What follows is an open e-mail I wrote to the Oyster support address, oysterqueries@tfl.gov.uk. If you agree with my sentiments, please e-mail them to back it up. They have not replied yet.
Oyster card changes: I'm concerned
10/11/06 01:16
Dear Oyster,
I am a frequent visitor to the City, travelling in mainly for work, always on public transport. I tolerate the surveillance element of Oyster card use, and appreciate that my comings and goings are recorded forever. What I cannot tolerate is the new and extremely harsh approach to fines. Thankfully, as yet I have not made one of the many mistakes that can apparently lead to penalties and court proceedings.
In any system where the reliability of the technology and human systems used is fallible, it is hypocritical to impose a form of no fault liability on users of the system. And the Oyster system is resoundingly fallible. Let me introduce you to your network of readers, cards, software and staff!
The Oyster card specification took several years to hone. In the course of that process, the radio tag (RFID) selected for the system aged and the necessary readers became obsolete. It is now incompatible with any standards-based RFID system in Europe and the world over. Its age presents several problems, not least that the reliability and lifetime of the chips is not long. A lucky user will extract three years use out of a card in my estimation, and there are reports of cards failing long before that threshold. In all but those situations where the card is irradiated or subject to shocks, bending or other trauma, the performance of the card will degrade erratically: not every reading will be successful, but most will. When topping up the card, and in the case of a misread, the user can simply reapply it to the reader surface. In a tube gate, however, the user may have passed through (or been bussled) after a failed reading. The Oyster system has undeniably increased throughput at the gates, but in doing so has increased the chances of a user passing the gate without proper validation of his "ticket".
Under the pre-19 Nov regime, such an accidental violation would cause an incomplete journey when exiting a station. The charge for this would be a reasonable fare: it is true to say that the user may have exited the tube network anywhere, and could have deliberately avoided full payment, but such an offender would probably attempt this frequently and on the same line or station - a regular homeward journey, for example. Such behaviour can be spotted easily using simple computer algorithms. Even specifying a maximum permissible three incomplete journeys a year would discourage frequent offending. Accidental violations were called "incomplete journeys" because they were exactly that: a situation which could have been caused by a machine or by man, deliberately, maybe, but likely as not by accident, and were fairly charged accordingly.
When a top-up machine notified a user of an incomplete journey in the early days, visiting a ticket booth or telephoning in would allow that journey to be completed by hand: the user made clear where and when he was going on his honour alone and this was confirmed by the operative, who then closed the journey. Some such journeys could not be closed and I have been informed on the phone in the seeming distant past that it was no longer policy to resolve these issues. The result: legitimate travellers have no outlet to assert their honesty and clear their name (and their card). I am still bugged by that warning to this day. What does it mean when the software tells me one thing and the staff tell me another? Some coherence would be appreciated, nay, demanded in the light of these new fines and fares.
Many of the first generation Oyster readers are still to be found. These ones do not display a balance on passing through the gate. Even the new ones display the information for a uselessly short time. In a busy station one simply cannot stop to contemplate the barrier. The new requirements have not been given the thought that the first ones were, clearly, because requiring a minimum balance of £4 on the card at any one time is palpably absurd. I have had no choice but to effectively give up the control that a Pay as You Go service is meant to afford me and turn on automatic top-ups. Whatever you may say, my card is now no longer a Pay as You Go facility: I have paid in advance, automatically! I simply cannot afford to waste time in the station sorting out my card, and at stations with no top-up facilities, the situation is worse. If TfL's plan is to go cashless, they need a better system than Oyster. I must now be sure to carry cash at all times in order to buy a standard ticket when necessary due to Oyster failings.
The Oyster system used to be a convenient service, the primary advantage of which was a reduction in fares for travellers combined with speedy gate transit. The imperfect, outdated technology has been accepted by commuters and occasional users alike, because, until now, oversights at the gates were treated reasonably. Now, the imposition of profiteering fines and actual court actions have soured the air, at least for this traveller. I was happy to have my card registered and my details recorded. On occasion I have been assisted by TfL staff, who have been helpful. If the technical system were perfect, a zero-tolerance policy could be considered. But it isn't, and never will be. TfL has slipped into the rut of making money at all costs. If Mr Livingstone is a left-winger, he could do a better job of it. The museums may be free, but those costs to the city can surely be recouped with the lively new fares regime?
So where do I go from here? I have little choice but to use the Tube and the buses do not avoid all of these issues: there are reports of users with broken or intermittent cards being thrown off buses or fined when they had failed to validate due to sheer pressure of numbers on the bus steps. If leaving a tube gate with an improperly validated card can lead to a summons on my doorstep because my card is registered, I will have little option but to obtain a few unregistered cards, top them up and then wrap them in foil, disposing of the ones with fines on them. I simply haven't the time to plough through the courts because of an error that could be mine or could be yours. At least with paper tickets, the user himself can see that the ticket is valid. With Oyster, the first that you can learn of a misread is when the Revenue Protection Officer checks the status. Even a conciousness customer who realises his card was not read after he passes the gate cannot reach to validate it properly. I should probably carry some fishing tackle with which to dangle the infernal thing from.
I will be writing again if my accrued fines exceed what I would have paid with paper tickets.
Kind regards,
J.
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James Valentine
Director, Kohera Limited
08458 689023
07971 287041
http://www.kohera.co.uk
