Oyster expiry

[melikepie]

Do Oyster Cards expire?

[rincew1nd]

Typing your subject into my favourite search engine gives this result on the first page:

Unused pay as you go credit stays on your Oyster card until you want to use it.

A little more digging suggests that, at present, they don't. In future when they are replaced though, maybe.

[snoggle]

Mar 23, 2015 12:23:14 GMT melikepie said:

Do Oyster Cards expire?

Yes - usually the life span of a smartcard is based on a volume of transactions that the card is capable of. Clearly the time period for expiry will vary depending on how frequently the card is used. I am assuming here that cards are otherwise used as per spec and not accidentally / deliberately "abused".

I do not know if TfL have programmed an expiry date or even a "warning" date [1] that is based on a lower volume of transactions than the card spec.

[1] to alert users of the need to replace the card before it stops working.

[rincew1nd]

Ooo, I haven't heard of that before. Roughly of what order is the number of transactions we are talking here? I'm wondering how many times I'd need to use a card in order for it to expire in my lifetime?

[Hutch]

Interesting! My trusty old Oyster (5 years) spontaneously died the other day at North Acton whilst visiting the new Crossrail Depot open day at Old Oak. Nothing else wrong. It let me in fine at Bond Street - wouldn't let me out - or subsequently back in at N.A. Friendly ticket man swapped it out for a new one with all of the discounts and auto top-ups transferred just fine. Never though about a "number of transactions" limit. Averaging them up, it must have totalled about 2000 transactions.

[melikepie]

Hmmm

I asked because I was at KXSP yesterday and as the person in front of me put their ticket through it gave the near expiry warning. As I went through the same gate it flashed the warning for me as well and I thought it was just a glitch or something. I also put more money on it but I suppose that won't extend the life expectancy

[rincew1nd]

Mar 23, 2015 13:28:25 GMT melikepie said:

Hmmm

I asked because I was at KXSP yesterday and as the person in front of me put their ticket through it gave the near expiry warning.

Do you mean an error code, or did it say something more specific?

Mar 23, 2015 13:28:25 GMT melikepie said:

As I went through the same gate it flashed the warning for me as well and I thought it was just a glitch or something. I also put more money on it but I suppose that won't extend the life expectancy

By the sounds of it, the opposite as you have reduced the number of available transactions by one!

[Tomcakes]

"Near Expiry" flashes up when your season ticket is, err, nearly expired. I think it is about two weeks, for annual seasons, presumably less for monthly/weeklies - but I may be wrong. Presumably the warning is to jog the passenger's memory to purchase a new season before the current one runs out (lots of time being obligatory given the difficulty in obtaining service at a ticket office!).

[melikepie]

I know that is why I found it weird and no I am on PAYG with no discounts or anything

[Chris M]

"Ticket near expiry" is the normal message you get 2 days before the end of a weekly ticket. I've had it once when I was on PAYG as well though, when exiting at Canary Wharf Jubilee. I was going to ask what was up but I needed to be somewhere and there were no staff immediately visible.

[snoggle]

Mar 23, 2015 12:39:40 GMT rincew1nd said:

Ooo, I haven't heard of that before. Roughly of what order is the number of transactions we are talking here? I'm wondering how many times I'd need to use a card in order for it to expire in my lifetime?

I am harking back to when we were specifying Prestige (what became Oyster) and what the technology offered then. I think we are talking about many tens of thousands of transactions for a life cycle. I expect the technology has moved on somewhat in the intervening 15 years and may well be over 100,000+ transactions. The crucial point though is how a card is used and looked after. Cards get bashed, sat on, squashed, put through the washing, slapped against reader targets, dropped on the floor etc etc. While an element of that is anticipated in the design there are inherently vulnerable bits of tech in the card which, if damaged, will shorten the card lifespan earlier than the max number of cycles.

