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As others have said, EMV doesn't have to phone home, and London's TfL system often doesn't straight away because they might not even have a connection (my bus t
by PaulRobinson 3y ago
As others have said, EMV doesn't have to phone home, and London's TfL system often doesn't straight away because they might not even have a connection (my bus this morning definitely didn't). It's also not charging the payment immediately, because the charge is unknown at that point - you might not know until the end of the day or week what the charge is, because travel rates are capped and dependent on the zones you're traveling in.
As to the gates being default closed, well, gates at train/tube stations can accept a range of things being presented to them including smartphone/watch payments, bank card contactless, Oyster card, Oyster season tickets, paper tickets with magnetic stripes, paper/magnetic season tickets, and Freedom passes (technically a special sort of Oyster season ticket, I think).
If you're traveling with a paper/magnetic ticket, you're going to have to insert it into the mag reader and wait for it to spit it out before it opens the gates. Can't be swiped.
That, combined with the fact TfL already have a problem with revenue protection (some people jump gates), albeit not quite as bad as you'll see in most of Paris or Rome, means they're going to keep the gates closed by default.
Fare dodging in Tokyo is almost unthinkable. Social constructs mean they can do something at those gates few other cities of that size can get away with.
- kalleboo 3y agoInteresting. So there's no verification of the card validity at all? I assumed at least they took an auth hold like gas stations do. If I call and get my card blocked I can use that now-invalid card and ride for free? So why then are the EMV card readers so damn slow? Is it just a NFC vs FeliCa thing? The Tokyo metro system also supports paper (mag stripe) tickets through the same fare gates. Those are also spit through the gate super fast. On a failed read, the gates close nearly-instantly, I don't think they would actually aid in fare avoidance, you do see people run into them painfully when their card has too low balance.
- noodlesUK 3y agoFrom personal experience, if you use an EMV card that has been blocked on TfL services, you will sometimes be able to travel. I did this by accident once. I could see TfL repeatedly trying to debit my account with incorrect information for about a week. I doubt all of their readers are offline, and I suspect that a card gets blacklisted if it declines. I suspect this is also because they only charge at the end of the day once they have computed the correct fare (with capping etc)
- kalleboo 3y agoInteresting anecdote! Thanks. I would have definitely assumed that at least train gates (but not buses I guess) would attempt a hold!
- PaulRobinson 3y ago> On a failed read, the gates close nearly-instantly, I don't think they would actually aid in fare avoidance, you do see people run into them painfully when their card has too low balance. I'm talking about the instance where somebody doesn't even scan: they just walk through. That is possible in some stations in London, and it's perhaps not a coincidence that's where the worst fare avoidance occurs.