The First Contactless Only Station (No Oyster) 

eddy66t6 😂😂😂😂😂😂

All the stations. All of them.

But he didn’t get off at all of them... 😀

All of them?

MainBlag Banner Apart from those on the Isle Of Wight of course

Great..lets add Alberta too!

After TFL spend eleventy trillion pounds upgrading the Oyster system from 4-bit to 8-bit

Pigs will fly before that happens!

Lest add thurso in 2050

The year is 2035 and we're all dead from global warming/disease/nuclear winter - delete as applicable.

Codra The new New York Subway contactless system will charge reduced fares for people who are entitled to them. There’s nothing inherent in contactless payments that prevents that.

Codra You can get railcard discounts on a paper ticket

I'm not a fan of this either.

Well,Here in Italy,16 Years olds Are Using a students card,apparently the students card used to from 11 years until 18,Now i got a card(since im 11)That shows me Under 14 And dont Need to tap in/out,Contactless Here is only supported on the underground,not on the surface

Rory on a Bike but in London that’s not the case. Under 19s have to use a special Oyster card with a photo, or get a paper ticket, to get discounted fares.

Is it me or does Ruislip station still have a functioning ticket office?

Yeah and brookmans park hasn't had a ticket office for ages! I guess they mean call the help line thing.

Ahhh the paris metro method... Great.

Quite true, is anyone going to bother paying full stop if travelling from somewhere like this to say another station with same set up (no barrier)

i once seeked assistance when it said that, I ended up with a fine.

Vokabre or just “contact”

Contactful?

I think "useless" is the term you are looking for..

all stations should accept contactless, its not that hard to add a card reader

We can't have contactlessless! We must be contactlesslessless.

YOU MAY NOT TOUCH THE CONTACTLESS PLATFORM

It's a big one mate

Mind the drone that will lift you over the contactless platform.

Found ticket deals. Want the link?

Yes

It's just a massive piss take, I'll probably avoid this station entirely on future trips up to London where I just put everything onto my Oyster and leave it at that

Agreed, especially for children

Not just you, it's confusing and especially user unfriendly to students, children, and the elderly. Hell, the whole oyster system has become way too complicated

Reorganise the zones.. aim for fewer zones in London .. merge zones 2&3 , merge 5&6 ...

I'd actually be up for trying to sort this out, if they'd give me half a chance

meerkatologist Why would it be so difficult to just add another bit?

​@@QuarioQuario54321 Doubtless the system (either the fixed infrastructure, the Oyster cards or both) has been designed down to a budget and everything would need to be replaced. In which case you might as well add another 4 bits, and have enough zones to throw them around Greater London like confetti. Hell, why not go crazy and add another 20 bits (24 total). That should be enough to expand Oyster2 to cover the whole country!

dfross87 How did you calculate you’d need 2^24 zones to cover the entirety of Britain? I feel like 8 bits would be enough. Maybe 16. A zone 2^24 to zone 1 journey would probably cost £1000.

@@QuarioQuario54321 I didn't. I simply added bits until I felt a suitable absurd number had been reached.

Don't mention that😀 they will start charging for elevation travelled as well as longitude and latitude.

Fair, but they are outside of London. If they keep adding stations it will engulf the nation 😂

@@Garner84 why is that bad it sounds pretty damn good a simple to use system instead of the mess we have now

@@mccobsta Japan has the UK 10 years ahead with its smart cards being interoperable, where you could have a card issued in Tokyo (Pasmo or Suica) for like the Tokyo Metro, and be able to use that in Osaka (ICOCA) or Sapporo (Kitaca), and vice versa. Imagine you could use your Oyster card in Merseyrail, or the Tyne and Wear Metro, or in the Glasgow Subway.

@@Garner84 good

​@@Garner84 and that's a bad thing?

It’s so stupid Ireland has terrible public transport but we use leap cards on all public transport except national buses (you pay like normal or buy ticket online)

They do - it's stupid. It should be able to deduct the credit regardless of the zone.

