WRITTEN ON December 1st, 2008 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Design: user-oriented, Foundation of Trust, Save Time and Money, What do we want?
Oh Lord. I’ve been asked to step in at short notice into a Wed am “adversarial discussion” about transport smart cards. It’s organised by Smartex, the descendant of the Smart Card Club which lobbied so hard for UK ID cards and every conceivable other deployment of these stupid and annoying little pieces of plastic.
I know damn all about transport smart cards. What do we want? Did anyone ever ask what the travelling public need? I guess it’s:
– cheap travel
– sensible pricing which lets people take advantage of quieter times
– not to be penalised for impulse journeys
– not to surrender any personal data without good reason
– restitution in the event of loss, cancellation etc
But what do we get from ITSO and Oyster? Free surveillance state with every return ticket? I’d better get my head around this by Wed am….any help most gratefully received 🙂
See Dr John Welford’s campaign for clarity of purpose for cards in Scotland
11 Responses to “Do we want smart travel cards? Is there a Wibbi on the train/plane?”
We the people…
1. Welcome the use of smart cards in transportation to improve the quality of service. I’m happy to share my transportation data to improve service delivery in the aggregate.
2. We’d like you to tell us when our usual routes are in trouble. You could do this proactively (but opt in) for many people.
3. We want you to respect our privacy. or at least be honest about the violations.
4. If you commercially exploit MY data, again, that’s fine, but we want honesty and a share of the spoils.
5.
I can’t be bothered with Oystercards; in exchange for some marginal discount, I have to pay a chunk of cash in advance… and I only need tube tickets occasionally.
Have a look at Tokyo; they have multiple smart cards for urban travel (Suica, Pasmo etc.)… but then, they need them, because of the complexity of their network and the number of different coexisting providers. They have interoperability between the multiple schemes, and you can also use your travel card for other things (small purchases, etc). Is that a realistic prospect, either in London or in the rest of the UK? If not, where’s the benefit?
WIBBI they spent the money on fixing some of the existing problems with rail ticketing… such as the complete lack of transparency in rail pricing? (I mean, why is it that I can save 40% of the “published” fare price by booking through a website which is completely separate from the train operating companies?)
My understanding is that there are a couple of de facto global (alias asia pacific/south america) standards very low cost transport cards but the western consultancies want fat fees for dveloping semi-icompatible higher added value (i.e. bigger consultancy fees and/or fatter margins for operators)cards.
I *like* Oyster cards because
– they save me real money (£1.50 per journey not a £4 total rip off)
– I don’t have to queue for tickets
– I don’t have to register myself to get one.
Well except the last one, where as previously posted on Ideal Government, you can only get a refund if you register. For this reason I rarely have more than a £10 top up.
I don’t like Oyster because it’s not linked to my train ticket (actually thinking about that, I’m quite glad it isn’t).
I’d like Oyster (and there must be other localised systems that are similar) more if I had any sense that the data was actually being used to improve the service.
On balance, a Parisian-style carnet is a much better option.
individual data will only be shared subject to a court order. Where this is not the case, users will be reported by email.
Providers push to get everyone to register email addresses and demographic data. Companies should put an equal effort into using such data for direct community/passenger benefit as they do into using such data for commercial gain.
Alan B-G writs to say
Oh, for God’s sake, William. I know you’re a biker/petrol-head but surely you must have seen something about Oyster cards in the last few years.
As a commuter (by public transport; the only wheeled vehicle I own is a pushbike) I can say the Oyster cards have been the single major improvement to services in the London area. It is a continuing irritation that most of the National Rail’s bit of the commuter network still doesn’t allow PAYG Oyster, increasing the cost and reducing the convenience to those in certain parts of London.
I don’t think that the millions of us whose journeys have been speeded up simply because they get through the gates on and off trains or onto buses faster than before are really thinking about a surveillance state. Nor do I think that this is a serious concern. Really I don’t. It’s about getting around faster and more conveniently, and saving money.
I replied with mild protest about having switched form motorbike to bicycle etc…and said:
I fear you’re right, but the recording of everyone’s journey’s is needless
from teh passenger p.o.v…
And the exchange continued:
Well, you can get a check on recent journeys taken with Oyster, either via a ticket machine in the tube station or – I think – online. That’s useful for people wanting to claim back the costs from their employer (though I never bother). The online link also allows people to top up remotely. I’ve never managed to do that – my Oyster’s so old that eitehr they changed the system or I gave them an out of date email address.
But I’ve not heard a single person worry about the surveillance state (apart from, er, you). If you asked the woman on the Clapham omnibus, I’d bet she was more likely to say that if that Oyster records such as they are might help find criminals. I know that’s an argument used by many lobbyists for excessive technology, but in this case the level is really so low level that
in my experience it’s now a widespread concern – Joe Bloggs got on a number 11 bus at stop C in Victoria Street heading east at 09.12 on Tuesday. That’s about all it is. OK, for Tube journeys it also says where you got off. But?
J writes to say
How about some of the infocard/Stefan ideas. So a travel card would never release its unique ID, but merely a derived ID that persists for as long as the current journey. It can deduct the right amount off the card, but there is no persistent storage of a single card ID and all the journeys it has made.
Of course, the downside could be then that I could not be able to check and challenge incorrect deductions from my card. But that could be a choice. And I’m sure it’s not beyond the whit of (technical) man to devise a system that would enable me, and only me, to re-assemble the component journey IDs. So the ‘derived IDs’ stored in the central system are actually cryptographically derived from my master ID – and only I can join them back together.
As the ‘derived IDs’ would persist for the current journey (which could be built around time/day), it would still enable planners to understand travel patterns and plan accordingly.
And better protection of the card might be useful too.
Just random ideas on the move …
Hey A – that woman on the Clapham Omnibus…didn’t she use to be a man? Ergo she qualifies for two ID cards. Does she choose to use two Oyster cards as well?
Oyster cards work well However there are huge and utterly unnecessary complications for teenagers. Rates change at 16 and then again at 18 and whether you are at college or working. The end result is that:
a) Kids get given the wrong cards
b) every year or two they have to reapply for another type of card and prove they are not a terrorist.
KEEP IT SIMPLE!
I welcome supervision and the police being able to monitor journeys in much the same way that I think cameras on the street are a good idea. Not as good as the police but somewhat effective.
Schemes where the card gives you access to priority parking assuming you’re continuing with public transport (incentive to switch from private car to public transport when you enter urban areas). Schemes where your employer can pay your travel to clients & other offices with you having to carry only one card & not confuse your money with your employer’s. Cards being anonymous until lost (in which case you can blacklist it & get restitution). Transport planners getting as specific anonymised traffic data as possible. Compatibility of the same card over all and any public transport, preferably the same card should work in any city (and in between). Automatically calculating the cheapest fare type (for example, start with a single fare, only paying the difference for a change of transport, upgrading up to a daily/monthly/yearly ticket if you end up using it many times) so you don’t have to know how much you’re going to use it in the beginning of the day/week. Easy time-off (for example, if you leave for a vacation, you don’t pay, and you don’t need to do anything not to pay), but still, if you happen to use it sporadically during your vacation, it would be possible.