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> The TfL contactless system doesn’t generally overcharge, as long as you properly tap-in and tap-out. > The contactless system is substantially more capable f

by lol768 2y ago

> The TfL contactless system doesn’t generally overcharge, as long as you properly tap-in and tap-out. > The contactless system is substantially more capable for handling these issues correctly, and generally better at charging less, than the older Oyster system. Nonsense, everyone with a railcard is routinely overcharged, by design.

bmsleight_ 2y ago
Any facts to back up this assumption ? "TfL said the amount refunded equated to less than 0.001% of annual fare £3bn revenue collected via pay as you go with contactless."
- lol768 2y ago
  It's not an assumption. If you have a railcard, you cannot associate it with a contactless card. That's just not a supported task. Therefore if you travel off-peak, you will be charged more than you would if you had used an Oyster card because you will be charged the public rate instead of the discounted fare you were actually entitled to pay. It's very simple. https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/free-and-discounted-travel/national-railcard-discount https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/free-and-discounted-travel/national...
  - switch007 2y ago
    Another reason to use Oyster (in addition to the fact that people can access their Oyster history currently, it's just Contactless that can't AIUI)
avianlyric 2y ago
You’re talking about something completely different. The fact that the contactless system doesn’t support railcards doesn’t change the fact that it’s much better at performing the core task of computing people’s movements through TfLs systems, and charging the correct amount. Oyster system is fundamentally limited by its use of stored values on the physical cards, making it hard for the system to correctly issues retroactive refunds. TfL does its best to automate this, if you regularly use the same station, buts it’s an imperfect system. TfL have long acknowledged the issue with railcards, and not supporting them on contactless is hardly “by design”. It’s substantially harder to support railcards, and perform correct enforcement of them, with contactless cards. There’s no way of meaningfully marking a contactless card as being paired with a railcard, which would allow ticket inspectors to actually know that when performing enforcement. It would be come trivial for people to defraud TfL using railcards, if there was no mechanism for allowing spot checks on people travelling. To make the argument that not supporting railcards is “by design”, you also need to explain why TfL accept railcards on the Oyster system. TfL are under no obligation whatsoever to support national railcards. So if the lack of support for railcards on contactless was a revenue maximisation choice, why don’t they just get rid of the railcard discount entirely?
- lol768 2y ago
  > It’s substantially harder to support railcards, and perform correct enforcement of them, with contactless cards. There’s no way of meaningfully marking a contactless card as being paired with a railcard, which would allow ticket inspectors to actually know that when performing enforcement. It would be come trivial for people to defraud TfL using railcards, if there was no mechanism for allowing spot checks on people travelling. I'm not sure I buy this. Aren't TfL given privileged access to be able to retrieve back the FPAN (or if not that, a customer-specific Payment Account Reference, as defined by EMVCo)? If they weren't, the Contactless travel history portal wouldn't be able to display travel journey undertaken using Apple/Google Pay - and yet this usecase does work, so clearly there is a capability to associate payments made using different DPANs and the underlying physical card and to recognise those transactions are belonging to a single customer. Subsequently, there is clearly a customer-specific identifier that TfL could, if it desired to do so, tie together with a record which states the customer owns a railcard (after validating the railcard number using the National Rail API). Why do you think RID2 wouldn't be able to ask a server to check this at inspection time?
  - avianlyric 2y ago
    > Aren't TfL given privileged access to be able to retrieve back the FPAN Yes they are. > Why do you think RID2 wouldn't be able to ask a server to check this at inspection time? I don’t. But RID2 is brand new, and they only finished the complete rollout last year. I don’t know why you expect TfL to immediately start supporting railcards, and it doesn’t change the fact that for the majority of the time that TfL has supported contactless, it’s not been possible for them to validate railcard association with their original RID. Nothing you’ve said in anyway support your original assertion that TfL’s contactless system was deliberately designed to not support railcards, and certainly doesn’t support your implied assertion that TfL doesn’t support railcards on contactless for nefarious purposes, as opposed to simply not having the technology developed.
    - lol768 2y ago
      > Yes they are. Right, so when you said "there’s no way of meaningfully marking a contactless card as being paired with a railcard", there was nothing of substance to actually support that assertion. What you've proven to me is that TfL are in exactly the position where they could deliver this if they wanted to and put their minds to it, but it nonetheless hasn't happened. Just like Oval (how late is that now?) I am quite cynical about TfL, yes, and suspect that they just see this as likely to cause a financial hit when it comes to revenue, which is probably why it hasn't been prioritised. The status quo is a convenient one. I'm sure it'll happen one day when the tech debt of Oyster forces it to happen, but it won't be done proactively for passenger benefit.

