Programming with
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The Oyster GotchaBy Matt Stephens
In the UK, Transport for London (TfL) recently introduced a public-transport payment system known as the Oyster Card. It can be used on buses and British Rail trains, but seems to be mostly aimed at the Tube (aka London Undergound) - or at least, that's where it seems to exhibit the most problems. The premise behind the Oyster Card is that people using it prepay their fares online. Then, when they walk into a Tube station, they “touch in” (i.e. rub the Oyster Card provocatively on a magnetic detector thing which reads their details). When they leave their destination station, they “touch out” in much the same way. Their journey fee is then deducted from their prepay account. If there isn’t enough money in the account, then obviously an iron cage drops from the ceiling and sharp knives are poked at them from all sides. (I’m told that this little-known aspect of the new system won’t be implemented for another 12 months though). First, what’s there to like about the Oyster Card? It’s a robust system which allows thousands of commuters to make their way to work each day, and on the whole it has that magic quality needed by any such large-scale, mission-critical system: it just works. However, it’s not without its usability issues. Perhaps usability wasn’t top of the designers’ list of criteria when creating the Oyster Card system. But then, its marketing is full of bubbly claims about how it’s much more convenient (etc etc) than the traditional paper-age Travelcard system. The Oyster Card supposedly makes buying season tickets much easier. No more queuing at the train station on a Monday morning; just prepay online, and Bob’s your slightly scary uncle. Some thought has obviously gone into the way people will use the Oyster Card, because there are ways in which certain things are supposed to “automagically” happen. For example, you don’t need to book or declare a specific journey: as long as you touch in and out, it all gets worked out for you. And when you purchase or renew a card, you nominate your “main” Tube station for your daily commute. Then, when you touch in that station your card gets charged-up with your new "virtual travelcard" or topped-up with your prepay credits.
Why the Oyster Card Sucks So, what's there not to like? Quite a lot, as it turns out. The first thing (not really to do with the main subject of this article) is that the name (to me at least) is quite distasteful. Oysters, yuch: eating an oyster would be like licking snot off a tortoise shell. I really don't want to have that image thrust into my mind early every morning while I trudge to work. At that time in the morning, I'm still not fully awake; my mind is still in its semi-unconcious, probably easily hypnotized state; dreamy; and all grotesque imagery is to be avoided if at all possible.
Back in the corporeal real world though, the trouble with the Oyster Card is that at certain Tube stations, it’s quite easy to walk out without going through one of the “proper” ticket barriers; and often, the ticket barriers are left open so it’s easy to simply walk straight through. In fact the hordes of commuters are often herded through various exits, and with a thousand people pushing behind you to get out into the sunlight, it’s really very easy to forget to “touch out”. TfL’s solution is simple: if this happens, give the commuter the arse-end of the doubt, and charge them the maximum possible fare that they might conceivably have travelled. Nice. The system obviously isn’t very well thought through. Of course, it’s easy to look at a complex system from the outside and comment on its shortcomings. Henry Smuggins speaks. But in the Oyster Card example, I’m convinced that some application of user scenario-based design would have caught the (really quite major, and obvious) usability issue and allowed some sort of workaround to be worked into the overall system (i.e. not hacked on afterwards as a “bug fix”). In short, they didn’t think about the fringe cases, the “rainy day” scenarios, and how the new system would be applied to the existing infrastructure (i.e. how the “touch in/out” system will work with the existing ticket barriers). If they had, they could have caught the problem and eliminated it from the basic design. Simple as that. Being charged the full fare “just in case” isn’t necessarily an error: TfL’s accountants would no doubt argue that it’s the only right thing to do. But if the system had been better thought through – i.e. remove the need to “touch out” altogether, or make it impossible to leave a Tube station without touching out – then it simply wouldn’t have been an issue. Regular commuters who simply buy an old-fashioned ticket (aka “Travelcard”) and push them through the little slots in the ticket barriers don’t get this problem. If the system is set up so that they forget to “slot out” (or whatever the phrase is), they don’t get shafted. Or slotted, or whatever. The reason is because they've declared their intended journey up-front, so forgetting to "close" the transaction doesn't really matter.
Anyway, for Oyster Card users it’s a rum deal. If you forget to close the transaction by touching out, it really is a big deal. The "fix" in this case is to constantly remind everyone (not just Oyster users) to remember to touch in and touch out. So, walking through the Tube, we are now faced with condescending announcements from sneery-voiced announcers, along the lines of: “Got an Oyster Card? Well, when you start and finish your journey, you must touch in and out, otherwise we’ll charge you full fare. This is for your benefit, not ours.” I’m amazed that these announcements are read out using the most contemptible tone of voice imaginable, as if the announcer is scolding some naughty schoolboys for wetting themselves one time too many. Also (I’m sure this isn’t just me), but there’s something a little bit unnerving about being told to “touch in and out” (and, worse, to “touch your Oyster to the sensor”) by a stern-sounding schoolmaster. Shades of Derek & Clive’s “Sir”, perhaps. Perhaps a better solution for Oyster Card users would have been to make them walk through a big magnetic sensor, a bit like the anti-shoplifting gateways you see in most shops. (On a side note, have you noticed that when those devices go off, the only time the shop staff leap into action is when the victim/customer/suspected criminal definitely paid, and the cashier simply forgot to demagnetise the goods?) But, for Oyster users, obviously it’s too late now. The system is in place, it wasn’t thought through very well, and now the responsibility is on the customer to work around the wrinkles in the system (even when they’re being herded condescendingly away from the Oyster barriers, or the barriers have been left open and there’s a crowd of people behind you pushing to get past, or your mind is anywhere but with you in the dank underground – e.g. it might be on the job which you’re struggling valiantly to get to, despite the latest inexplicable delay or tube-train derailment. Presumably those are the commuters’ fault as well).
Analyzing the rainy day scenarios can often have surprise benefits. For example, when I queue up to renew my travel card each month, I also have to buy a car park ticket for the privilege of leaving my car in the overpriced British Rail car park. If the Oyster people had thought it through, they would have realised that allowing you to also top up your car park ticket on-line would be a nice little sideline earner. In fact, you could just register your car’s registration number and it would all happen automatically whenever you top-up; no need for a physical ticket; and no sneaky gotcha if you top-up but forget to renew the car park payment. Elimination of “gotchas” is one of the key benefits of exhaustively analyzing the rainy day scenarios. Discovery of new opportunities is another benefit (though should be handled with caution lest it lead to the kind of scope creep that often results from over-enthusiastic feature brainstorming workshops). Another example of how the Oyster Card system’s rainy day scenarios weren’t properly thought through can be found in these two blog entries from a disgruntled commuter: Oyster Sucks and Oyster Sucks Part II. In the first example, the rainy day scenario was: “The card stops working and must be replaced.” This in itself led to an unnecessarily long saga for the commuter. But the problem was worsened because when he later topped up his new card, the credits actually went onto his old, defunct card (because the website (mis)guided him down this nasty route, i.e. yet another Oyster Gotcha). This in turn led to an embarrassing and frustrating confrontation with surly staff in a dank Tube station deep under the streets of London, made worse because the Oyster call centre closes at 6PM but the Tube doesn’t. Another Gotcha (again)…
Lessons Learned What can we learn from these many problems, and apply to the world of software design? The parallels are many. Some signs of a badly thought-out system are:
In the software world, a good example of the first item (pop-up dialogs telling you that the option it just gave you isn't actually allowed) is in Microsoft Outlook. If you book a meeting, Outlook cheerily asks you if you'd like to update your calendar. "Ok, sure," you think, and click OK. Instantly Outlook drops its friendly paperclip facade and reveals its true personality, snarling: "But you can't do that, you're the meeting organizer!" Then why did it just offer to do it? The second item in the table above (announcers’ condescending tone) is an important giveaway. The Tube organizers seem to be blaming the commuters. If the commuter forgets to “touch out” then it’s his fault; but why should he have to “touch out” in the first place? Similarly, it’s very easy for a software developer to blame the users for his shortcomings. If a user continually makes the same basic error, is it the user’s fault for being so stupid, or the software developer’s fault for designing such a difficult-to-use, trap-laden product? Luckily, as software designers we’re in a position to do something about it, at least with our own software systems. We can make the conscious decision to be nice to our users. It takes a little application of thought, but it’s worth it, and really will make the world a better place, at least for the people using your software. Think about how they’re going to use the system. Analyze some personas (typical end-users) and user scenarios, and walk through the UI as if it’s being used “for real”. If you’re driving your software design from use cases, then it’s important to remember the 3 “magic questions” that any use case writer must ask repeatedly (see Agile Development with the ICONIX Process): For the basic course, first ask:
Then ask:
Then repeat question 2. until the basic course is complete.