The other problem for TfL is that a number of people end up having umpteen Oyster Cards as they get a new one when they "lose" their existing one. They then find the first one and have two cards. We've all seen people presenting 2, 3 or 4 Oyster Cards on a bus in the hope of finding one with the money on it. I think the "reusable" and "long life" message should be reinforced but perhaps TfL aren't interested given they want people on Contactless so they can dump the card life cycle costs associated with Oyster. Hmm that reminds me - must watch last week's Transport Committee webcast as that was about Future Ticketing progress!

[Tomcakes]

Perhaps I'm destructive but I tend to replace my Oyster every couple of years, usually very slightly bent/cracked.

[rincew1nd]

I've still got my original one, now fairly worn (you can't read the card number on the reverse) but still working absolutely fine.

[stapler]

Oystercards go into hibernation if unused for above about a year. They can be reactivated, with PAYG credit being made available again, by calling at a booking office (whilst there are some left). Not sure about ticket stops, though.
This is a common problem for tourists who may vist every 2-3 years.

[Deleted]

Mine has an expiry date. Whenever I use it on the bus it says it will expire in 2063.

[snoggle]

Mar 23, 2015 18:34:06 GMT @luacton said:

Mine has an expiry date. Whenever I use it on the bus it says it will expire in 2063.

Must be a staff pass. Their encoding is different to a public ticket or PAYG as a "pass" is a different type in the system. I think an encoded end date is mandatory for the ticket type. (happpy to be corrected).

[paulsw2]

Mar 23, 2015 22:48:19 GMT snoggle said:

Mar 23, 2015 18:34:06 GMT @luacton said:

Mine has an expiry date. Whenever I use it on the bus it says it will expire in 2063.

Must be a staff pass. Their encoding is different to a public ticket or PAYG as a "pass" is a different type in the system. I think an encoded end date is mandatory for the ticket type. (happpy to be corrected).

Staff oyster and nominee expire 17/09/69

[MoreToJack]

Mar 23, 2015 13:28:25 GMT melikepie said:

Hmmm

I asked because I was at KXSP yesterday and as the person in front of me put their ticket through it gave the near expiry warning. As I went through the same gate it flashed the warning for me as well and I thought it was just a glitch or something. I also put more money on it but I suppose that won't extend the life expectancy

It's a frequent error with our gates, forever confusing customers and even staff! 

[Tomcakes]

Mar 23, 2015 22:48:19 GMT snoggle said:

Mar 23, 2015 18:34:06 GMT @luacton said:

Mine has an expiry date. Whenever I use it on the bus it says it will expire in 2063.

Must be a staff pass. Their encoding is different to a public ticket or PAYG as a "pass" is a different type in the system. I think an encoded end date is mandatory for the ticket type. (happpy to be corrected).

Am I correct in saying that staff passes do not seek to create logical journeys, rather the gates just open when they are presented? Presumably as a staff pass holder would not make rational journeys on the system.

[Dstock7080]

Mar 24, 2015 10:52:16 GMT Tomcakes said:

Am I correct in saying that staff passes do not seek to create logical journeys, rather the gates just open when they are presented? Presumably as a staff pass holder would not make rational journeys on the system.

Correct, no time restrictions and gates open at every presentation, regardless of previous operation.

[snoggle]

Mar 24, 2015 10:52:16 GMT Tomcakes said:

Mar 23, 2015 22:48:19 GMT snoggle said:

Must be a staff pass. Their encoding is different to a public ticket or PAYG as a "pass" is a different type in the system. I think an encoded end date is mandatory for the ticket type. (happpy to be corrected).

Am I correct in saying that staff passes do not seek to create logical journeys, rather the gates just open when they are presented? Presumably as a staff pass holder would not make rational journeys on the system.

