATOs to work with Smartcards (a fairly intrusive process), then surely it would be just as easy (if not easier) to give the ticket office a specialised USB reader and updated software to support these Smartcards?

My Key arrived in the post the other day, but I noticed that the website won't let me load a Travelcard longer than a weekly. Given that I'm not working of the Christmas period, I might just do the weekly to "try it out".

 

[najaB]

If we've already had Oyster in the Greater London area for the past 6 years+ and they've not given the TOs the ability to interact with Oyster up to now, why should we ever believe they'll give any of them the facility to manipulate "The Key" branded Smartcards now?

One possible reason (though more a hope) is that The Key is an ITSO smartcard unlike Oyster which is proprietary. So any equipment provided for The Key will (in theory) work with any other TOC's smartcards.

 

[Alteran Ancient]

One possible reason (though more a hope) is that The Key is an ITSO smartcard unlike Oyster which is proprietary. So any equipment provided for The Key will (in theory) work with any other TOC's smartcards.

So, in theory, I could go to an SWT station and load-up a ticket to Bournemouth, onto my SE Key Smartcard.

This is exactly how Smartcard ticketing is supposed to work in my head, IMO.

 

[najaB]

So, in theory, I could go to an SWT station and load-up a ticket to Bournemouth, onto my SE Key Smartcard.

In theory, yes as they are all implementations of the same standard. However, see my signature.

 

[Chris999999]

So, in theory, I could go to an SWT station and load-up a ticket to Bournemouth, onto my SE Key Smartcard.

This is exactly how Smartcard ticketing is supposed to work in my head, IMO.

This is where I started this thread. You should not have to go to any station to load your ticket onto your Smartcard. You should be able to load your Smartcard online, with a ticket from anywhere to anywhere. If you have to go to the station to load your Smartcard then there are no advantages over using paper tickets which have to be obtained from the station.

This avoids the SWT (and I dare say other TOCs) approach to providing adequate ticket purchasing facilities, which is barrier the station, reduce the number of manned ticket points, install an inadequate number of ticket machines and buy lots of stretchy barriers to try to keep the potential customers in nice long lines

 

[Hophead]

This is where I started this thread. You should not have to go to any station to load your ticket onto your Smartcard. You should be able to load your Smartcard online, with a ticket from anywhere to anywhere. If you have to go to the station to load your Smartcard then there are no advantages over using paper tickets which have to be obtained from the station.

This avoids the SWT (and I dare say other TOCs) approach to providing adequate ticket purchasing facilities, which is barrier the station, reduce the number of manned ticket points, install an inadequate number of ticket machines and buy lots of stretchy barriers to try to keep the potential customers in nice long lines

It's not clear to me how you "load your ticket onto your Smartcard" online - do you have some sort of reader at home? Surely you merely purchase the ticket online and it is actually uploaded onto your card at the barrier?

Have I misunderstood something?

 

[Andrew1395]

I think you will find that smart cards will very quickly get superceeded by smart phone apps that buy and store purchases. You cut out all the bother of issuing a card and designing a mechanism that has to be able (like a ToD purchase) to both load the purchase on to a medium and also reconcile the purchase between the point of purchase, point of collection and end of journey. To me smart cards are the Neanderthal of railway tickets. In evolutionary terms a vast breakthrough on what was before, but after a huge amount of effort, to be quickly superseded by a superior model. Price is the way to speed up evolution. Oyster was made cheaper than paper to get mass take up. Now CPay (where all the back office costs rest primarily with the banks) will be promoted to takeover from Oyster. Travelcards will be on death row, when flexible weekly caps on CPay will deliver a mass switchover. Just as the biggest market for travel smart cards in the U.K is rapidly replacing them, the DfT will be forcing smart cards on franchises. It's a dead end. Contactless for local and zonal travel, for the rest app based smartphones solutions with bar codes is the way forward. There will be paper based tickets at stations. Either self vend or print of a web purchase. So my mum without a smartphone can go to her local station, with the code from my remote purchase account and be able to print her ticket off. Hopefully with the station attendant on hand to help. No need for her to use a card, as the TVM will send me a confirmation email so that I can confirm that the person I intended has collected the purchase (no need for a railway specific data provider - piggy back on my phone provider).

 

[Hophead]

Spot on Andrew1395. Offloading the hardware onto phones and debit/credit cards also eliminates the cost of producing, replacing and administering the things. Technology is moving on swiftly, so you can get somebody else to deal with the regular upgrades and rely on users to be changing their phones and cards every few years.

This was always inevitable, of course, but it seems that ITSO cards will be barely out of the blocks before they're overtaken.

 

[jon0844]

I think they can coexist with smartphone apps and mobile payments like Apple/Android Pay. But time is indeed running out.