And keep on asking it until the well runs dry. By analyzing the alternative courses, the “rainy day” scenarios, you catch the wrinkles and gotchas, and pave the way so that the user’s path will be a smooth one, especially if they have to complete the same “rainy day scenario” several times a day. In short, go to great lengths to make your application a joy to use and to eliminate traps, otherwise it’ll just be another Oyster Gotcha.
Further Reading Click the images for links to Amazon.com:
Message Forum: Please let us know what you think of this article... Message Index:
The Messages: This is an Administration ProblemIt seems to me that the trouble with the Oyster system has less to do with its design as a software system as it does to do with its administration as a business system. The touch-in/touch-out principle is a clever design based around the principle that in almost all LU stations there exists a barrier system that you must pass through the exit the station, thus the correct fare for your journey can be calculated. The problem is that during particularly busy periods LU staff will often open these barriers and allow customers to simply pass through. Coupled with the rather cynical decision by LU administration to set the penalty fare for not touching-out to the maximum possible fare causes most of the complaints. Likewise, the problems in the examples are caused by inadequately trained (or brained) staff. Of course the cards will get damaged, but there is a system for replacing them. However, the staff in this case seemed utterly unfamiliar with this system and instead sold the poor victim a new card. He should still be able to claim the balance of his old card back, since it is still registered as current in the system. Fortunately it seems LU is finally getting its act together with the Oyster Card. They've removed the pointless requirement for a photocard when you buy a season ticket and they've introduced price capping (which was always a feature of the system, but administrators deliberately chose to deactivate it). Now when barriers are left open there is usually a member of staff on hand with a handheld card reader. It's just symptomatic of the mismanagement of London Underground that it took them so long to adequately train their staff to use the system. Rob London, UK Mon Apr 11 14:35:45 BST 2005 Another Oyster Swizz Try this one - down to some kind of mediocre human thought I believe... Apparently there is no difference between 'prepay and a Travelcard oyster card. Huh? Imagine my surprise.My oyster card runs out after 1 month at a time. I get a single extra journey - I think this is a new thing cos it dosent normally happen. When i try go back home from work I get a needs top up, as opposed to 'you need to renew your card (it is a renewable monthly card after all). So stupid me renbews my card (starting on the same day - so I would have thought that paid for my free journey this morning) BUT NO. I have to top up as well as pay from my monthy card. This means I pay twice for that journey I never requested to be paid for as some sort of bonis! It also means that It looks like there are no morning queues for Oyster cos they have all moved to the evening. It also means I needed the attention of 4 TFL Trained monkeys to pay about 2 quid - Itys mental, Stupid and dodgy In my book. Austin London, UK Thu Apr 28 20:00:48 BST 2005 Capping does not work when buying Travel Cards with Pre-Pay Buying a day travel card via Oyster Pre-Pay does not work because of software problems. Capping does not consistiently happen, so you can end up paying well over the norm in one day. Recently, I ended up .40p in debt as a result of a faulty reader at Finsbury Park underground. I spent 45 minutes waiting to complain via the helpline and will receive only £2.10 back. Had I needed to travel more after my card went into debt, I would have had to have bought a second travel card for that day. So, don't use pre-pay to buy travel cards,buy paper ones instead. This problem does not seem to be mentioned on the oyster or related transport web sites. I do know from talking to local newagents, that many people have complained to them about the same thing. so it must be a common problem. Suzanne Cohen shelenac@boltblue.com London , England Wed Jul 20 13:01:41 BST 2005 Another Oyster Trap Another one you need to look out for is the difference between Oyster 'Season Tickets' and Oyster 'Pre Pay' as the first is valid on national rail services and the second isn't. I've been hit for a £10 penalty (currently unpaid and potentially going to court) when I tried to use Pre Pay to go to East Croydon from London Bridge. My zone 1 and 2 season ticket got me so far but then my pre pay bit didn't get me out to zone 5. The advertising (faster, cheaper, easier etc etc) implies that Oyster is one coherent system when in fact there are two systems in one with very important restrictions in Pre Pay relative to Season Tickets. Sam Roberts samandrum@yahoo.com London, UK Sat Sep 10 18:13:20 BST 2005 cracking an oyster is there any chance to top up in home by cracking device ? did anyone hear about it ? matist matistP@gmx.net Tue Nov 01 21:45:25 GMT 2005 Oyster is much too expensive for Travel cards Wanna buy a monthly/quarterly/six monthly or yearly travel card. Stop dont do it on Oyster. Currently a 1-5 zone travel card is £139.40 on Oyster and £132.45 from the local station, it just might be worth the £84.00 difference to queue for 10 mins 12 times a year.. two hours queuing to save over £80 quid,if you can work out how you can buy a travel-card on line from your train company and still get the discount, this will save the queueing time.Regardless of the software/hardware issues of the Oyster system, I cant see any reason to use it while its more expensive. John: adsl@europe.com Croydon, England Mon Nov 07 21:19:03 GMT 2005 TfL is not a provider I agree with about 2/3 of the points made in the article, but a key point which is missed is that while (putting to one side Open Source) as a software provider it is a company's responsibility to serve the user to the best of their ability, public transport is something we all own so it is up to all of us to make the system work better (ie touch in and out). Jason jasonnathan@fastmail.co.uk London, England Tue Nov 22 09:46:10 GMT 2005 Err, hang on a minute.. QUOTE: Another one you need to look out for is the difference between Oyster 'Season Tickets' and Oyster 'Pre Pay' as the first is valid on national rail services and the second isn't. There is a reason for this though, the different train companies who run the national rail services don't want to reduce their [differently priced, depending on the service provider] fares to be the same as TfL's zone fare system. So no pre-pay on the NR. Paul H incoming@newsbadger.co.uk London Tue Dec 06 21:53:48 GMT 2005 Lets no forget Oyster tries to make this an online thing? Well, get yourself a prepay card, and go to the website. It is there that you are informed that you actually need to go back down to your tube station, to post a registration form back to TFL, before they send you out login details. Oh, I am still wondering why they have the link - 'Create account from card' when this is impossible to do, besides going through the postal method. Why do they incur that additional cost on themselves, as well as wasting our time. Wayde Gradwell toticow@gmail.com London, UK Mon Dec 12 17:56:58 GMT 2005 Matt Stephens - perhaps research would have been a good idea Mr Stephens, whilst i find your writing style rather amusing and, dare i say, witty, you obviously have no idea what an Oyster card is or what it does. There are very few accurate comments made about Oyster in your article which not only reflects badly on your knowledge on the subject but also has negative affects on the product. If you would like to learn a small amount about Oyster i suggest you call 0845 3309876 (this is open until 8pm - not 6pm as you claim) and an advisor can educate you. Until then, please stick to writing about subjects you are more familiar with. Kind regards. Thomson thomson100@hotmail.com London, England Sun Dec 18 12:45:28 GMT 2005 oyster card hi im really piss off at this guys my oyster card only works when it wants to i got a new monthlly cap coz u cant get the travel cards anymore but now every now and a again it decides to not to work fun hey???/ so i rang them up and they say alll they can do is send me a new card and stop my other one meening i have to buy a day passes wile i dont have a card and when i get my new card gess what i have to get a new cap and just to make a bit more efford they say no send us ur old card back and we will refund u but they dont think of all my other cost they are generating the little bastereds can we plz just go back 2 the old sistem where ur card always work???? suzaan zaantjie@gmail.com london Fri Jan 13 18:04:49 GMT 2006 All of you... matist matistP@gmx.net: don't know - but given the rubbish we get from those who govern our travel every day it's worth a look into Jason jasonnathan@fastmail.co.uk: TFL is not a provider? Are you an idiot mate? Of course it is; apart from the fact it's a publicly owned service, the fact is, people removed from public influence run this service daily. The gist of all the complaints are about the card and it's shortcomings (i.e. when I'm ill I'll still get charged for that day's 'travel' etc) not the fact that people don't touch in or out - that indeed, then, is their problem if they COULD have done it but chose not to. Thomson thomson100@hotmail.com: Shut up mate. This should be for us little public type people to get together and have a whinge; you obviously are a bum licking individual at the least, but most likely an employee of TFL (Transprats for london), so keep your defending little nose out. Or maybe we can all come to your board meetings and stick our little noses in? No? Then bugger off with your officous little tone and handy phone numbers. Tosser. WhoCaresBoutThat Something@something.com Crappy ol' London, UK Tue Jan 24 12:45:44 GMT 2006 Having refused to sign-up for the oyster card for the past year (for privacy amongst other reasons) I realised last week that a choice no longer existed. Fair enough, at least I didn't have to leave any personal details to recieve a weekly pass, but.... My first malfunction was last week when my fellow commuters and I were told to take another route due to a gas incident at Battersea Park. My card is zone 2-4, but I used a Zone 1 station to circumnavigate the problem. On arriving at my Zone 1 destination my card worked fine. How clever, I thoght. They have somehow allowed the barrier to recognise that we were 'using other forms of transport' and allowed me through. er, not quite. Later on that night while re-joining my journey home (and in the correct zone) my card failed to work (despite having 6 days left on it). I had unknowingly been charged £1.50 for exiting a zone 1 station. The staff at the station sympathised, but could not take the charge off and I was in danger of being stranded (little money at moment, working for free on local rag after uni!). Thank God they let me through anyway and said I could sort out my problem at the other end. However, this was not possible either and it was only the extreme generosity of a member of the ticket staff (a saintly rastafarian) - he paid for me! - that allowed me to get to work the next morning. Point: 1 are these sneaky charges fair? 2 why should I lose my travel benefits mounting to £££'s for the sake of £1.50? 