[Gllug] Oyster cards vulnerable?

[Jack Bertram]

* Tethys <sta296 at astradyne.co.uk> [080130 09:16]:
> --------
> 
> Nix writes:
> 
> >The way to fix *that* is not to wave the card *over* the reader. Slap it
> >face-down on the reader and it triggers instantly.
> 
> That's what I do, and I've never once had it trigger instantly...

I agree with the slapping method.  Put it on and wait (don't move it and
don't take it off instantly, but after a quarter of a second or so) and
it works every time for me.  I use the original wallet rather than
putting the card in something else which may have interference, though.

> >What? The thing has to suck the ticket in and spit it out. That takes a
> >couple of seconds *minimum*
> 
> Wow. I'm amazed at how two people can have such wildly different
> experiences. A couple of seconds? That's nearly an order of magnitude
> longer than I've seen. It's been comfortably less than half a second
> on average from my observation (and that's with a decade and a half
> of daily commute using paper tickets, so it's not as if I'm lacking
> in experience).

My experience is that the old ticket barriers (the squareish ones) were
much faster at processing paper tickets than the newer, rounded ones.  I
could walk through the old one with a paper ticket without breaking
stride; the new ones forced me to slow slightly.  

When Oyster was first introduced the response time was definitely slower
than it seems to be now: I had to stop and slap, whereas I can get
through as fast as I ever could now.

I think we can all agree that waiting behind someone who is balancing
their handbag on the reader in fourteen different orientations trying to
get the gate to read the card through the handbag is what really
irritates...
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