Community

Why do TalkTalk need all this information? It's just so that they can "pull" funds from their customers. Why not work on a process based on the customer "pushing" funds to them?

One problem with contactless is when you have multiple contactless cards in one wallet.  Will TFL offer the user the option of registering one specific card for transportation be it bank issued or Oyster?  This problem can only get more frustrating for the card holder when our mobile phones are NFC enabled.  

Will this mean that anyone with a Mastercard Paypass enabled card will be able to use it instead of an Oyster Card and get the benefit of the Oyster pricing structure?  Will they need to register the card with TfL first?  Whichever way it sounds good news.  When will ATOC adopt the same approach on mainline services?  

The formation of the Open Transport Alliance (OSTP) is to be welcomed.  The lack of a global approach to transport ticketing has, it could be argued, delayed adoption of cards by the transport industry.  What does this mean for ITSO, the UK organisation formed to standardise card usage on public transport?  It would be good to have a response from them.

Having been involved in many similar schemes mostly in the UK and Ireland since the early 90's, I wish Aarhus well and look forward to reports on the success of the scheme.  The main problems with such schemes are

1. They lack the scale needed to drive down costs and give benefits to the scheme owner(s)

2. The multifunction aspects are not developed with the card holder in mind so take up is patchy except where mandated

3. Initial enthusiasm can quickly fade unless the scheme has a real champion with power to make things happen.

Aarhus, have you thought about incentive programmes to improve and encourage take-up?  There has been some success where these are more than collecting points and choosing prizes.

Good luck.   

Not before time - Oyster was a great product but contactless has moved on a lot since the early days in no small part encouraged by the success of Oyster.  The big question for the UK market is what will happen to ITSO as used by the bus operators and planned for the train operating companies.  Specialised back-office processes for transport are fine but the consumer front-end should use universal card payment products which today means EMV based.