The 12:08 service to...

[Devvy]

Why not add something like The Octopus Card for BR as well?

That's a given - we have the Oyster card for London transport, which is our version of Octopus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_card

Using it on a network wide basis presents some problems though, as you need to have credit on those type of cards first before being able to use it, so it becomes rather lumbersome for a £70 train ticket for instance.

But I'm still planning on the usage of Oyster in the early 2000s...OTL it came in 2003. So maybe 2001ish here.

PS: (OTL) I wish we could use Oyster to buy things in little cornershop and stands in the station. You can use Octopus in most small shops that are near MTR station in Hong Kong, it was brilliant.

 

[FDW]

That's a given - we have the Oyster card for London transport, which is our version of Octopus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_card

Using it on a network wide basis presents some problems though, as you need to have credit on those type of cards first before being able to use it, so it becomes rather lumbersome for a £70 train ticket for instance.

But I'm still planning on the usage of Oyster in the early 2000s...OTL it came in 2003. So maybe 2001ish here.

PS: (OTL) I wish we could use Oyster to buy things in little cornershop and stands in the station. You can use Octopus in most small shops that are near MTR station in Hong Kong, it was brilliant.

The technology was first used in the Mid-90's OTL, so maybe you can roll it out earlier than what you have planned, and have said card have those abilities. (Including an autoload ability, which would make buying high-value tickets easier)

And Yes, I know about Oyster, I just mentioned Octopus because of it's fame. (Even though it's not actually the first card of it's type)

 

[Devvy]

The technology was first used in the Mid-90's OTL, so maybe you can roll it out earlier than what you have planned, and have said card have those abilities. (Including an autoload ability, which would make buying high-value tickets easier)

And Yes, I know about Oyster, I just mentioned Octopus because of it's fame. (Even though it's not actually the first card of it's type)

Just checking about Oyster, as I'm pretty sure you're the other side of the pond

Autoload & stored credit become a bit pointless at the stage of £40+ tickets, because the vast majority of people aren't going to want to tie up that much money on a card. Besides - if a person has £45 on their card, and swipes through the gates at station A (fine), then travels to station B (which works out as a £55 ticket), what happens - especially if they don't have enough money in their account for the trip. Which they might unwittingly not realise. Either way, you need to know that they have enough money on their card to cover basically all possible journeys.

So I see this TL Oyster cards being rolled out in London, then a wider area of NSE, and then the concept being rolled out to other combined metro areas:
"Severn-side" - Cardiff, Newport & Bristol
West Midlands - the wider metropolitan area
"Merseyside" - Liverpool and Manchester
West Yorkshire - Leeds, Bradford and surrounding towns
Tyneside - Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesbrough
Central Belt - Glasgow, Edinburgh and in-between towns.

 

[FDW]

Just checking about Oyster, as I'm pretty sure you're the other side of the pond

I am (as if my listed location didn't make it obvious enough), and we actually have our own version of Oyster, which out here is known as Clipper. It's known locally for it's tortured roll-out process which is still ongoing.

Autoload & stored credit become a bit pointless at the stage of £40+ tickets, because the vast majority of people aren't going to want to tie up that much money on a card. Besides - if a person has £45 on their card, and swipes through the gates at station A (fine), then travels to station B (which works out as a £55 ticket), what happens - especially if they don't have enough money in their account for the trip. Which they might unwittingly not realise. Either way, you need to know that they have enough money on their card to cover basically all possible journeys.

In the case of a person with autoload, everything goes fine, as more money simply gets added to the card. In the other case, one of two things, A: The card can go negative (though this opens the door to abuse), or B: You simply put Add-value machines for the card inside the paid areas in addition to outside the paid areas. You could also make things even more simple by partnering with financial and offer Bank Cards and Credit Cards that have the "Oyster" card chip in them.

So I see this TL Oyster cards being rolled out in London, then a wider area of NSE, and then the concept being rolled out to other combined metro areas:
"Severn-side" - Cardiff, Newport & Bristol
West Midlands - the wider metropolitan area
"Merseyside" - Liverpool and Manchester
West Yorkshire - Leeds, Bradford and surrounding towns
Tyneside - Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesbrough
Central Belt - Glasgow, Edinburgh and in-between towns.

And I assume that all these smart cards would be designed to same standard and would be able to be used interchangeably?