@@techblogger8323 Leap cards 100% need to be added to the Bus Eireann and Expressway buses now

OhLookAWoodenSheep that’s what I thought but with the cost of expressway buses idk is it worth it likei would like if they added it so you could make some journeys cheaper ie. say you got route 64 from Sligo to Galway and then to limerick on the X51-if you took the like next bus it would almost count as a connecting journey and the price wouldn’t be as high as buying two singles, does that make sense even with Irish rail to buses Just like how with the metro card in NY sometimes a bus that you get after leaving the subway is free because it’s counted as a connection

@@techblogger8323 I feel they should discount the fares slightly like on the city buses as an incentive to use the cards, so instead of paying €10 for return it would be €8.70 or something, would make idle times at bus stops shorter due to more efficient passenger loading and overall make the buses more on time

The thing is, it's a lot easier to manage and maintain having railcards etc. being stored on each card. So it was set up that way. Much later, contactless came along and is often part of a credit or debit card. Banks are obviously not happy to give potential access to any data in that system. However, the Oyster cards are not set up to have their data on servers. Hence the current situation. I think the ultimate solution will be to scrap the current Oyster system and place it with a pseudo debit card (think pre-paid card). That will, however, run into issues with banking regulations, especially regarding minors.

That's what I'm thinking!! They'll charge higher fees to our bank cards!!!

@@tams805 Oyster, as it is, already a credit card (due to negative balance thing). Just a specialised one.

@@juliestockmeyer5871 they already do

The silly thing is, in theory, it should be possible for them to link a railcard to a contactless card.

No. overlay NYC on London at the same scale. Voilá, your new zone 1. All other zones should spread out at a similar distance.

Sydney (Australia) was meant to have a smart card public transport ticketing system in place for 2000. After many issues, it took until late 2012 until the Opal card started getting rolled out. The last issue was that the fare structure with the paper tickets was so complex that they couldn't program the system to accommodate it. They had to simplify the fare structure before they could get the Opal system implemented.

@@magical_catgirl Even the way most PAYG National Rail smartcard systems work is they just fetch the equivalent paper ticket fare at the end of the day and then charge your debit/credit card for it.

@@nelsonricardo3729 NYC MTA looks to have similar operating/total debt to TfL despite its simpler and cheaper fare structure. Zone distance resonates because it's intuitive but not really relevant any more than why calling Cuba costs 100x calling Germany from anywhere. Pricing is an art and there are a lot of things below the surface when you're operating at this scale. TfL has chosen a complex algorithm which is more "fair" per distance but less intuitive.

@@magical_catgirl I'm a big fan of the Opal system. It's simple, and better still, the fares are logical and *reasonable*. TfL fares are none of those things.

James Phillips they basically just want more money from it lol

@@Baker.Creative this just gives people the excuse they need to not tap out

They are fulfiling the governments agenda. They know what they are doing.

Really just that?

@@CheapskateMotorsports Not tapping out would probably cost you more as they'd charge you the maximum fare for that line, and besides what about tapping in, you're running the risk of a potential fine, and getting stuck at a barrier if coming into central London.

Don’t worry, when we finally get Brexit everything will be sorted

@@williamsmith8164 What on earth do oyster cards have to do with Brexit

There might have been some issue with setting fare levels for Slough and Reading; these are both served by GWR's IET trains and so a much higher fare would be asked for by GWR because anyone heading to London Paddington from the latter in particular will just take the 80x services...

@@silenthunteruk Then why aren't Oyster fares for Watford Junction to Euston higher on LNWR than on Overground?

What I want to know is, who's daft idea was it to be restricted to 15 zones?

The over 60s Oyster is only valid as far out as Hadley Wood anyway, so the station is outside the region we can use it.

@@digitig Fair point. I still reckon they have a sign "Welcome to Brookmans Park. 60 or over? Bog off".

