Great Western Coffee Shop

https://medium.com/@sushilnash/a-beginners-guide-to-using-my-get-me-there-manchester-s-hilarious-attempt-at-reinventing-london-s-70a6d1dde246

Indeed, I explored the tram part of this...the purchase 24 hours in advance of use really got me as a visitor. Damn stupid. I think the saving was a princely 40p over a paper ticket, so really not worthwhile

Interesting, but any comparison of travel ticketing systems in this country to London, was and is, unfair.

London, uniquely, was excluded from the full effects of the dreadful Bus privatisation disaster 30 years, and the local authority has control, via TfL, of all local transport.

This is has het not been full remedied in this country!, therefore without the help of government, I don't think a full 'oyster' card will be possible elsewhere.

No doubt some bus and train companies will implement fill contactless payment with tap on/off charges, but your daily charge with will not be capped.

I would say pathetic rather than hilarious.

Another example of everyone stopping thinking.

An Oyster-like product could be doable in Oxford, which has inter-available ticketing across the two main operators (Stagecoach and Go-Ahead).

http://www.urbantransportgroup.org/system/files/general-docs/pteg%20Oxford%20Smartzone_FINAL%20Feb%202015%20with%20annexes.pdf is a good summary. (You could argue, and many do, that Oxfordshire County Council is in fact a bit too pro-bus.)

Oxford has 'The Key' which is an oyster style product and is valid with the two major bus operators as well as Thames Travel.  Oyster itself, at least in its Oyster card original incarnation, is now an out of date concept anyway with contactless availability expanding quickly and able to undertake many of its benefits.

The Key is only available on the buses. Oyster-style is across different modes of public transport. No comparison until available on trains at least

Interoperability is also only available in the Smartzone area (kind of 'greater Oxford'). Within that area the routes are in part co-ordinated, down to using the same bus numbers in many cases. Oxford Bus Company though now seems to push equally use of their m-ticket and contactless payment options, neither of which have interoperability products.

Outside of Oxford things are a lot messier. As the report indicates as things have shaken down OXB dominate to the south and Stagecoach to the north, although there are some overlaps. Bigger towns also tend to have local services operated by independents; for example Didcot has 4 routes split across 2 coach companies. No interoperability amongst this lot.

A "ticketless" system which requires you to specify time and method of travel in advance is oxymoronic. It is paperless ticketing rather than ticketless.

Yes, I wasn't claiming that the key in Oxford was identical to Oyster, just that it (and others round the country) can provide services over multiple users within a given zone.  Apart from Oxford and Oxford Parkway, there are no other railway stations within the smart zone, or really close enough to become included within an extended zone if it were also to become valid on trains.  Radley, Islip and Hanborough could be included I suppose, but for such a select number of routes and services wouldn't be worth the cost of setting up.

The number of pax that this would work for is rather a lot.
It's not even valid Oxford Parkway - Oxford.

I am baffled by all this...

I appreciate that not everyone has a bank account, let alone a contactless payment card, but nonetheless isn't that technology likely to be the logical basis of any ticketless travel system? For those without a bank account, the local transport authority could underwrite a contactless payment card, whereby the authority holds the funds and pays out via Visa or Mastercard debit systems. I'm sure there are all sorts of issues that would need to be resolved to make such a scheme work, but aren't they are all organisational rather than technical?

TfGM do seem to have gone to quite a lot of trouble to create a highly complex system with minimal benefit for anyone.

And there's also precedent for an interavailable (three TOCs), zonal railway ticket giving unlimited travel within "greater Oxford" at a flat fee: the barely-publicised Oxford Evening Out. Though, disappointingly, its former validity to Bicester doesn't seem to have been reinstated now the line has reopened.

It would require government commitment for it to work (whether central or local), I suspect, but a Greater Oxford Oyster should certainly be doable.l

The Oxford Evening Out is a great little bargain. But yes it really should be valid on Chiltern as far as Bicester these days. The surprise in a way is that it is valid on XC unlike for example the Cherwell Valley Day Ranger.

It seems to me there are four different concepts being banded together under the umbrella term "Oyster" (or "X-place's Oyster"). There is paperless ticketing, an idea implemented in a very simple way (tix by sms) by National Express coaches for some years and now in a complicated way by TfGM. There is a prepaid travel-specific debit card, which seems to have been the initial Oyster implementation by TfL. There is the travel-specific debit card but with post-payment facility and daily (or other time period) fare cap, which seems to be the the current Oyster. And there is the same but implemented via the bank card you already have rather than a specific card or app.

THe pre-paid card can have either or both cash or period ticket pre-paid & loaded on ito it - that is the original Oyster.
The second item isn't TfL (might be elsewhere though) and the latter is what is known as 'contactless' payment - what TfL now want everyone to migrate to.