 

[iainbhx]

Just checking about Oyster, as I'm pretty sure you're the other side of the pond

So I see this TL Oyster cards being rolled out in London, then a wider area of NSE, and then the concept being rolled out to other combined metro areas:
"Severn-side" - Cardiff, Newport & Bristol
West Midlands - the wider metropolitan area
"Merseyside" - Liverpool and Manchester
West Yorkshire - Leeds, Bradford and surrounding towns
Tyneside - Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesbrough
Central Belt - Glasgow, Edinburgh and in-between towns.

We have been trying to roll out such a card in the West Midlands for a while now. There are two challenges that are defeating us (apart from Walsall's special needs), firstly is "Not Invented Here" syndrome, we can't possible just take a successful system like Oyster, Octopus or Ez-Link. We have to invent our own. The second is the plethora of bus companies, a lot of which are small and don't want that costs them a penny.

 

[Geordie]

Credit: Graham Horn
Found this while looking for relevant pictures to use, of a freight train passing through Basingstoke station. The BR class 66 shown won't show up until later 90s, and the SWT livery of the Class 159 on right further gives the picture away (although the 159 could easily be cropped out). Thought it was a cool picture though, worth of sharing!

If the government actually follows through with the announced plan, then a 66 shouldn't be necessary for this train, as it looks very much like it's sneaking into Basingstoke from Reading. Last chance to get such a photo before the wires go up! In fact, unless I'm mistaken, the photographer may be standing on Basingstoke's very own Platform 5 3/4. If anybody else has caught a train from platform 5, they'll understand the phrase "hidden in plain sight" very well indeed!

 

[Geordie]

We have been trying to roll out such a card in the West Midlands for a while now. There are two challenges that are defeating us (apart from Walsall's special needs), firstly is "Not Invented Here" syndrome, we can't possible just take a successful system like Oyster, Octopus or Ez-Link. We have to invent our own. The second is the plethora of bus companies, a lot of which are small and don't want that costs them a penny.

There are rumours that DB are going to roll something similar out for the Tyne and Wear Metro. They've already changed all the ticket machines so they're all the same size and shape, and they're installing new barriers at the main stations. Again, compatability with the buses may cause some issues. It might be more costly than the current "transfare" system.

 

[Julius Vogel]

Wellington, NZ, has their own variant called the Snapper (chosen advisedly apparently), that seems to be rolling out into other cities and is used for other purchases. It is only a couple years old though and I think it will probably become quite a widespread payment mechanism.

Surely there are going to be early adopter problems here though?

 

[El Pip]

You could also make things even more simple by partnering with financial and offer Bank Cards and Credit Cards that have the "Oyster" card chip in them.

Just take the OTL Barclays Oyster card and bring it forward a few years. Technically there is no problem, RFID has been around since the 1980s and the first contactless payment cards were in the 1990s apparently. A card that could hold pre-payment, any season tickets and be used as a normal credit/debit card to cover short falls could be very popular if done correctly.

I think it would also be attractive to the banks as BR is a more attractice partner than LU, partly due to the larger network but partly because a lot more people buy things at a train station than a tube stop. If BR 'encourages' all the concessions at the stations to convert it helps build the critical mass such systems need. Plus if there is any common sense the BR system will be the one that underpins every other transport card in the country, hell it might eventually just become the travel card rather than the BR card.

If it all goes well I'm seeing a BR advert of someone turning up at a station, buying a book, getting a coffee and then jumping on a shiny new intercity, all paid for just by waving their BR smart credit card. Then arriving in London and hoping on a tube using the same card, while the voice over man talk about BR being at the cutting edge of all technology, not just trains.

 

[Dunois]

Well...I have been thinking about doing a "Spotlight on Ticketing". Just hadn't got round to it yet!

Some of the stuff you mention is interesting though. A BR Bahncard exists for the NSE region (you can still get a Network Railcard which gets you roughly 1/3 discount on off-peak fares which is pretty good. Young Person Railcard. etc etc. I admit they can be improved, a major part is having a national scheme rather then one limited to NSE though. I just point it out as there were some customer facing innovations.

One thing I can't quite decide is whether electrification of the Severn Tunnel is even possible. There seems to be a lot of opinion both ways at the moment (OTL) with regards to this. I'm guessing one feasible method would be to make the tunnel single track, then spray a new concrete lining to keep water out and electrify it. Not sure the tunnel could cope with the traffic though.

I don't see electrification of the whole GWML happening just yet. I want to sort out NSE/TfL stuff, and how its funded, to make El Pip's head explode with some form of Crossrail - which in this TL given how many trains and passengers terminate at Paddington & Liverpool Street is going to be sorely needed (as it is now OTL!).