by lol768 2y ago

bmsleight_ 2y ago

Any facts to back up this assumption ? "TfL said the amount refunded equated to less than 0.001% of annual fare £3bn revenue collected via pay as you go with contactless."

lol768 2y ago
It's not an assumption. If you have a railcard, you cannot associate it with a contactless card. That's just not a supported task. Therefore if you travel off-peak, you will be charged more than you would if you had used an Oyster card because you will be charged the public rate instead of the discounted fare you were actually entitled to pay. It's very simple. https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/free-and-discounted-travel/national-railcard-discount https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/free-and-discounted-travel/national...
- switch007 2y ago
  Another reason to use Oyster (in addition to the fact that people can access their Oyster history currently, it's just Contactless that can't AIUI)

avianlyric 2y ago

You’re talking about something completely different. The fact that the contactless system doesn’t support railcards doesn’t change the fact that it’s much better at performing the core task of computing people’s movements through TfLs systems, and charging the correct amount. Oyster system is fundamentally limited by its use of stored values on the physical cards, making it hard for the system to correctly issues retroactive refunds. TfL does its best to automate this, if you regularly use the same station, buts it’s an imperfect system. TfL have long acknowledged the issue with railcards, and not supporting them on contactless is hardly “by design”. It’s substantially harder to support railcards, and perform correct enforcement of them, with contactless cards. There’s no way of meaningfully marking a contactless card as being paired with a railcard, which would allow ticket inspectors to actually know that when performing enforcement. It would be come trivial for people to defraud TfL using railcards, if there was no mechanism for allowing spot checks on people travelling. To make the argument that not supporting railcards is “by design”, you also need to explain why TfL accept railcards on the Oyster system. TfL are under no obligation whatsoever to support national railcards. So if the lack of support for railcards on contactless was a revenue maximisation choice, why don’t they just get rid of the railcard discount entirely?

lol768 2y ago
> It’s substantially harder to support railcards, and perform correct enforcement of them, with contactless cards. There’s no way of meaningfully marking a contactless card as being paired with a railcard, which would allow ticket inspectors to actually know that when performing enforcement. It would be come trivial for people to defraud TfL using railcards, if there was no mechanism for allowing spot checks on people travelling. I'm not sure I buy this. Aren't TfL given privileged access to be able to retrieve back the FPAN (or if not that, a customer-specific Payment Account Reference, as defined by EMVCo)? If they weren't, the Contactless travel history portal wouldn't be able to display travel journey undertaken using Apple/Google Pay - and yet this usecase does work, so clearly there is a capability to associate payments made using different DPANs and the underlying physical card and to recognise those transactions are belonging to a single customer. Subsequently, there is clearly a customer-specific identifier that TfL could, if it desired to do so, tie together with a record which states the customer owns a railcard (after validating the railcard number using the National Rail API). Why do you think RID2 wouldn't be able to ask a server to check this at inspection time?
- avianlyric 2y ago
  > Aren't TfL given privileged access to be able to retrieve back the FPAN Yes they are. > Why do you think RID2 wouldn't be able to ask a server to check this at inspection time? I don’t. But RID2 is brand new, and they only finished the complete rollout last year. I don’t know why you expect TfL to immediately start supporting railcards, and it doesn’t change the fact that for the majority of the time that TfL has supported contactless, it’s not been possible for them to validate railcard association with their original RID. Nothing you’ve said in anyway support your original assertion that TfL’s contactless system was deliberately designed to not support railcards, and certainly doesn’t support your implied assertion that TfL doesn’t support railcards on contactless for nefarious purposes, as opposed to simply not having the technology developed.
  - lol768 2y ago
    > Yes they are. Right, so when you said "there’s no way of meaningfully marking a contactless card as being paired with a railcard", there was nothing of substance to actually support that assertion. What you've proven to me is that TfL are in exactly the position where they could deliver this if they wanted to and put their minds to it, but it nonetheless hasn't happened. Just like Oval (how late is that now?) I am quite cynical about TfL, yes, and suspect that they just see this as likely to cause a financial hit when it comes to revenue, which is probably why it hasn't been prioritised. The status quo is a convenient one. I'm sure it'll happen one day when the tech debt of Oyster forces it to happen, but it won't be done proactively for passenger benefit.