It's not only TfL who want us to use contactless in preference to other forms of course, but isn't there a specific thing with TfL whereby if you purchase umpty travels in one day/week/etc it will be capped at whatever the cheapest possibility would have been (eg if you spend all day taking a thousand buses and tubes round Zone 1, you won't pay more than the cost of a Zone 1 travel card?)

Yep, capped at both a daily rate for the number of zones used in a day, and a Mon-Sun weekly rate based on zone usage that week - assuming you use the same card throughout.

Which is the same as Oyster card pay as you go.

And completely different from what Manchester are offering.

I understand TfL are pushing contactless over Oyster now, presumably because the admin is done by banks rather than them. Easier for visitors too as no need to buy special card. Oyster remains attractive for kids, or rather for teenagers as kids go free in TfL, and for those who don't trust contactless.

I'm sure so sure something like that will be introduced here to go with MetroBus.*

*Blatant lie.

And for railcard holders, but I expect the usage of Oyster is falling quite rapidly thanks to contactless.

Sounds to me like the conclusions of a (large) committee, where everyone must have their equal say. Needs a strong Mayor, or chairman.

Further to BB's point, and which II referred to, an Oyster card is still an advantage if you're a railcard holder (e.g. senior), as this is the only way to obtain the lower fare.

I added my latest 3-year railcard to my Oyster recently, and was surprised to be told by the ticket clerk that he could only add one year and I'd need to redo it one year into the card's term. I'd never heard that before, so I enquired of TfL whether that is a new restriction. This is the reply:

There are several odd things about this:

1. It is still "prior to the closure of our ticket offices". I used the office at Gunnersbury, i.e. Overground plus Tube.
2. I'm "unaware" of it because they have not published the information, at least not where I can find it. This is all I can find on TfL's site (via Google direct, or via the Oyster pages):
(from https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/adult-discounts-and-concessions/railcards).

3. As you can see, that is now (it appears) just wrong.
4. I presume that when they do close all the ticket offices, one option will be learn how to find Oyster Ticket Stops (or shops). I did a dry run for Richmond, a likely place for my entry into TfL-land, and the one close to the station appears to have changed hands (or at least franchise) and no longer shows the blue symbol. Hmm...
5. What are these "new ticket machines"? Fancier, and perhaps smarter, sales machines in stations?
6. If I can do this addition process with a machine in a station, why not on line, at least for railcards bought on line?
7. I don't think there is any way for me to check what railcard is on my Oyster card, not on line nor out in the real (or rail) world. Does that mean I have to remember when to do it? Note, I was told it would have to be after the railcard's first birthday, i.e. nothing to do with when I added it the first time.
8. And was I right to think I got all three years added in the past? My records of actual charges for travel (and time of journey) over the last ten years are very sketchy, so I have no 100% certain examples.

I do get the impression TfL regret offering this facility, and are hoping that if they keep quiet about it people will stop asking for it.

I do this every year with my Gold Card at Bond Street Station for the off-peak discounts. An SA uses one of the public machines in the ticket hall. They struggled at first with the ticket office closures but now appear to have got used to it.

I can confirm that you could previously add the full term of a 3 year railcard on to Oyster.  I think the TfL's reply is not at all satisfactory.

When I first got my 3 year senior card a TfL CSA at Blackfriars loaded the discount with a three year expiry date using his staff login at a LU TVM.   So it didn't need a proper ticket office at that time i.e. just over two years ago.   I just had the discount re-loaded onto a replacement Oyster Card and it was done by staff at a LU TVM at Charing Cross, she seemed totally familiar with the process, but by then I only had a year of validity left.

AIUI all the valid cards are just loaded as 'National Railcard', because they all have the same effect on Oyster PAYG fares, there is no need to record the exact type of card.

Paul

When I sent my question to TfL, the page didn't respond so I hit the button again - and ended up sending it twice. I expected them to spot this (they were sent within 5 seconds) but in fact I just got an answer to the second (or maybe it was the first) from a different Customer Service Adviser. This one says:

That makes a little more sense. But it is still not clear why something true of other cards (even if they are "most") is now applying in this case - do they think there is a fraud issue? If the initial design could only handle one-year products (e.g. the expiry date was encoded with no year) that would explain the constraint. But in that case the multi-year term never could have been added, and in any case there are ways of overcoming it.

And I wonder if I should read "we will inform customers [when adding the railcard] to double check this after a year" or "after a year we will inform customers to double check this" - and how? They could do that by e-mail, but perhaps it would be helpful first to make the card and its expiry date visible in my account summary!