The problem is that ticketing is not user friendly in Britain generally, this has actually become a lot worse after privatisation in some ways and the "simplification" attempted a few years ago has been anything but.

A British Rail BahnCard or Cards with varying degrees of reduction offered, would allow for part of the complexity to be removed and for the number of tickets to be reduced to around three or four types max. These could be Peak Time, Off Peak and Advance (APEX).
A 25% off BahnCard would only apply to Off Peak tickets, whereas a 50% off one priced higher could apply to all the tickets.
Conceivably something like the BahnCard100 which allow travel on the entire network for one year could also be implemented. Something along the lines of £4995 a year would be a good price. Even if merely 20 000 of these cards are sold, that's still £100m income for BR which is nothing to sneer at.
If the card is promoted to certain employers like consulting firms, the civil service and such, the number of cardholders could even reach 100 000 potentially.

Regional versions of the card could be another way of raising more income as well. Especially since places.

A tie up with a bank as El Pip proposed would be awesome, but I fear that joined up thinking of that kind will be lacking sadly.


Regarding the Severn Tunnel, I think the best option to be fair would be to shut the damm thing and build a 225 km/h rated bridge instead. There might be some scope to have a combined road/rail bridge for the Second Severn Crossing TTL?

 

[FDW]

Just take the OTL Barclays Oyster card and bring it forward a few years. Technically there is no problem, RFID has been around since the 1980s and the first contactless payment cards were in the 1990s apparently. A card that could hold pre-payment, any season tickets and be used as a normal credit/debit card to cover short falls could be very popular if done correctly.

I think it would also be attractive to the banks as BR is a more attractice partner than LU, partly due to the larger network but partly because a lot more people buy things at a train station than a tube stop. If BR 'encourages' all the concessions at the stations to convert it helps build the critical mass such systems need. Plus if there is any common sense the BR system will be the one that underpins every other transport card in the country, hell it might eventually just become the travel card rather than the BR card.

If it all goes well I'm seeing a BR advert of someone turning up at a station, buying a book, getting a coffee and then jumping on a shiny new intercity, all paid for just by waving their BR smart credit card. Then arriving in London and hoping on a tube using the same card, while the voice over man talk about BR being at the cutting edge of all technology, not just trains.

The first contactless card payment system for Public Transit was Seoul's UPass in 1996, and the tech itself was developed in 1983, so that should make the timeline clear. And another manner in which use can be encouraged is by offering a small discount for using the card over cash.

 

[El Pip]

Conceivably something like the BahnCard100 which allow travel on the entire network for one year could also be implemented. Something along the lines of £4995 a year would be a good price. Even if merely 20 000 of these cards are sold, that's still £100m income for BR which is nothing to sneer at.
If the card is promoted to certain employers like consulting firms, the civil service and such, the number of cardholders could even reach 100 000 potentially.

Congratulations on winning the Baron Lambury award for confusing large income with a profitable idea!

On such a scheme BR gets a big chunk of income upfront yes, but also loses the income from all the journeys taken on such cards. Whether the former balances out the latter determines whether or not the endeavour is worthwhile. As an added problem people with the card can be expected to generally travel more than they did before, because each journey is now 'free', so you also have higher costs from the card scheme than the base case (extra wear and tear and less income as you have one less seat you can sell).

For all that maybe it is a good idea maybe it isn't, but just selling a lot of something does not automatically make it a success. Consider the career of your award's namesake.

 

[Nicola]

Congratulations on winning the Baron Lambury award for confusing large income with a profitable idea!

On such a scheme BR gets a big chunk of income upfront yes, but also loses the income from all the journeys taken on such cards. Whether the former balances out the latter determines whether or not the endeavour is worthwhile. As an added problem people with the card can be expected to generally travel more than they did before, because each journey is now 'free', so you also have higher costs from the card scheme than the base case (extra wear and tear and less income as you have one less seat you can sell).

For all that maybe it is a good idea maybe it isn't, but just selling a lot of something does not automatically make it a success. Consider the career of your award's namesake.

travel only has a value up until the point of consumption ... there is no 'scrap value' in a journey that has happened ...

 

[JimTheB]

More logical LU interchange

If the canon LU hasn't advanced too far, could I please have the District and alt-Fleet lines intersecting at Upton Park rather than West Ham? West Ham station merely has a bunch of dreary council estates to serve, whereas UP has, well, guess where I'm coming from