My cousin lives in BP. It's posh but souless. She's under 60;)

when the 84 had london buses,oyster validators, were oyster/freedom passes accepted up to the Spires or what

@@lorrainewalker6493 Originally on the 84 they were accepted up to Hadley Highstone/Greenacre Close, then they were accepted up to Potters Bar station for a while, then not at all because TfL didn't want to pay the commercial operator. So Hadley Highstone is in London but the only bus serving it doesn't accept Oyster cards, which is kind of ridiculous.

I don't think contactless bank cards, but you can use a smartcard with pay as you go credit within Bristol and also in nearby towns and Cities like Bath, Cheltenham, Gloucester and Weston Super Mare and it reaches to Freshford, Chippenham and Ashchurch (for Tewkesbury)

@@grassytramtracks is the GWR Connect card or something issued by Travelwest the local transport partnership.

That's already quite possible now, at any station where you can go through a LU gateline and then get on a train that goes outside the Oyster zone. Moorgate and West Brompton spring to mind, I'm sure there are others. Result I imagine is no different to if you tapped in at a Southern/SWT station in the London suburbs and stayed on the train out to somewhere way out of London - you'll have travelled without a valid ticket and be subject to a penalty fare. There should be warnings on the platforms and in the trains though of course. If you tapped in with Oyster at TCR, heading towards Reading, then you'd have to jump out at or before West Drayton, tap out, then either tap in with Contactless or buy a paper ticket. And probably then wait for the next train!

@@arpwable SWR do have warnings on the trains via announcments and screen prompts "oyster cards are not valid beyond the next station stop, etc". But it's a bit late, unless you hunt down a guard and ask for an extension.

​@@ian9outof10 It's the same on Chilterns Railway trains traveling northbound of Amersham. There is an announcement before you get there saying that Oyster cards are not valid beyond Amersham.

As someone who spent the past year commuting to Ascot from Clapham Junction it's astounding how many people already tap with Oyster at the London stations only to realise it doesn't work past Feltham on SWR. I've seen multiple people have to buy tickets from conductors who have come along the train to ensure people are travelling with valid tickets.

These are all true but this will be a TfL operated route! For TfL not to accept one of their own primary methods of ticketing seems a little crazy to me.

If only it had been 😜😛😬😭

Maybe the new map will just be a code your phone scans to link to an online map... that’ll be fun when you have no cell service or WiFi in the tube!

If I were TfL, I might not be interested to squeeze the stations beyond West Drayton to the Tube Map at all…

They might just do up to west drayton. Then have the line trailing off a bit with the words "for all stations to reading". Then those oysterless stations would technically not be on the map.

@@joermnyc Further excluding Luddites from the system!

If I were TfL, I wouldn't even bother with anything other than the Underground lines for the "Tube Map", which means no Overground, DLR or Trams included. And I'd have a separate map for all the TfL Rail services including Overground, DLR, Tramlink (and soon) Crossrail (currently TfL Rail)! Where a line changes with something like the Overground, it should indicate that in the same way it's done with internal train maps And I think separate maps for different Overground, DLR and Tram lines to distinguish the difference between them should also exist. Once Crossrail officially starts, then it should get one too

Sounds like a great idea for a collaboration, maybe in the next series of The Basics... 🤔

Or Matt Parker, i was thinking ... !

I’m immediately intrigued as to what Zone 0 is, if it’s a 4 bit property.

@@EddArmitage hmmmm I'd love to be at the board meeting where they missed that one...

@@EddArmitage I heard a suggestion that Zone 0 was bus and tram, which is probably the case.

Hello! I am also Victorian, although nowadays there is 2 Metropolitan zones, and then to certain places (Waurn Ponds, Wendoree,Tralagon,Huntly etc,) you can now use a myki too. Also no contactless is very true and very annoying.

Student/YP/Senior/Disabled railcards will all disappear eventually. People will just tap in and the bank will be contacted to determine if the journey is eligible for free/discounted travel.

@@CliveCooperford Fixable, put all the buses in another zone with the same in zone fare.

