[Gllug] ist that right that the Oyster card got RFID on it?

John G Walker johngwalker at tiscali.co.uk
Tue Jan 16 14:17:33 UTC 2007



On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 13:59:14 +0000 "- Tethys" <tethys at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1/16/07, John G Walker <johngwalker at tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> > > Ah well, now there's a point.  Why are the cash fares so expensive
> > > now?
> >
> > Because they have to employ people to collect and process them.
> > Oyster cards are all about replacing workers with machines.
> 
> Errr... no. Oyster cards are intended to replace paper tickets. Paper
> tickets have been issued and read by machines on the tube for many
> years now, with no need to for human intervention. I can't see any
> real extra overhead of continuing to use paper tickets, other than the
> cost of the physical tickets themselves -- which I suspect is dwarfed
> by the cost of installing and running the Oyster system anyway.
> 

To buy a paper ticket I have to go to a kiosk or queue for a machine
(supposing I had the right change, or the machine gave change and the
machine sells the sort of ticket I wanted). Ticket machines, of course,
removed a lot of the demand for labour when they were introduced. But
they are more labour-intensive than Oyster cards.

With an Oyster card, I don't ever have to visit either of these. The
only labour involved in selling me my ticket is at the computer centre,
plus an occasional revenue inspector.

Oyster cards are, effectively, the application of the principles of the
industrial revolution to the selling of tube and bus tickets. I'm
surprised that IT professionals don't spot this straight away,

-- 
 All the best,
 John
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