3 why can't the problem be sorted at the station (ie the point of the problem) instead of a call center? The rest of the week resulted in a few other glitches and then today I faced another problem. I asked for zones 2-4 again at a local newsagent and half-way through my journey realised I had been given a zone 1-2!! I asked at the ticket office if they could rectify it (and give the excess back) only to be told that I would have to pay a £5 adminastration charge to facilitate this or that I could pay a £1 supplement everytime I used zones 3/4 (is this correct at any rate?). My point that it wasn't my fault that I was given the wrong ticket (especially as the date and zones are not printed on the side as in the old days) was met by a 'well its a learning curve innit..' Well, - and don't forget the kind london underground chap in my last example - what kind of a response is that? 'Sorry mate your shafted' he might as well have said. Its this kind of response that tempts me to violence at times. As it turned out I persuaded a member of staff to let me through the barriers (i'm good at this eh!) and on arriving at my final destination found a member of ticket staff who was able to change the ticket without problem in around 3/4 mins, without me having to go through 'a learning experience.' Anyway, plenty for improvement and remember that if you don't get the right response the first time, its worth getting a 2nd/3rd/10th opinion. Some underground staff just couldn't give a toss. A final note: I agree with the last entry. What a load of Tosh we are responsible for transport. Are responsibilities lie chiefly in the political vote and Ken Livingston seemed the candidate most likely to improve transport. Has he? Don't think so. Expensive/Inconsistent/unreliable/etc/...... You know when people rant like this it isn't just because we have nothing better to do. Its because we are pissed off and short of homocide have little form of re-dress. Long live improving the tube et al!!!!!!!!!!!! Kelly kelly_s_armstrong@hotmail.com u.k Tue Jan 24 17:56:06 GMT 2006 OYSTER CARD SEEMS SCARY NOW I WAS GOING TO BUY ONE , BUT NOW IT'S NO USE AS ALL YOUR COMMENTS HAVE PUT ME OFF. BRENDA BRENDA@HOTMAIL..COM LONDON, UK Thu Mar 30 10:07:34 BST 2006 Buy a bike Well we don't even have local transport here - no buses, tubes or anything. If we go into London it takes an hour and a half to go 22 miles. I'm faster on my bicycle! If I lived in London I would go everywhere by bike. Sarah South Bucks, England Mon Apr 10 16:58:29 BST 2006 My Local Oyster is Off! Hi I thought the Oyster would be great to avoid queues & buy tickets in advance etc. I travel from Maryland British Rail to Warren Street station everyday. My journey begins & ends at Maryland as it is 1 minutes walk from my house. Maryland has no ticket machine, you can only buy platform tickets, which you cannot redeem against the price of a ticket at tube stations, and cannot be used for ticket barriers, so its completely inconvenient. Also Maryland is unmanned most of the time, i.e the ticket office usually closes by late morning, if anyone bothers to come there & when they do come , if theyre on a coffee break , you can't buy a ticket. There are also no ticket barriers, there. When you get to Stratford, the next stop or Liverpool St, you have to queue for often 20-30 mins to buy a ticket. So an oyster in theory would be excellent. But you cant use it at Maryland, because there's no validator. You can't buy Oyster there and you can't even use a visa/electron card to buy a normal ticket when the office is rarely open. However, although Maryland is in zone 3 like stratford, apparently , you cant use the pay as you go oyster at that station, although you can use it on the same British rail line between Stratford & Liverpool St. But, even more stupidly, although the 7 day 1-3 travelcard, Oyster card & the normal paper travelcard, costs the same £26. You cannot use the Oyster at Maryland properly, although it says you can use a 7 day travelcard at all rail tubes etc in the 1-3 zones,but as there is no validator at Maryland I can't use the Oyster because there's no validator at Maryland to swipe the oyster at the start of my journey, i can only swipe at warren st when i get off, also i can only swipe to start my journey at warren st, but when i get off at Maryland I can't validate the end of my journey because there is no validator there so the card would register 2 incomplete journeys. So basically even though i've paid full price for my journey, what would then happen is, an error would then lock out my card from working , because of incomplete journeys, so i couldnt use it the next day. So then the next day i would have to go to a tube station, although i cannot pay to get there using my oyster card because it would be locked out for incomplete journeys the previous day. When i get to the next nearest station which is 15 mins walk away or a 15-30 min bus ride(including having to wait for infrequent buses) in bad rush hour traffic, then queue for 20 -30 mins for a ticket seller to unlock my card. It is not convenient for me to get to Stratford station each day & it would add 15 -20 mins to my journey everyday. This daily inconvenience would clearly would have to happen every day if i bought an Oyster card. Which frankly doesn't square with all the convenience hype about the card & saving of costs. If I were to use the daily oyster card, although its marginally cheaper, I would then have to pay extra to complete my journey at Maryland , even though its in zone 3 like stratford, or I'd have to leave the station at Stratford, to validate the end of my journey, then wait for a crowded bus during rush hour to get home, adding approximately 15-30mins to my journey. This is ridiculous. Please sort this out as soon as possible I also work sometimes in South London, going to British rail stations, with no validators, so then i cannot complete my journey, so i have to end up queuing at another station to unlock my oyster card everyday, and in some cases twice a day, because of incomplete journeys in both directions. What a farce? There is no method of purchasing a ticket at all there. You can only purchase platform tickets, if the machine is working, and theres no point paying the price of a travelcard into the machine , because, if the next station you get off at is a tube station, they cant reimburse you for the money you paid for the platform ticket , because its a British rail ticket. You can't not buy a platform ticket because then you have no proof of where you started your journey, and that you intended to pay. If you go to Liverpool St from Maryland, you have to wait often 15-20 mins to pay for your fare at the office before the ticket barrier, as there is often a queue. And then they dont take visa/electron so you must have cash. So it adds 15-20mins on the journey, through no fault of my own. All I want to do is pay for my ticket so I have a hassle free no queue journey. All Oyster guarantees me is a hassle full journey with more queuing than ever and extra journey times. Elena London, UK Sat Apr 22 20:00:57 BST 2006 Death or Resurrection of British Rail You know , its possible that with all the current hassles with using Oyster at Non-oyster reading Rail Stations, then people may stop or advoid going to British Rail (BR) stations if they have oyster, so they can get the discounts. If BR thinks this won't happen then they only have to look at when the cheap airlines like easy & Ryanair , challenged the old expensive airlines & resulted in many people going over to the cheaper flights even though the journey start & end points were not the easier places to get to. Also having to pay almost double the single fare on Oyster if you exit the journey at a non oyster station, is a strong incentive not to use BR stations . i.e ending up with non complete journeys on cards & having to go to a oyster station & queue to unlock the card to use it again the next morning. British Rail don't deserve loads of money to come on board, because they don't spend any money to improve passenger services, the stations are mostly run down & unmanned & scary for women on their own & often filthy. They don't make it easy to buy tickets , often the office is closed & sometimes no working machine to buy tickets or just platform tickets. In fact British Rail need to come on board , because they must lose millions £s everyday by lots of people using them to advoid paying full fares. Just walking through without paying & just paying for the bit at the other end. Or people just going through BR stations, both ends that they know have no-one there to check tickets. If the oyster was there , more people would have to pay the correct fare. Its ok , if they don't as they will just continue to lose money from fares. So BR keeping out, means more loss of revenue for BR from people going to Oyster stations instead & less people going to BR stations to buy tickets as they dont have the Oyster tickets they want & they cant resolve Oyster incomplete journeys there. Possibly BR may make more money as return fares are often only 10p more than single fares on some journeys on BR. I can't see how anyone wins in this situation , apart from Oyster from their penalty £5 fares for incomplete journeys , which most people cant be bothered to queue up for the next morning to get the money re-imbursed, ka -ching for Oyster all round. Your thoughts? Elena Elena London, UK Sun Apr 23 16:30:20 BST 2006 Indeed... Hi, I can sympathise with your situation completely, living in Forest Gate and using the same line as you to start the occasional journey to work when I'm carrying too much to cycle with. All I can think of is trying this: Get off at Stratford, swipe your card on the Central Line sensor just across the platform then continue your journey. You can get to Liverpool Street via the Central Line anyway. It's worked for me when I use the Central Line and also when I change at Stratford to get on the Jubilee line. So although I get on at Forest Gate, my journeys magically start at Stratford! Regards. Neil neilius@smaller.net London, UK Mon Apr 24 14:55:39 BST 2006 More Oystercard groans... Two things: Firstly, I mainly use the season ticket type of Oyster. I have always bought a month, and then added whatever days are necessary so it expires on the Friday (these are charged at 1/30th of the monthly price per day). When I switched to Oyster I continued with this but eventually thought I should join the 21st Century and renew online. There is no option to add extra days online!! Can you believe it?! So I renew manually at the ticket office. Fair enough - I don't really want to see those guys lose their job. I emailed their enquiries about this and they confirmed this to be the case and said they have no plans to change it. This was nearly two years ago so this might have changed. But I doubt it! LOL Secondly, my wife needs records of her Oystercard (prepay) to claim expenses at work. I logged into my Oyster account to see where this option was. Couldn't find anything. Phoned up their enquiry line and got directed to an "Ask Oyster" page - where I had to create ANOTHER new account (I kid you not) and request a statement. I received an acknowlegement email, then 24 hours later received another email saying (wait for it) that the statement has been posted out! Posted out! Can you believe it? I assumed (ha ha) that I would just be able to log into my account and get a statement there and then, on screen. But no, I have to create a new account, send an email, and then they'll post it to me. What a bunch of idiots ;-) In fairness I think the statement is a new thing so maybe they can only post them while they get the system up and running properly. But there's nothing that suggests that on the website (like "This will soon be available online, but in the meantime we are happy to post you a hard copy.") If that was the case then I'd be applauding them, not ridiculing them (as they'd be going to extra expense to post things while they're getting the system up and running). What's the betting that they have no intention of getting the statements online though? Overall though I like it. I like the "auto top up" feature where it adds another £20 prepay to your card when it falls below £5. Mine's yet to fall below £5 (mainly use it for season like I say) so I don't know if it acually works though. But it's a good idea :-) John Snow North London, UK Tue Apr 25 16:54:08 BST 2006 I had this reply from LT Regarding the posting of statements: "Your email only stated 'statement'. Statements are usually posted and so if you wish to receive it in any other format, the request has to be submitted in full. It is impossible at the moment to view details of journey on your online account. There are plans to add a statement facility to the website, but at present we do not have an implementation date. The alternative to posting is to email the statement to you. If this is your preferred option, you will need to always state it when making a request." So posting is the default, but you can request it by email instead. Seems strange that the (presumably more expensive) postal option is the default, but there you go. There is no advice about these options that I could see on their website. I note that they do plan to make online statements available, so that's good. I do think it is praiseworthy that they will send them (in whatever format) while they are unable to do it online. John Snow North London, UK Wed Apr 26 11:32:28 BST 2006 Oystercard Lies Elena, I know how frustrated you are - I'm in the same boat too as a Maryland BR user. I've had huge arguments with staff about the non-validity of pre pay at most BR stations, which ARE covered by the paper travelcard. The argument from their side is that they are refusing to accept Oyster pre-pay until they are given money from Oyster sales. This is crazy, as the paper travelcard is presumably the same system, yet they are quite happy to accept that! At Stratford last week, I had to make a journey via Silverlink Metro to Dalston. Now - there was nothing at Stratford to say you can't use Oyster pre-pay, but on alighting at Dalston, there was a huge notice on the platform indicating that Oyster Pre-pay is NOT valid. Luckily for me the ticket barriers were open, but if they hadn't been, would I have been charged a penalty fare? I don't see how they can get away with this if they can't be bothered to advertise this fact at all stations on the line. Note that on the Silverlink website, it states that Oyster pre-pay CAN be used at some of its stations (strangely these are not all underground stations though...) which just confuses the issue further. It makes me so angry that the advertising is totally misleading for Oyster Pre-pay - there is absolutely no mention of the (inconsistent) restrictions involved. And until the situation is resolved, they are wasting money on having to administer 2 systems (i.e. paper travelcards AND Oyster). I can't believe that there has not been more protest about this situtation, and that nothing has been done to resolve the issues. P.S. And regarding that "Permit to travel" machine at Maryland station, and many others, don't even get me started on that! Stephen enquiries@londonarrangements.co.uk Maryland, London, UK Wed May 17 20:12:42 BST 2006 You've gotta be a yank....... ...to not be able to use an Oyster Card correctly. If the gates are open and you don't touch out that is tantamount to "forgetting" to buy a ticket when the gates are open. Yeah, we've all done it....but don't whinge when it comes back to bite you on the bum. Sidney sidilno@hotmail.com London, UK Tue Jun 20 11:47:42 BST 2006 You've gotta be a yank....... ...to not be able to use an Oyster Card correctly. If the gates are open and you don't touch out that is tantamount to "forgetting" to buy a ticket when the gates are open. Yeah, we've all done it....but don't whinge when it comes back to bite you on the bum. Sidney sidilno@hotmail.com London, UK Tue Jun 20 11:47:44 BST 2006 Temper temper.... WhoCaresBoutThat Something@something.com:"Shut up mate. This should be for us little public type people to get together and have a whinge; you obviously are a bum licking individual at the least, but most likely an employee of TFL (Transprats for london), so keep your defending little nose out. Or maybe we can all come to your board meetings and stick our little noses in? No? Then bugger off with your officous little tone and handy phone numbers. Tosser". # Basically, your argument is that since you dont like the tone of whats written and the fact that the poster has made the effort to supply the details of where factual information about the subject can be gained, that he/she has nothing worth reading? So you want "to get together and have a whinge" - even when the subject of the whinge isn't necessarily valid and is therefore a waste of time? You really are a bit of a pleb arent you "mate" ? I can understand your frustration with a system that has its faults, but perhaps if you had devoted some time to looking at how that system actually operates (ie. by speaking to someone on the phone number you dismissed offhand) You may not find it to be quite as difficult to use as you think. Whoops, I forgot, youre a fool. You probably find locating the train station difficult enough in the first place, let alone operating a ticket barrier. Kissmy ass kissmyass@hotmail.com London Shitty, UK Tue Jun 20 12:12:22 BST 2006 Oyster may not be perfect but its better than the old system! Matt, I can only assume that you never needed to buy single tickets for the tube and busses before Oyster was introduced. This system involved carrying around pockets full of loose change and queuing every time you needed to make a journey. In comparison to this, Oyster pre-pay is fantastic, despite its many, many glitches. Also, I find it surprising that you whinge so much about Oyster, wishing that the system had been better designed before implmentation, and yet you want a similar system to be provided for your car parking. If one existed would you also whinge about that, as it would be extremely unlikely to be perfect in its first incarnation? Like any software package, the Oyster system has its bugs. Public transport and its users in a city as large and as old as London present a huge amount of complexity and variety - I doubt it would be possible to design a system such as Oyster and to be able to take into account every rainy day variable on the first attempt. Eleanor eleanor11@blueyonder.co.uk London, UK Thu Aug 17 17:36:36 BST 2006 Why bother I have never paid for a London tube or rail journey (to and from work) in my life. If TFL dont like this they can take me to court again and lose again. I never will pay, and I will never use a bus (not since the old Ken introduced the 10p flat fare). I work damned hard and pay a frightening amount of tax and council tax ( as well as a slew of stealth taxes). I am not paying to go to work, the chargeing of todays high fares on Londons transport system ( which we subsidise anyway) is unfair and another way we, as London workers, are exploited. The Oyster card has nothing to do with ease of travel or ease of payment, it has everything to do with population survelance and control. I invite any of you to do a little research and see how many times this year police have requested travel details from TFL (have you any idea how hard it was to track these kind of movements before Oyster). So carry on debating the workings of a system you all seem to know virtually nothing about. Meanwhile