[Gllug] Oyster cards vulnerable?

[Nix]

On 26 Jan 2008, Holger Duerer outgrape:

>>>>>> "Martin" == Martin A Brooks <martin at hinterlands.org> writes:
>
> Martin> Martin A. Brooks wrote:
> >> Nix wrote:
> >> 
> >>> There was another very important reason: it hugely improves
> >>> flow around ticket barriers if most people use Oyster, because
> >>> it takes a fraction of the time to validate the card as it
> >>> does to feed a ticket through.  (Normally about a fifth as
> >>> long.)
> >>> 
> >> 
> >> You've said this before, and you didn't produce any kind of
> >> evidence to support this statistic then.  Can you do so now?

Nope, this was from a family friend who worked on it, apparently
from some sort of statistical study they did in the preparation
phase. (It's easy to approximately verify by eye, though.)

> >> If anything, I think Oyster makes things faster, no ticket
> >> orientation problems, for a start.
>
> Martin> Oh, duh. I misread, sorry.  We are in fact agreeing
> Martin> mostly.  I think Oyster _is_ faster, but I wouldn't say
> Martin> you can get 5 Oysters through a barrier in the same time
> Martin> it takes one paper ticket user.

> That's not what he said.

Indeed not. Obviously flow rates aren't up by 5x: the people still
have to walk through the gates! :)

>                           He said the scanning was 5 times as fast.
> But I guess your misunderstanding shows how irrelevant that speed
> improvement would be.  Even if the machine could scan a card in a
> nanosecond the human being would still require the split second or so
> to pass the gate.  And the mechanical gates are probably the slowest
> thing in the system.

Yes, but one slower component is human reaction time. If the ticket gets
rejected or the human fumbles getting it into that rather thin slot, the
human has to stop walking and start again. That alone takes almost as
much time as the normal open/walk/close cycle does.

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