The system is just storing taps and then working out the fair afterwards elsewhere. They can create more zones it's all written in C I think

LashLightning 3.20 isn’t even that much, I pay a lot more every day for college

@@lucybrown7396 It's more that it was an extra £3.20 from the previous stop - he has already paid £12(?) to get there, unless I'm not understanding the situation right.

Diamond Geezer also blogged about it! diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2019/09/beyond-zone-6.html (Videos take much longer to make that blog posts do to write ... )

Perhaps it's just me, but it seems that every time the Rail Delivery Group says that it's simplifying fares, they seem to get more complicated...

Perhaps they can still have the pocket sized map, but via origami it unfolds into a larger map when you open it, then folds itself back up into pocket size when you close it (I have a London street map that does this.)

They've wanted to for years but it's hard to untangle.

Nah, how are people supposed to buy Travelcards otherwise?

hotelmario510 back to the paper travelcard days boi

Because someone in the early 2000s decided that a 4-bit number to identify zones was acceptable for a public transport payment system launching in the 21st century.

Was Oyster envisioned to extend so far though?

To force people to use cards. So the gov can track dissenters easier.

@@MaximilianonMars and shut off their ability to move around

whats with the german elefant?

You don't need to tap out on a Freedom Pass or 60+. You will however need a paper ticket starting from the last station that accepts Oyster. With travelcards, it's largely the same but you'll need to have a ticket valid from the last station accepted with your travelcard. As Oyster travelcards also allow you to combine them with PAYG, you need to tap out if using a travelcard on Oyster travelling to a station not accepting Oyster.

@@wintrwunderland Yes, I know - the need for the additional ticket requires extra effort at the start point! it would be useful if you could do this on the train, or have the Freedom/60+ and Oyster on one card, tap in and out, and have the system just calculate any additional charges,

H010 I noticed that too! I believe someone has removed the sticker which was covering it

Michael Leedham That will be so financially dangerous they will never be able to stop people putting devices nearby to skim cards

It's not an oyster zone station at all... it simply charges the adult single fare (or different when returning) to x. Think of it as a paper ticket journey paid by card.

I think it's actually totally solvable -- already you can register your contactless card on TfL and use that account to get refunds, etc. As I understand it, TfL contactless card payments are only withdrawn from the bank account at the end of each day, so you could easily register your card online, register your discount of railcard or whatever, then it would apply the discount automatically each day. I'd go so far as to say that the fact that the reason TfL *haven't* done this yet is probably because they are incentivised not to give people those discounts.

@@JesusJuenger one way I can see them doing it is have the website show a card ID number (not the actual card number but a unique ID within the TFL system) which staff at a manned station can type in and link a railcard to.

That is an interesting point. I assume that, in the Chinese voodoo that was used to determine zone numbering, supply and demand of transport were taken into consideration along with general geography.

@@nobbynobbynoob It's almost certainly the case that there have been multiple passes on zoning. First pass would be distance based. Subsequent passes are then based on fare yield.

Until January 1997 Debden, Theydon Bois and Epping were all in Zone A (now Zone 7) if memory serves, but moved into Zone 6 following negotiations between Essex County Council and London Underground. At the same time, the boundary on the Metropolitan Line was moved to make Moor Park dual zoned (Zones 6 and A, whereas previously it had just been Zone A).

Why use zones at all? Sydney has its Opalcard which works in a similar way to London's Oystercard - even the ticket gates are often identical to the ones that you see in London. The Opalcard can be used on trains trams, buses and ferries, although with buses, trams and some ferries, it is necessary to touch out. The chief difference in Sydney is that fares are based according to distance travelled at least on train services. Currently the scales are 0km to 10km, 10km to 20km, 20 to 35km, 35km to 65km, 65km+. This means that the Opalcard doesn't just cover the Sydney area but also a radius of some 150 miles from the city centre too, including the Newcastle area, the hunter Valley and the whole of the Blue Mountains area. Currently the area is bounded by the following stations, Dungog, Scone, Newcastle, Bathurst, Goulburn and Bomaderry. There are fare caps for daily, weekly and Sunday travel plus separate paek hour fares. The only premium that requires to be paid is the airport access fee for both the Domestic and International airport stations, but these fares are only applied if you touch in or out at these stations - if you are passing straight through, then you are charged nothing extra.