everyday more and more of your personal lives are finding there way onto the intellegence databases, which people like me hack into and use for our own dark purposes. Any information stored anywhere is now accesable, so by using your oystercard everytime you make a journey, or plan one, or leave your house unattended , you are being monitered, but by who? I would say wake up, but why bother? At least with your heads in the sand you wont see it coming Jonny Jonny.alpha@yahoo.com London, England Sat Aug 26 15:08:06 BST 2006 Paranoid People You don't have to fill in forms to get an oyster card, it's anonymous, you just walk into a shop, give them £3, and walk out, your name is not connected to the card in any way whatsoever. So let's have a little less "THE WALLS ARE WATCHING EVERY MOVE YOU MAKE". I gotta admit, I didn't want to get an oyster card myself for exactly the same reason, but it turns out they can't trace your every steps with em anyway. Nuff said. Conspiracy Theorist DontPanicItsNotReallyAConspiracy@arrrrrrrrgh.helpme.com London, England Fri Sep 01 10:37:09 BST 2006 Truth direct from TFL I understand what you are saying, but this is not a consprisy theory or even mild parionia. This is information provided freely by TFL. Please have a look at TFLs (suprisingly) honest answers to the data & survelliance questions. http://www.coofercat.com/wiki/OysterCardRFI The case of unregistered cards is dealt with in answer 6. You may wish to ditch your Card. Jonny jonny.alpha@yahoo.com London, England Mon Sep 04 18:08:57 BST 2006 Faulty comparison > Regular commuters who simply buy an old-fashioned > ticket (aka ?Travelcard?) and push them through > the little slots in the ticket barriers don?t get > this problem. If the system is set up so that they > forget to ?slot out? (or whatever the phrase is), > they don?t get shafted. Or slotted, or whatever. > The reason is because they've declared their > intended journey up-front, so forgetting to > "close" the transaction doesn't really matter. This is the same for Oyster cards containing a travelcard. You don't have to touch out - or in, for that matter - because all journeys (within zones you're covered for) are covered by the travelcard anyway. You're talking about `prepay`/`pay as you go`, but that's not the only way of using an Oyster card. Poldie poldie@gmail.com london Tue Sep 19 19:12:47 BST 2006 No no no... I've been studying the subject of Usability and HCI for a while also. I think the benefits of Oyster in terms of UI Usability are: (1) Easier than old system - old system confused me when I first came to London. New one is simple - self-service and it's informative (?Press this and that?). (2) Touch Screen - How simpler UI can you get? Large flipping icons to press. A baby could use this! (3) Check my balance at home online - sweet. Print off my journey history to get my tax back from travel to and from work, as I'm self-employed ;-). Doesn?t the interface even allow languages to be changed? Come on. I rest my case. I think you may be a little fussy. Virgo perhaps? I?m not happy with the cost of the tube though. Oh, and about the issue with not being told to ?swipe in and out properly otherwise you will get charged? ? TFL now warn us frequently about this also. Damn, I?m so good. I should be getting a job with TFL? Ioan noemail@email.no London, UK Tue Sep 19 20:47:53 BST 2006 Oyster system does not work as it should I got rumbled with a £20 Penalty today at london bridge by the twit guards at London Bridge station. Not because I had no ticket. But because even though I had renued my Oyster online it wasnt activated by the readers at London bridge. My oyster was going to run out on the 5th novemeber so like a good commuter i topped up my card on the 3rd Nov to start today on the 6Th. So i get up this morning go to catch the bus to the station and i am rejected. Manage to get a lift to Bexleyheath station . Again the ticket isnt valid. So i am worried that even tho i have a receipr maybe my funds failed on my debit card. So anyway i am let though without any question at my local station and wonder if i have to activate it at London bridge. Get to london bridge and it fails again.. Now i am very cross and upset that again the system in the country has let me down. The guard at london bridge talks to me like im some sort of criminal this makes me lose my rag and call him an arshole besause he jumps to conclusions. I show my damn receipt to him and he says he cant to nothing about it and that i will have to be issued with a 26 day penalty as i cannot afford to pay the travel i also get tuts and stupid a-hole looks because i have been let down by my Bank in them issuing me a new chip n pin number (thats a whole other story. After i am let through with a penalty i call TFLs abbysmal customer "support" and tell them my problem. The first dopey cust support lady puts me on hold to go and check, 15 mins later still the on hold music is playing. So i put the phone down and call again and speak to some other twit who informs me that my oyster WAS sucsessfully added with another months and i need to activate it at london bridge. So i say i did try it and it didnt work so she comes back after asking someone and says it has to be a damn LU barrier to activate it. What i ask is the point of that, this defeats the whole point of oyster and makes it a nightmare. I dont use the tube i use the bus and overground but i cannot have the bus and overground without the tube. So why would i have to use the underground barrier to activate when i cannot get there in the first place. she says sorry i cannot help you this is the way it is and i will have to get the ticket from a local newsagents if i want it valid to use on the local station. so system is badly thought out as others have said and now i have a penalty for a journey i already paid for but was impossible to activate untill i got to a LU station. I think the carboard tickets are better even though the machines stop reading those too after many uses of taking out of wallet and into machine etc etc they get crumples and worn. ALL the staff too that work for LU and SE are extreemely rude to us customers who pay their bloody wages. rant over thanks John Cusick j.cusick@ntlworld.com Bexleyheath, UK Mon Nov 06 12:44:46 GMT 2006 dude - just cos you dont know how to use it... doesnt make the system crap. if you dont use the underground, why on earth did you choose an underground station to pick it up from? wee bit silly. you can top-up from almost all newsagents in london. they do it on the spot. also, if you ordered it online then it tells you on pretty much every page where and when you will need to pick it up - if you didnt read that then is it the system that needs improving or you? i expect this will instigate one or three hundred angry responses but i work for tfl. i work with the system. by the way, there is no hold music on our phones so your talking bull. i get fed up with with dealing with morons who have a bee in their bonnet, calling up and complaining when it is simply their misinterpretation of how to use their card. of course there is going to be cases where tfl screw up, but why is it so difficult to consider that it may actually be your own mistakes which mess up your journey to work. typical britain isn't it - blaming everyone else before ourselves. perhaps a little more research, logical thought and patience and everything will seem a little brighter. so stop you whingeing tommo tomm@tommo.co.uk london, uk Tue Nov 14 12:16:04 GMT 2006 Failed Cards I have had to fill in a failed card form because my chip does not work any more. So I get the form, fill it in, not only does it ask for my address, phone number and oyster card number, it also asks for my security code, in this case my mother's maiden name. Surely this is hardly security. WTF? Someone could easily take this information that I have written down and duplicate or steal my card?? any suggestions? andy britishracinggreen@hotmail.com london Thu Nov 16 14:31:09 GMT 2006 New regulations from 19th Nov - Make Users responsible for System Errors The onus will be on users when a system error occurs, users will be able to phone a number to plead their case (requiring more time effort and energy of the user) I want to lobby a petition against this whole oystercard system as much of it is unfair and confusing. The whole thing is far too complicated and confused really. I have spoken to TFL Call operators and had one piece of information and a complete contrast in person at a station. Why should users be responsible for a system failure?!?!? thats not logical for me, its a get out clause for a poorly implemented & designed system. IF ANYONE IS INTERESTED IN JOINING MY PETITION I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW. The petition will ask for these prevelent flaws to be fixed and for the onus to not be on the user who is not at fault. sam s sam.sherlock@gmail.com London, England Sat Nov 18 13:47:18 GMT 2006 tommo sums it up perfectly for me The message from tommo above (assuming it really is from a tfl staff member), captures perfectly the "fsck you" attitude of the tfl staff. If users make mistakes then it must be their fault right? But read the article, because thats the whole point. Oyster is a confusing, self-contradicting system that leads to user errors. Naturally the users get blamed because the staff are as arrogant as the system. tonto UK Sun Nov 19 11:30:53 GMT 2006 well im pleased others agree tommy ur a typical public transport employee type WYSIWYG Tue Nov 21 09:54:10 GMT 2006 3rd in a row I'm on my third Oyster card this year as the first one failed after leaving it next to my mobile and the 2nd card was not communicating properly with the oyster readers on the buses and tube barriers. The cardboard tickets with the magnetic strip never gave me any trouble. At least the ticket office bloke at Elephant and Castle didn't ask me to fill in the form and gave me a new card by asking me for my password. Martin P martin@radio-babes.co.uk London, UK Tue Nov 21 19:29:50 GMT 2006 Nothing better to moan about So let's get one thing straight. I don't live or work in London and only visit The City once or twice a year but I do have an Oyster Card. I think they are extremely convenient, clever in their operation and, as Oyster pay as you go single fares are now cheaper than cash fares (something