"I now just always tell people to just tap in with their phone."
This is all very well but what happens if you have no phone, or it's just been lost, or you left it at home? What happens if there's no credit and you thought there was?
And what happens if you've only cash and or you're a visitor who doesn't know the system and only wants a once-off one-way ticket? And why should one have to top up a card for a once-off journey (how does one recover the residual funds and or how much does the System rake off because residual amounts are too difficult to redeam)?
These systems work for the cognoscenti who know both the system and the workings of their phone but little thought is given to those who don't or when the system breaks down.
Let me give you an instance, I often use a feature/dumb phone and I deliberately do not have a Google account (or any accounts other than the phone number itself) on my smartphone.
Why should I be forced to comply and be spyed on by Google et all just to get a rail ticket which people have done without difficulty for over 150 years?
> What happens if there's no credit and you thought there was
Initial authorization only takes £0.10 and is there to validate your card is active.
The actual charge gets applied 24h later and can overdraw even an account with no arranged overdraft through a transport-only exception with the card networks.
In the end it means you only need 0.10£ to travel for 24 hours, and can keep doing so as long as you fund your account before the initial 24h period (if you fail and it declines it'll retry up to a few days, and there's a way to make it retry online - until it succeeds, that particular card will get refused at the barriers).
The system is used by millions of people per day - and it's these people who pay for it. They don't want to pay for any combination of "what ifs".
As a commuter there I'm sorry, but I'd rather have saved a few quid a month on my ticket than pay for some tourist who can't figure out a credit/debit card despite travelling to one of the world's most expensive cities.
150 years ago you could lose a paper ticket or leave it at home, or it could have been out-of-date when you thought it wasn't, and you'd also be walking.
> 150 years ago you could lose a paper ticket... you'd also be walking.
150 years ago was 1874. Although printed tickets were well and truly established by this point, buying tickets from the conductor was also common. So perhaps you would not be walking home?
The key issue is human engineering and ergonomics which are all too often overlooked by over zealous advocates of new technology.
These issues are not just 'what ifs' but actual problems for a significant percentage of the population, and it's simply discrimination to ignore these people.
For example, a personal instance: I live in Sydney and only last Thursday, I needed to top up the credit on my equivalent of London's
Oyster card (which we copied) and I went to the only machine on Central Station's Grand Concourse only to find that it refused to read three brand new $50 bills (each bill was inserted multiple times and rejected). I then went to the nearby information centre where each of the three persons in the booths had a sign in front saying 'no cash accepted.' I was then told that except for the machine that the Station did not take cash and to top up the card with cash that I had to go to independent shops which were technically outside the Station's precinct.
Frankly, that's a fucking outrageous situation. The Government still issues cash as legal tender, and yet the main railway station in Australia's biggest city won't take cash for a ticket. Keep in mind Central Station is not [yet] run by private enterprise but by the NSW State Government!
BTW, I am no Luddite, I've worked in high tech for years. In fact, I ran the IT Operation for a Government Department [so I'm well acquainted with the ways of bureaucracy], and the rude awakening one has in such a job is that tech that's seemingly straightforward for most people and certainly a no-brainer for technical people—and of course those 'selling' the tech—is actually a problem for a percentage of the population. In fact that percentage can be typically as high as 15%.
If you think this 15% of the population should be relegated to a Soylent Green - like solution then that's your prerogative but it's certainly not mine.
As tech becomes more advanced this dichotomy will become even more pronounced and unless taken into account then social disruption could easily result. (I know this message isn't popular with tech elites—as witnessed by those who down-voted my original comment—but shooting the messenger won't solve anything.)
If you're in tech then you ought to take cognizance of these issues.
This is all very well but what happens if you have no phone, or it's just been lost, or you left it at home? What happens if there's no credit and you thought there was?
And what happens if you've only cash and or you're a visitor who doesn't know the system and only wants a once-off one-way ticket? And why should one have to top up a card for a once-off journey (how does one recover the residual funds and or how much does the System rake off because residual amounts are too difficult to redeam)?
These systems work for the cognoscenti who know both the system and the workings of their phone but little thought is given to those who don't or when the system breaks down.
Let me give you an instance, I often use a feature/dumb phone and I deliberately do not have a Google account (or any accounts other than the phone number itself) on my smartphone.
Why should I be forced to comply and be spyed on by Google et all just to get a rail ticket which people have done without difficulty for over 150 years?