 

[Abpj17]

This is where I started this thread. You should not have to go to any station to load your ticket onto your Smartcard. You should be able to load your Smartcard online, with a ticket from anywhere to anywhere. If you have to go to the station to load your Smartcard then there are no advantages over using paper tickets which have to be obtained from the station.

This avoids the SWT (and I dare say other TOCs) approach to providing adequate ticket purchasing facilities, which is barrier the station, reduce the number of manned ticket points, install an inadequate number of ticket machines and buy lots of stretchy barriers to try to keep the potential customers in nice long lines

I don't understand your post either. What's the problem of loading the ticket at the station - this is what happens now when you go through the barrier to catch the train?

There is a huge potential advantage in not having to queue for the ticket office or ticket machines.

 

[MikeWh]

Now CPay (where all the back office costs rest primarily with the banks) will be promoted to takeover from Oyster. Travelcards will be on death row, when flexible weekly caps on CPay will deliver a mass switchover.

When banks issue payment cards to 5-year-olds and allow transport providers to write data to their cards for proof of discount entitlement then maybe (clue - neither is going to happen), but until then Oyster will not die. And I have that from the mouth of the TfL director in charge of the whole system.

And it has to be said that GTR is making a good attempt at undoing all TfLs work promoting CPay with their decisions on fares to Gatwick. It is very likely that a CPay user who normally travels in zones 1-4 will pay more for a one-off trip to Gatwick than an Oyster user with a zones 1-4 weekly travelcard.

 

[Alteran Ancient]

So, I come back today with a story of failure. Paid for my ticket online last night, well beyond the "allow 2 hours", and when I went to to the station, "Error 57, Seek Assistance", from every gate I tried. The TVMs also just state "Invalid card".

Spoke to the TO - they can see the ticket on my online account, but can't see my card being validated at the gate line. They haven't got the ability to interrogate the card directly like LU were able to with Oyster cards, but they do seem able to put the card number in manually and view the details that way.

Then spoke to SE Customer Service - apparently, others are also having problems and there are known issues collecting tickets at station gate lines. If you had your ticket pre-loaded when initially ordering the SE Key, you're fine, but it seems that if you bought a ticket online for collection at the gate, this is the bit that isn't working.

I've Tweeted SE several times for information about this, and they've given me the silent treatment so far, which is unlike them in my experience. In the meantime, I've just been advised to keep trying, but to also speak to gateline staff to be waved through manually until the problem is resolved.

 

[Antman]

Is there any reason why a season ticket could not be linked to a CPay card and avoid the need for an additional smart card.

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

 

[MikeWh]

Is there any reason why a season ticket could not be linked to a CPay card and avoid the need for an additional smart card.

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

That's certainly the way TfL want things to go. There would need to be mechanisms to change the card in the event that one gets swallowed, but yes, that should be a feature in London at some point.

 

[FlippyFF]

Had another go of asking at Ashford International ticket office this evening if they've got the equipment yet to transfer my paper ticket onto my Key... "No. We're not getting it. Ever. They want to get rid of us......" Yes, I can see why.

Been asking the SE twitter team for a week now which stations have the ability and have also been met with silence. Maybe they too can be replaced with a smartcard?

On the bright side, an OBM suggested that maybe Ramsgate ticket office can do this - shame that's covered on my season ticket (AFK-Z16) and I don't see why I should pay out and go out of my way to do this.

 

[jon0844]

I really don't think Govia intends to give and station the means to handle smartcards. And if we look at the to close many ticket offices and reduce hours, suggesting ticket machines are suitable alternatives, I bet that they hope smartcards will justify closures altogether and everything will be done online, or an app, or at a TVM.

 

[wimbledonpete]

Have had a response back from Southeastern - they suggest registering as a new customer with a new email address (what are they on?) or requesting to delete my existing account (will take 48 hours) then starting again. Not sure if this means I also have to wait for a new Key but I'll see what happens. Their sheer incompetence in this takes some beating.

 

[Alteran Ancient]

Thought I'd update here.

The ticket I was never able to load will be refunded. Eventually. Turns out that it's not directly down to technical issues loading cards at the ticket gates, but because you can't collect a Season Travelcard onto an ITSO Card within the Travelcard area, due to some sort of clash with the TfL Oyster system. According to Customer Services, I shouldn't have been able to buy a Smart Season for this in the first place.

This seems like a really pathetic excuse - I thought systems like ITSO existed to be a Universal standard and cross-compatible. What good is it if we also have to cater to the quirks of proprietary systems when a universal equivalent now exists?

It's nonsense like this that gets in the way of progress and makes every attempt to introduce "Smart" and modern ticketing options seem like a half-arsed effort.

Could I just buy the paper equivalent Season Ticket and then have it transferred instead?

 

[jon0844]

You're meant to be able to transfer from a paper ticket but I'm not sure you can as I'm sure I remember some saying they were told to wait until renewal.