I don't think you mention) surely this is the way forward even taking into account the £3 deposit payable if pay as you go only is selected. Whilst I can understand your issues with exit gates left open etc or forgetting to touch out, now the new rules have come into force you'll soon remember! It's probably a revenue thing that has caused TfL/LU to bring in the maximum fare thing in the first place until you touch out. If this prevents or reduces fraud on the system perhaps this will reduce the amount of increases needed to run the system and thus make your travelcard/season tickets cheaper in the long run. To be quite honest, I wish we had a similar system in and around Manchester. Findlay Colquhoun mail@FindlayColquhoun.com Bolton, UK Wed Nov 22 14:29:24 GMT 2006 the fact the fact that you do not commute daily like i have to doesnt give you the whole right to make a proper judgment. I have a terrible service on my line with lots of standing and now prices are going up in January is just unfair WYSIWYG Tue Dec 05 17:13:44 GMT 2006 Oyster Nightmare Nice article. I can see now why Oyster is a nightmare from a UI perspective. I've just finished writing an article about all the times I've been caught out and had to pay the full fare. http://www.robfisher.net/blog/archive/2007/01/07/oyster-idiocy/ Rob Fisher robfisher@gmail.com London, UK Sun Jan 07 19:08:08 GMT 2007 Misrepresentation I recently got a contract to work at Hackney. I had two choices! Drive there or take the underground from Chesham. my partner already had an "Oyster", but i purchased a new one through my company account with the "MAX" top-up. Well! much to my surprise, it was not valid on the "cross london" Silverlink service. Well! your going to say, You should have checked it out first!! I would agree, but as a seasoned "Oyster" user, I use the Chiltern line to marylebone with my "Oyster" Card and this line is not portrayed on the TFL underground map. The misrepresentation is that I elected to use the train to make my journey, first by The Chiltern Line, then the hammesmith and City Line, then the victoria Line, then the Silverlink line to hackney. It appears that I can use my Oyster on The "Unpublished" Chiltern line, but cannot use my Oyster on the "Published" Silverlink North London Line. To make matters worse, my partner (The Main user of Oyster) is deaf and when changing from Silverlink to The Victoria line tried to authenticate her journey, after paying an additional £2 for the privilage did not hear that her ticket had not been validated. Consequently we were told that the journey would be charged at the full amount. It's ok to hear the authentication, but it is difficult or impossible to hear the lack of 'beep' during the rush hour. This is direct discrimination to disabled persons. I would like to instigate legal proceedings against TFL and wondred if you know of any pressure group that might support me in my quest Thanks Ted Beagley Ted Beagley info@tedbeagley.com Chesham Met Line, UK Mon Mar 05 06:55:48 GMT 2007 Top-up at terminal 1 2 3 or 4? Another rainy day scenario: I elected a station for my credit card top-up so that I could use my oyster card after arriving at Heathrow Airport. The problem was that I was bumped to another flight and arrived at a different terminal to the one I expected. I had to touch in to get to the other terminal, then touch out to get my top-up, then touch back in to get on the tube. I spent a few minutes with a staff member trying to work out if I could avoid getting shafted with the second fare, but it didn't seem possible. That being said, I like the oyster system. I typically get shafted on the cityrail network when the person in front of me has an invalid ticket. They get though on my ticket and then I'm left with an 'invalid' ticket which won't let me out. It's not so bad with the oyster system, because you need to *your* card to touch out, so you have nothing to worry about if you accidently touch another person out. Robbie retsil@iinet.net.au Sydney, Australia Sun May 06 12:38:03 BST 2007 public transport here Oyster problems must be another London thing. In Hong Kong it works pretty well, but then it is accepted for any journey in the network, underground or overground. Shanghai has a similar pre-payment card system (not Oyster) for underground, buses, cross river ferries - even taxi's take it. So you don't need to buy a public transport ticket or pay a fare any other way. Of course, you can pay cash if you prefer. Here, they do have this missed swipe problem from time to time, but the fare is taken on trust at the exit gate. Not surprisingly, 60-70% of subway users have one of these cards. The only thing people here have complained about is paying a 2 pnds deposit for the card, and what the transport company is doing with the interest generated from all this money. tim tim_pryce@hotmail.com shanghai, china Thu May 10 15:30:44 BST 2007 student oyster scam If you lose normal oyster travelcards, you get can get a full replacement card with the remaining travel on it. If you lose a student card you get a new card and a pro rata refund. So if you have a one year student course, buy a year card, lose it, get a refund at the year rate, have to buy the remainder in months. Year daily rate is cheaper than the monthly daily rate so £200 out of pocket! BASTARDS scotland fulham, UK Thu May 24 12:06:41 BST 2007 is time a factor? Hi ok i forgot to touch out last week and just went through the open gate by mistake now im supposed to go on the tube tomorrow. if i go through the gates which are bound to be open and touch out instead then will i be deducted the full price? is time a factor? jack lonecub@btinternet.com Thu Jun 14 20:55:33 BST 2007 Great article Excellent analysis. A good example of an Oyster gotcha is one that happened to me recently. At a very busy station (Liverpool St) in the morning rush hour I touched in and went through the gates, only to be refused exit at the other end because there was no credit on my card. What had happened was that my card had actually been refused at the start, but because of the morning crush I'd accidentally tailgated the person in front of me, and just carried on without noticing. However, a seriously unpleasant guard refused to believe me, and asserted that the system was infallible and I must have skipped the barrier on entry. I was threatened with the police if I didn't pay a 20 quid on the spot fine. This is clearly a system and not a user issue, as your article makes clear. Should be required reading for Tfl... James Bridle http://shorttermmemoryloss.com London, UK Thu Jul 26 11:04:47 BST 2007 Another Oyster Card "Scam" Everyday I travel from Ealing Broadway to London Bridge via Paddington (it's the quickest route) typically using an Oyster weekly travel card. Yesterday, I inadvertently forget to renew, but as I had some pre-pay cash on my card the barrier still let me through, unaware of my missed renewal and the same on the way home. So now I have been charged two incomplete journey fares- as pre-pay is not valid on the mainline - which, of course, created a negative balance on my card. This morning I renewed my weekly, but when I tried to cross the barrier I was refused (because of the outstanding negative balance it turns out). I then told I had to go to the ticket office and hence stand in a long queue, forcing me to miss two trains and hence be late for work. My only option was to pay three pounds to clear the negative balance; for anything else I would have to go to an Underground Station (surely EB is such??). Anyway, 2 questions (for TFL): 1) Why do the barriers at Ealing Broadway allow me onto the mainline platforms when I clearly don't have a valid ticket - mainline & tube should have separate barriers - from a ticketing point of view they are separate, so why not from a barrier point of view? 2) When I renewed my weekly at the machine, why does it not insist that I clear the negative balance or given that I have a valid weekly, let me through the barriers anyway. (If I had one card for pre-pay and another for the weekly this would not be a problem and surely this should be the same if you carry both methods on one card>) The time-wasted one has to go through to rectify these errors is rarely worth the monetary value involved. As I am not willing to allow the same situation to arise again I will be using a paper ticket from now on. Richard Ealing Thu Oct 04 14:38:42 BST 2007 Great Moments in Crime At around 5.30 p.m. yesterday, I made my usual 'commuting' bus journey home on bus No. 436. I was dog tired, completely knackered after work and my mind was definitely not on my pay-as-you-go Oyster card. BIG MISTAKE!!! I shuffled onto the bus and, as I recall later was unable to reach the validator. People left the bus and I shuffled further into its dank interior (My mind was still definitely elsewhere). The Revenue Protection Squad then boarded the bus and I mechanically presented my Oyster. The inspector's hand held fraud-detector instrument hovered just a little too long on my card and the sickening thought went through my head that I might have forgotten to validate the bloody thing. My worst fears were confirmed when 'der Fuhrer' told me that the card was not validated. I then stated that I had forgotten - this was of course true. I then became the fall-guy(girl) in a ritual of public humiliation. Speaking loudly he told me that I had incurred a £20.00 fine which I stated I did not think I should pay as I had committed no crime. He then confiscated my card and took it to another area of the bus where he engaged in a conspicuous conversation with his two colleagues. At length, after I became exasperated with the length of the process and started vaguely wondering if I would be forced to go all the way to the termination point of the route, I'm afraid I lost it and said "Just when are you going to give me my f......g ticket back"? He then came back to me and asked me for my name and address in a loud voice (he obviously thought he needed to make a public example of me) and finally produced a ticket from a device that made a whirring noise so loud that it would surely have woken any poor slob dozing in the back seats. I'm sure these noxious individuals undergo training with role play because when I stated, "You are making me out to be a criminal", he replied in leaden tones, "I am not making you