Monday Morning,
Feeling Fragile,
Mind's a wreck,
Far from agile
So it was I found myself at the barriers of "City Thameslink" station at 08:20 yesterday morning, wanting to touch out with my Oyster card. I touched it and no beep. I walked up and down and none of the touchpads were working. At this I decided to ask an FCC inspector, who had watched me sneeringly from the side. "Oyster is nothing to do with us" he informed me "It's not working at this station, we've called the engineer". Ok, so what do I do, I asked, aware that I'd be charged the highest fare possible - £6 rather than the correct fare of £3.10. He helpfully responded. "Ring the number on the card" and turned away. Marvellous customer service as ever.
This I then did - to an 0845 number, which presumably means I've been charged for the privelige. The number informed me "If the query is regarding overcharging, please wait 24 hours so that our systems have time to update". So I've been overcharged and I have to wait 24 hours - marvellous.
This morning I ring up. I've waited 24 hours. I call the 0845 number again. This time I navigate through the options. I am informed I have a 4 minute wait for an operator. After an indeterminate period, I get through. A chirpy chap says "oh yes, no problem at all" and tells me that he's put the refund back on. He asks me what station I want the refund at? I am confused, do I have to collect a cheque? No, next time I touch in at that station, my card will be refunded, but I must do it within 7 days. Ok, but why can't he just refund me now? It's not possible, the system does it like this.
Anyway this evening I passed through City Thameslink again. Still no Oyster service. There wasn't even anyone around to ask what to do. Just a chalkboard saying you can touch out but you can't touch in? I give up. I hope it has cost FCC a fortune.
5 comments:
I've never understood the whole "collection" thing for Oyster.
For PAYG top-ups purchased online, you have to select a station to "collect" your credit from - a simple case of touching in/out as you normally would.
But what's the point? You have a credit card (for the debit transaction), and an Oyster card (for the credit transaction) - why not just do it automatically?
The card needs to be updated physically. I think there is probably too much data to have hanging around at every single Oyster device in London, so it is just sent to one local server at one station.
The Oyster gates have to respond within 0.25 seconds, or something similar, on being offered a card, so it hasn't got time to hang about.
Baarnet - are you saying that the credit data is stored on the card rather than a central server? Doesn't that open up a whole can of worms with regards to fraud prevention and what happens with stolen cards?
Well, I have nearly reached the limit of my knowledge/guesswork.
The data is no doubt stored centrally, to reissue credit when cards are lost, and the old cards have to be barred.
It needs to be on the cards because buses, for instance, cannot be in real-time contact with central computers. I presume they talk to those, once or more a day, back at the garage, handing over details of all cards used that day.
The encryption on everything is updated once a day as well - it has proved possible to crack the Oyster codes, but the free journeys only last a few hours.
The balance and any season tickets are indeed stored on the card chip.
The central system simply keeps data reported from station computers on an eight week basis.
To adjust the balance or tickets on the card, it has to be physically present.
At a station or shop, the self-service or vendor machine adjusts the data on the card.
For telesales, online purchases or refunds, data is sent to a station computer from the following day. The station computer is linked to all the gates and validators at the station. The balance / Travelcard data is then adjusted when the card is used to enter (or exit) at that station.
The station computers send data to the central system but generally only receive data in the early hours of each morning to avoid serious delays at the gateline.
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