Acceptance of new pound coins in ticket machines

[whole diary]

[bobm]

Ah yes.  Should have remembered that. 

[John R]

Max take on contactless is £30

That's not an issue, as a lot of local peak journeys are well below that figure, so would speed up the majority of transactions.

[Surrey 455]

Max take on contactless is £30

That's not an issue, as a lot of local peak journeys are well below that figure, so would speed up the majority of transactions.

I would say the vast majority of commuter journeys will be less than £30. Any above that can be easily be done by chip and pin taking 30 seconds or less maybe.

I remember reading last year that SWT^▸ (South West Trains) were introducing contactless to their ticket machines. Haven't seen it yet.

[ellendune]

Swindon to Didcot Return - two adjacent stations does not come in under £30 even when you buy two singles!

 

[ChrisB]

And then double it as it will need to refuse the old coin in October....

[John R]

Swindon to Didcot Return - two adjacent stations does not come in under £30 even when you buy two singles!

 

Yet those stations are both manned, so the issue doesn't arise.  I was thinking of those stations in the Bristol area where a lot of tickets are still bought on the train (e.g. Severn Beach branch), and there is often a problem in getting to everyone at peak times.

[ChrisB]

I'm not sure the current equipment is even 'online' are they? Hence refusing Maestro & Visa Connect(is that its name?) where balance checking is needed in real time?

[JayMac]

However, contactless payments can be processed offline. Just as chip & pin currently is with Avantix^▸ (Ticket Issuing System used on board trains) and its successors.

[ChrisB]

I didn't know that, thanks.

However, as chip & pin can process all amounts, why the need for contactless? Coping with a very busy train would only save less tyhan a minute per transaction. And there aren't that many trains to make it worthwhile

[simonw]

Surely all machines are fully computer controlled and it is just a software update needed to accept old/new pound coins?

If so, why can this not be done quickly?

[TaplowGreen]

Surely all machines are fully computer controlled and it is just a software update needed to accept old/new pound coins?

If so, why can this not be done quickly?

.......remember, this is the railways that we're talking about! "Quickly" is a strictly relative concept! 

[ChrisB]

coin acceptance is mechanical - how could it be software? You are physically putting coins in a physical slot.

[stuving]

coin acceptance is mechanical - how could it be software? You are physically putting coins in a physical slot.

I wondered how long this thread would run before anyone considered how the machines work!

I don't think anything, other than the basic stuff like shopping trolleys and parking meters, has used mechanical gauging for many years. Certainly the latest ones rely on optical, magnetic, and electromagnetic sensors. There's an example here. That refers to  3 inductive sensors, 1 optical sensor and 1 magnetic sensor, measuring 10 different parameters regarding frequency, dimensions and phase.

That's why coins have, for ages, been made with carefully chosen alloys, to vary those properties. More recently we have coins made of more than one alloy in different parts, for the same reason. This new pound coin has some fancy internal feature that the Royal Mint are being coy about, presumably in the internal arrangement of the two (or more) alloys.

So all of that is in principle a "software only" change. However, I suspect that something new (like this £1) might need a redesigned sensor. Of course not every machine has to sense every detectable feature, but TVMs^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) are at the high-value end of slot machines.

Coin recognition can be done as they fall into a bin. On the other hand, coin handling, and change dispensing, I suspect do need mechanical handling designed for the coin sizes. But I don't know whether TVMs need to recycle change, or can rely on just what's manually put in - that would be simpler.

[John R]

I didn't know that, thanks.

However, as chip & pin can process all amounts, why the need for contactless? Coping with a very busy train would only save less tyhan a minute per transaction. And there aren't that many trains to make it worthwhile

If you can reduce the time from, say, 2 minutes to 1 minute, then you double the throughput. On the Severn Beach line that would make a big difference.  I'd suggest contactless is faster than cash too, seeing how long it inevitably seems to take to rummage for change.

[stuving]

Here's a couple of quotes from the (not very up-to-date) news on that Coin Solutions site. They do repairs and maintenance for a range suppliers in addition to the ones they sell:

The majority of old £1 coins will be removed from mass circulation quite quickly.

The significant changes between the old and new £1 coin (which incorporates many new security features) mean all Coin payment systems will require either recalibration or possibly replacement dependent on the age of product. Coin Solutions has worked closely with many manufactures and has also tested the Sample £1 coins and the Production coins at the Royal Mint to ensure all our upgrades are going to work correctly on 1st March 2017.

Most current generation systems will be upgradable in the field with hand held programmers that Coin Solutions can supply (and credits if required)

Older equipment may require returning to us for recalibration , some products will become obsolete or more cost effective to replace. Whatever your market and payment equipment Coin Solutions are there to help provide a smooth transition from old to new £1 acceptance.

We have New £5 upgrade solutions available now and others to be released over the summer to facilitate the smooth changeover from paper to polymer note acceptance. Many current models are field upgradable with hand help programming devices or SIM replacement. Older models may require returning to Coin Solutions or no longer be supported for the Polymer note security features.