out to be a criminal", representing me not only as a fraudster, but one either desperate enough to trot out the same old tired scenarios presented at their training sessions, paranoid or both. Again, as has been pointed out by others on this site, all this could be avoided if only passengers had to pass through a barrier before being admitted on to any transport system, be it tube or bus. Maybe I AM slightly paranoid, because I am thinking that the lack of barriers is just another crafty way of fleecing passengers. Just keep your wits about you and focus on The Card, or risk paying a handsome tribute of £20.00 to TfL. Why get people to travel by tube and pay only maximum fare when if they go by Bendy Bus you can lift £20.00 from them for the capital crime of lack of focus, preoccupation with what to cook for dinner or even deep down fatigue. TfL sucks like nothing else!!! In Anger and Frustration, Roberta Farr Roberta Farr roberta.farr@hotmail.co.uk London, United Kingdom Fri Nov 09 21:07:25 GMT 2007 This is silly, you have merely pin-pointed one significant problem with the oyster card (touching in and out), which isn't actually as hard or as complicated as you seem to make out! Having found no other real fault, you come to the conclusion that the name of the card is a problem, I will go no further on this ridiculous comment. Perhaps if we were all similar to apes, on the grounds that touching a big yellow circle with our wallets was too complicated, then your silly irrelevant article could be taken into consideration. But that is not the case. You do not have any real cons for the use of the card and so please keep quiet. I am glad I no longer see hundreds of paper tickets on the floors of my local tube station (not for the sake of the environment). bob Sat Dec 08 23:53:21 GMT 2007 Oystercard problems The Online Oystercard system is a mine of useless information whilst it actively obstructs you finding out something useful ; like how much credit you have left! Mr Angry London, England Wed Feb 13 11:14:29 GMT 2008 Lost Oyster I lost my pay as you go Oyster card for which I ordered a replacement. Recently I found it again and used it as a spare, as it had credit and seemed to work, for family members if they went into town. Finally the credit run out and I could not top it up. I logged onto my Oyster account to see that particular card was stopped - assuming because of the fact I reported it lost. I rang the helpline and asked a logical question to the operator if they can re-activate it - to which the anticipated "computer says no" reply was received. Apparently I have to buy a new Oyster card with a deposit of £3 and discard the perfectly functional one I have to hand. So much for Ken trying to be green by introducing congestion/ emssisions charging schemes but hey its ok to dump plastic into waste sites. Now that's where a use case is missing in tfl's Oyster card s/w design! Grrrrr! Also anyone wanting to avoid the rip off 0845 helpline number might want to try: 0207 2277 886. Tipu sattar Camberley, Surrey, UK Thu Feb 28 15:58:45 GMT 2008 What is wrong with you people? Touching in and out is the simplest thing in the world. Alright, when the system malfunctions that's annoying and it's interesting to here from those who've been genuinely shafted, while customer service is generally pretty shoddy and the Oyster website isn't as easy to use as it should be. But to forget to touch in when getting on a bus and then when caught swear at the employee and call them a Nazi?! To not notice that your card has been refused while walking through a barrier, open or not? Have you ever walked out of a shop with some goods and 'forgotten to pay?' As for the question of which lines it works on or not, that's a result of the dumbass decision to split the transport companies up and not an inherent fault in the Oyster system. The overground companies don't want to pay for the Oyster infrastructure but frankly they should be forced to, and fortunately some of them are adopting it. The Oyster system works; broken-up train companies don't. As someone who lives in South London (have you heard of it, TFL?) I use a paper ticket, which I find infuriating compared to Oyster. I hate queuing to buy it, I hate having to get it out of my wallet and I hate trying to keep it uncrumpled. I've found Oyster to be one of the most user-friendly systems going, and for me it's one of the first steps into the future we keep seeing on TV. Paperless tickets FTW! Rich London Tue Mar 25 15:02:28 GMT 2008 i cant get a new oyster card I had applied for a new oyster card but i couldnt get a new one because i had already applied for one and you cant get a new one unless you have the previous form from your first oyster card and i dont have mine meaning i cant get another form sp how can i get another form cause if you do not have a oyster card u will get told to pay a fine . i dnt want to pay a fine denica xoxdenicaxox@hotmail.co.uk town , london Sat Mar 29 15:05:00 GMT 2008 what to do Please could you let me know how to redeem your card? Alan Hart Ilford , England Mon Apr 21 09:42:41 BST 2008 in conclusion OK, i have many points on this subject and support the author of this article, i shall now obliterate all of the opposing arguements, thank you. oyster cards are a surviellance scam and an excuse by TFL to rise fares: 1. you now pay a higher price for a paper ticket, where your journey is declared up front. this can confuse tourists and technophobes alike into paying higher fares. essentially, you are still (supposedly) paying to go from A to B, but you pay more for not adopting the surviellence based oyster card. you also cannot buy A to B tickets on your oyster card. why? where are the oyster card price lists "sorry we dont have them yet" and my dad works for TFL - crossrail. 2. if you forget to 'touch out', you get charged the maximum fare. if you cannot, 'touch out', being on overground services etc, you get charged maximum fare. if your train is canceled and you must take alternative routes, possibly having to touch in and touch out again, you then pay again. if you are redirected through zone 1, through no fault of your own (station closures, train cancelations etc), you must pay for this. you CAN get reimbursed, but the process to get your money back is torturous. ultimately, you are paying extra for things outside your sphere of influence, that actually cause you, as a commuter, an inconvenience. 3. because when oyster was implemented, TFL stupidly forgot (on purpose?) to speak with the other train companies in london and elsewhere..... so because our government made the bad decision of privatising the railways, the person/consumer/citizen/commuter/human being must now pay the maximum oyster fare (or increased paper ticket fare), PLUS the ticket fare for non-TFL railways. thanks maggy, john, tony and gordon, GREAT job. 4. in paris, because their railways are not privatised (yet), it will cost you a maximum of 75c through, what may be considered, the central district, single fare. as opposed to the average of £3 here (almost 4 euros!! over 5 times as expensive!!) 5. you also cannot see the balance on your oyster card without a) going to a reader at a station or shop b) registering your card (and everywhere you have been or will go) with TFL and checking online c) trying to get through a 'barrier' on a bus or train you cannot immediatly see how much money your card has on it. i would have implimented a tiny LED display personally. the oyster also hinders the users ability to calculate how much the journey will cost (as its all calculated 'behind closed doors') and also, in quite a few 'fringe' cases, can cause the user to pay more (or be stranded) for a miscalculation. IE: your getting on a bus and you believe you have the money on your card, it beeps and you are not allowed on, due to this floor, you must pay double for the mistake or get off? why can't i top up on the bus??? 6. the transport service that you get for all the money spent is mediocure at the best of times, commuters can look forward to crowded buses stuck in traffic with the heating turned on, crowded trains stuck in tunnels and long wait times. all the while being bombarded with giant advertising billboards like TFL doesn't have enough bloody cash already!! 7. TFL offers no compensation to illnesses, conditions and diseases caused by use of their, often dated and dirty, subway system. did u know its healthier to lick an unwashed toilet seat than travel on the underground? there are certain bacterias that can only survive in the conditions present on the underground 8. the only advantage that i can see for ticket paying customers is the ability to 'buy tickets online', but i remember in school before oyster cards, you could do the same thing and order the ticket to be collected from a station of your choosing. 1 down, 2 to go. 'its easier just to touch your card on the reader on the bus or train', the same can be achieved with season or monthly travelcards, and how many times do you see people struggle with non-functioning oysters, taking more time than the paper/cash up front system would have taken. 2 down 1 to go. 