Good question. Honest answer is that I don't know because elements of the logic checking will have changed given smartcards hold more validity data than a mag stripe pass. In the past the Staff Pass was effectively analogous to an All Zones Travelcard only valid on "LT" services but without passback protection. These days things are much more nuanced given the extra TfL rail services within scope of the pass plus the fact that there are gates at NR stations where the Staff Pass is valid (e.g St Pancras Thameslink or London Bridge main line (although possibly not at present given Thameslink is diverted)). As the pass is valid in Zone 1 there is no need for "pink validator" route checks and as there is no PAYG balance held on a Staff Pass there is no concept of extension fares either if you venture off course nor charging entry fares or maximum fares. Obviously, though, if you venture away from the valid network then it's likely you need to touch out and then buy a separate ticket or validate a separate PAYG Oyster Card at the interchange point for travel, say, on a NR train to Bromley South or to Cricklewood.

[rincew1nd]

So it's not possible to add PAYG funds to a staff card? Presumably this is filed in the "too complex" box?

[snoggle]

Mar 24, 2015 12:36:00 GMT rincew1nd said:

So it's not possible to add PAYG funds to a staff card? Presumably this is filed in the "too complex" box?

More likely the "no one will need this" box. The same applies to Freedom Passes although the question is asked regularly. This is because most NR lines are out of scope in the AM peak and Freedom Pass holders have to pay.

I think the encoding structure for a pass or a permit simply does not include the PAYG purse.

[Deleted]

My staff pass shows as having a balance of £0.00, never have actually tried topping it up.

[philthetube]

My staff oyster says 2063 as well, I look forward to this as I am currently 57

[Deleted]

I remember in the pre-oyster days, magnetic strip staff cards ran out on the 31st December, and were replaced every year or thereabouts, they were made of thin plastic, and were inserted into the gate like a paper ticket.

[MoreToJack]

Mar 24, 2015 18:58:22 GMT @luacton said:

My staff pass shows as having a balance of £0.00, never have actually tried topping it up.

Certainly can't be done on a POM as all the options are greyed out, although interestingly it is possible to "renew season ticket"! I'll try and remember to take a picture at some point next time I'm on a POM. Which is often.

[Deleted]

A bit off topic....I had a really old Oyster Card, number was around 10,000 (I think), one of the ones with a photocard that went in the wallet as opposed to combined in the card. I’d used it almost every week day for best part of 10 years, plus many weekends as well due to weekend working and travelling into London for football.

Eventually it gave up on me due to a crack as opposed to a maximum number of journeys.

On the day it was replaced I received a new card and a helpful man at a mainline ticket office transferred the small balance I had on the old damaged card over to the new card. I was told I had to log in to my oyster account to swap over the PAYG auto top up which I did. This was to be activated when I next touched in.

Interestingly and to my (small) benefit, when I next touched in the small balance on my old card was transferred over to the new card, plus the balance that the man had transferred as well when I was issued with a new card. I think I was around £8 in profit, a handy bonus for all the years of tube travel :-)

I think that the reason for this was when the day my card broke, my local ticket office was closed so the only way I could get to work was to buy a paper ticket for the day from the machine. I used this for the whole day and the first time I touched in with the new card was the next day.

This must have activated the PAYG transfer made by the man who issued me with my new card plus the PAYG transfer I requested for the auto-top up. I presume I must have also requested the balance to be moved as well but can’t be 100% sure on this.

Presume this is a glitch in the system re PAYG transfer, caused by how I travelled to work on the day my card broke. If my local ticket office had been open, TFL would have been £8 better off!

[Deleted]

As an aside I just received my new American Express card yesterday which is now contactless which was surprising as Amex is still very traditional organisation.

[Tomcakes]

Some time ago my Oyster card failed, inconveniently at a station without an open ticket office. Fortunately there was a switched on CSA who allowed me to travel - I believe the official "solution" is that you are to purchase paper tickets and send off for a refund.

When presenting it at my destination station for a replacement, the ticket office was able to transfer my season ticket across (presumably from the gold card details) but couldn't see the PAYG balance. The ticket clerk asked how much I had on it, I said "I'm not sure, 4 quid maybe?" to which he replied "Call it a fiver, there you go!" and stuck £5 of credit on. I'm not quite sure how that is done on the system, or whether what was done was official, but the gain of £1 is reasonable given the inconvenience caused!