I read something somewhere that the fares on those services had to be higher so as not to undercut the TOCs.

Zone 256 (or 255 I suppose if there's an implicit zone 0) will be somewhere like Pitcairn. Then a moon base will be built and everything will have to be upgraded again to reflect the new fare system. A space elevator will be incorporated rather like Emirates Air Line.

Well, ideally, you'd want to cross at a station in between two zones, however the first station in the Oyster zone should be good enough. Also to mention this is pointless without a photocard entitlement such as 11-15 or Freedom Pass, or some other entitlement not available on paper tickets such as Jobcentre Plus Discount Cards.

But it's not very user friendly to create this split between contactless only stations and stations where you can use oyster too

better check yout bank account every day

But it's an ORANGE (not YELLOW) touch pad, with a big no-Oyster sign attached. :)

Ricardo Wiggett Nope. As Geoff says (and can be seen) “It’s a standard yellow pad, wrapped in orange.”

@@johnwebb4566 I've looked at it again on my Android phone, and in the video it definitely looks like an ORANGE pad, distinct from the normal yellow ones found in the TfL area.

Ricardo Wiggett Will have to disagree. It’s definitely yellow (and has the same icon as is displayed on the back of Oyster cards)

@@johnwebb4566 Looking at it on my laptop also, it definitely still looks orange to me. It's funny how different eyes view the "same" colour wholly differently?

S Laurence and to scam foreigners

It has nothing to do with data harvesting. Oyster can’t physicall take anymore additions because of the system it runs on. It also can’t be updated. Everything would need to be ripped out and a brand new system put in place. It’s not worth the money and iirc people use contactless more than oyster anyway.

As Geoff explained in the video, the rather elderly Oyster system has reached its design limit. It only supports 15 (or perhaps 16 if zone 0 is potentially allocatable) fare zones - more than enough for the London zonal fare system (which uses 9 zones) and enough to support the handful of extensions beyond the London zones that are already in operation, but not enough for widespread extension beyond the London zones. The newer ITSO platform used for English concessionary travel permits and TOC issued smartcards can support a much more complex fares and passes system. This system didn't exist when TfL bought the system that they branded Oyster. The cost of moving the Oyster system to an ITSO platform in a programme that includes mandatory replacement of all existing cards would be considerable and such a move is not needed to meet the original Oyster objectives, for which the current system is sufficient. However, I would expect that the Oyster gates, validators, ticket machines and backend are eventually upgraded to support ITSO cards, eventually allowing new Oyster cards to be issued in ITSO form and eventual retirement of non ITSO Oyster cards. Indeed, TfL buses already have some ITSO support so that they can recognise English concessionary travel passes. I don't believe you can get a pass valid to an Oyster station outside the London zones issued on an Oyster card - if such a pass were issued in smartcard format, it would be a rail season ticket (or potentially a multi-mode product) on an ITSO smartcard. As Geoff explained, Oyster PAYG is pretty much extended as far as the system would allow outside the London zones. The big news is that the western end of the Elizabeth Line is not now going to support Oyster PAYG - so this will mean that for the first time there will be a TfL run service where Oyster PAYG cannot be used. Note: this is written based on my understanding of the systems, but I do not work in smartcard ticketing and am not familiar with all the details of the standards. This may contain errors and I would welcome corrections by those better informed than myself.

Actually the entire network already supports ITSO. has done for ages. If I got a day travelcard from Tonbridge to zone 1-2 on a smartcard, it would happily accept my ITSO smartcard everywhere in London zones 1-2 for that day. The actual infrastructure is ITSO ready, all they have to do is, say, reprogram every oyster card in circulation to support it. And that's why it won't happen.

Also zone 0 is for the bus and tram

TfL charge at end of day or week

Choose a fee-free card or a card charging a certain percentage of your purchase. And you can always buy a paper ticket (sometimes cheaper)