'oyser is cheaper', yes, in a perfect world, it works out cheaper. thats if it always functions correctly, fares are lowered to 'streamline' customers onto it, you touch in and out everytime and all your journeys are within 'TFL's turf'. BUT, think about how much ticket prices (or TFL's expense account) have risen due to the implimentation of the new system? new barriers, readers, patents, card manufacture/distribution, call centres, website facilities, staff training and a HUGE marketing and public relations campaign (plus any costs i missed!). millions and millions worth. we could have had a better underground and cheaper paper ticket prices by now! maybe with more staff/training and more ticket machines to accomodate people (we do have an unemployment crisis you know) we could have a faster and more efficient rail/bus system. but no 'oyster is cheaper' isn't it. its 'with the times', like thats so important when you already have a system that works. if any of us spoke to one another and had the lack of apathy to protest, the oyster card system never would have been allowed to come into existance, or be allowed to continue to exist. we seem to have forgotten that transport services are there to service us, not the other way around! im not a technophobe and i love all things electronic (bar electronic voting machines), BUT, the paper system worked pretty well for almost 100 years, why spend all that money and change now when the disadvantages outweigh the mediocure advantages. "but michael, dont you think they would have thought of all these things beforehand?" "obviously not". "ease of use", yeah ok, LIKE BUYING NORMAL PAPER TICKETS IS SO HARD. they even beep when you put them through the barrier? oyster cards are CRAP MAN, who the hell are you people defending the oyster system? can you not see that your paying more because of it? all these errors and usage problems would have been exposed in the cards beta stages, im betting it would have been considered 'ok' as TFL gain more money from charging you maximum fare or more when trains are replaced by buses, or more for paper tickets etc etc. anyway this is futile as i know most of you are pathetic or (with a bigger ego) apathetic and won't try to change anything, so i will be off to use my energies elsewhere. your ok with being screwed everyday of your working and non-working life. good day. the very concept of 'the persuit of happyness', indicates that you will always be behind it. happyness is a choice you can take right now, this very moment. www.zeitgeist.com watch the whole film Michael Rathbone Hackney, London, UK Mon Apr 21 18:06:31 BST 2008 Typical nerd view So typical! Yeah, it works perfectly fine for the 99 percent of users, but I want to use it my own way, not read the massive posters and ignore the loud announcements. I also get intimidated by people behind me who actually have some direction to go to. In result, the bastards want to charge me four pounds! Don't they understand?! This is about perfection! Does nobody understand me?! Yes I may need a life, and the oyster card may be making it easier than what I had, but where is the use case analysis? Where is the marginal user? The hopeless geek who does not want to be socialized?.... Well, evolutionary theory may have something towards the answer here. Anyway, the same applies to software development - you either make something useful for everyone and the few nerds who don't want to get it seek their niche market (dungeons and dragons, gimp masks, late night milk-shake parties, whatever), or you do some over-engineered nonsense which caters for the "super-clever" marginals who will never fit in this world and it naturally dies, despite its "superiority" (betamax or whatever, it was always the right way, people just don't understand). In short: get a life. If you're so damn better than everyone, how come you never got any girls??? Perry Mason London, England Tue Apr 22 21:38:36 BST 2008 In reply to the post of Michael Rathbone Just want to reply to your post, as I find this debate an interesting one... I decided to look at answering some of the questions/statements made in your post as it is the most recent. "Oyster cards are a surveillance scam and an excuse by TFL to rise fares" Oyster card usage will be stored for a rolling period of 60 days, no longer. However, the system is not "live" so in terms of accurate surveillance; the filtering through of journey information from any Oyster card is not instantaneous (can take up to 24 hours). Journey history is primarily observed to calculate the correct refund for customers who have been inadvertently charged the maximum fare. TfL simply does not have the resources to track 4 million customers on a pro-active daily basis, so as a result the information is used on a more reactionary way, such as looking at where there is the greatest congestion in the system is, in terms of numbers of passengers and also what times, so that improvements can be instigated to make the system more efficient and hassle-free.. Where an entry (at station of embarkation) is "seen" on the system and there is no exit showing, the customer will usually be asked where they exited the system when they call the Oystercard helpline. In 99% of these cases the customer's word is taken and the refund calculated accordingly for the customer. Pay as you go fares have not risen in the last two years, and the bus price has decreased from £1.00 to £0.90, with more discount schemes becoming available to customers, such as the "Bus & Tram Discount" card scheme which when applied to any registered Oystercard, (with the relevant accompanying Photocard) gives the holder half the above price on the bus and tram fares. As a general rule, most public transportation prices do go up, year by year, but what must be appreciated in the equation are such factors as rising fuel prices and having the facilities and staff necessary to satisfy consumer demand in the expanding customer base of passengers using that particular transport system in London. "1. You now pay a higher price for a paper ticket" Yup, that's an incentive to get an Oyster. If a person, say for example, a non-resident of London is coming to stay for a just a weekend, I would strongly advise that they get a daily paper Travelcard, for the zones they are travelling through, (this is £0.50 more expensive than the Oystercard capping rate), because this is may be easier more conventional in comparison to their system of ticketed travel back home. Also if they get confused by the Oystercard system of touching in and out, and incur the maximum fare as a result, it could result in inconvenience when obtaining a refund, as they may only have a non-UK bank account to refund to. "Oyster card price lists "sorry we don?t have them yet" " The guide to Fares and Tickets (published twice annually, usually 2nd January (that?s when season tickets go up in price) and then 30th September) will tell you how much a journey costs in what zonal region that you are travelling through, peak time and off-peak. It will also have all the relevant information relating to Capping, Season Tickets, Overground fares, and also Bus fare prices. Those guides are available at all tube stations, or alternatively online, downloadable as a PDF file. Alternatively, the "Fare Finder" on www.tfl.gov.uk is the most accurate means of finding out a single fare for your journey. These are just some of the ?self-help? options for customers. You can also call the helpline, or Travel information centre, or ask at any Tube station ticket office for the specific price of an Oystercard journey. Also there will normally be a list of Pay as you go single and return prices on a poster next to the ticket office. ?TFL stupidly forgot (on purpose?)? to speak with the other train companies in London and elsewhere? To my knowledge, the group of privatised train companies that are maintained under the National Rail umbrella were approached at the beginning when Oyster was implemented and although more and more of these companies are joining the Oyster smart card system of ticket-less travel, not all wish to do so at this time. Different trains, tracks and various costs can affect the calculation of a single fare system in rail travel. Under the current TfL pricing bracket system, a journey from zone one to two will cost an Oystercard user £1.50 on their Pay as you go off-peak, no matter if you are using a Tube train, ?Overground? or Docklands Light Railway train to get from A to B. Not all companies can offer a standardised rate for such a journey, across different modalities of surface transport. But as time goes on, more and more privatised rail companies in London are coming on board to the Oystercard Pay as you go single fare system. ?in paris, because their railways are not privatised (yet), it will cost you a maximum of 75c through, what may be considered, the central district, single fare. as opposed to the average of £3 here? If you travel in zone 1 only, you will spend no more than £1.50 on the Pay as you go partition of your Oystercard for a single journey, peak and off-peak. To make a single zone journey in any of the other zones will cost you no more than £1.00, on the Pay as you go partition of your Oystercard, peak and off-peak. When you travel from one zone to the next, obviously the price goes up in what you pay for a single fare. ?you also cannot see the balance on your oyster card without a) going to a reader at a station or shop b) registering your card (and everywhere you have been or will go) with TFL and checking online c) trying to get through a 'barrier' on a bus or train? The above options are all valid ways of checking your Oystercard balance, but I would strongly advise against option c), if you are only attempting to see how much your Pay as you go balance is, as this will be recognised by the Oyster system as a start to a journey, and deduct £4.00 from the Pay as you go part of your Oystercard. Additionally, the Customer Operated Machines (which are normally used for self-service purchases) at stations are an easy way to check your balance, and also the most recent journey history. You can also call the Oystercard help line for your balance. On point b), you do not need to register your card at a station or Oyster retail outlet to set up an Oyster online account, just log on and specify an Oystercard password when you create the account. Please note that the difference in registering online and registering at a station is that having your card registered at a station or Oyster retail outlet will be the only way to activate the option of having a monthly or longer season ticket on your Oystercard. Otherwise it is set to the default of a maximum of £90.00 Pay as you go and a Seven day Season ticket. Crusader Crusader@answeredquestions.com London Thu May 01 11:22:19 BST 2008 In rsponse to the post from Michael Rathbone (Part 2) ?why can't i top up on the bus???? This facility is simply not available. There is always the option of paying the cash fare if you do not have enough Pay as you go on your Oystercard. If you have, through no fault of your own, been charged the maximum fare and your Oystercard is in a negative balance as a result, not allowing you to travel further until you top up again, you should keep the bus ticket that you paid cash for, and call the Oystercard helpline. So long as the bus ticket (your proof of additional purch | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
When designing software UIs, we can learn lessons from real-world errors (not just in software). The Oyster Card is a good recent example.
