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Post by silenthunter on Jul 19, 2023 18:34:31 GMT
Due to my District Line train from Mile End to Upminster Bridge breaking down at Upney, I ended up going back to Barking and getting c2c to Upminster.
Does Mile End-Upney-Barking-Upminster in these circumstances count as one journey or three?
I was delayed around 40 minutes all in all.
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Post by spsmiler on Jul 24, 2023 20:15:50 GMT
Unless you passed through any ticket gates or used a free-standing card reader the ticketing computers have no way of knowing your exact journey, so probably you were charged for a single journey, Mile End - Upminster.
Although the present-day ticketing is sometimes referred to as 'smartcard ticketing' the reality is that its a stupid dumb system which relies on fallible humans to tell it about their journeys. This is why we must all use card readers at each end of our journey - and sometimes also pink card readers at interchange stations - so that we can be charged a lower fare.
This will only change when 'be here' ticketing is introduced, because it will follow (track) us through our entire journey and be able to charge for actual travel. Whether passengers will welcome that degree of surveillance / tracking remains to be seen.
Travelling on C2C West Ham - Upminster is allowed / the fare is the same. Usually your journey will be much quicker, although that benefit will be partially eroded when the District line trains start travelling at higher speeds following the conversion to CBTC signalling.
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Jul 24, 2023 21:22:00 GMT
This will only change when 'be here' ticketing is introduced, because it will follow (track) us through our entire journey and be able to charge for actual travel. Whether passengers will welcome that degree of surveillance / tracking remains to be seen. Is this something that is on the horizon or a figment of your imagination? |
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Post by trt on Jul 25, 2023 10:07:46 GMT
They did run a trial with mobile phone beaconing a few years back to track passengers across the network. Data were collected using the WiFi on stations network. Many different ways of analysing the data were used to try to unlock added value from the installations.
Apple, of course, introduced WiFi anonymising, where the WiFi hardware address rotates randomly through a pool, so the only way to identify the same phone at two locations is from the fingerprint of the certificate that identifies you to the network provider, which isn't something TfL had access to. The same principal applies to Bluetooth beaconing, but with the constraints of the shorter range of that system. Given that they've put PCs all along many escalators, though, there's a good chance these data can also be collected if someone puts their mind to it.
The most useful data that they produced from the WiFi trial was a proxy for station crowding and better passenger circulation data, but these were both something that they sort of had anyway from their CCTV coverage. I'm not sure if the replacement escalator works produces loading data - I know they were looking at improving energy efficiency by reducing the speed of unloaded escalators. There are probably easier ways to measure that as well.
As far as I'm aware they haven't taken this trial forwards any.
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class411
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Post by class411 on Jul 25, 2023 10:39:51 GMT
This will only change when 'be here' ticketing is introduced, because it will follow (track) us through our entire journey and be able to charge for actual travel. Whether passengers will welcome that degree of surveillance / tracking remains to be seen. Is this something that is on the horizon or a figment of your imagination? It isn't a figment of his imagination, as all the technology is current available and reasonably mature. Of course, that doesn't mean that it's even been considered for LU (or any other railway). It would be a long and costly programme to implement. In general, LU has a more difficult problem than the many other metro systems that rely on 'timed tickets', which are extremely easy to implement and use, but mean that those who undertake short journeys subsidise those that take longer ones. |
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Post by trt on Jul 25, 2023 10:59:50 GMT
The Amazon shop, I believe, uses a system to track goods and individual users as they move through the shop and leave with their "purchases" which are charged to their account. I think it's a bit creepy, TBH.
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Jul 25, 2023 15:59:27 GMT
Of course, that doesn't mean that it's even been considered for LU (or any other railway). That's the point I was getting at; if the introduction of such technology is realistically in the pipeline for LU. |
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Post by d7666 on Jul 25, 2023 18:18:03 GMT
Of course, that doesn't mean that it's even been considered for LU (or any other railway). That's the point I was getting at; if the introduction of such technology is realistically in the pipeline for LU. If they had access to that technology my money would be on it being used for monitoring employees not customers.  |
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Post by Chris L on Jul 25, 2023 19:25:28 GMT
Of course, that doesn't mean that it's even been considered for LU (or any other railway). That's the point I was getting at; if the introduction of such technology is realistically in the pipeline for LU. A new contract is to be let for the back of house management of the Oyster/contactless payment system. |
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Post by burkitt on Jul 25, 2023 19:45:05 GMT
This will only change when 'be here' ticketing is introduced, because it will follow (track) us through our entire journey and be able to charge for actual travel. Whether passengers will welcome that degree of surveillance / tracking remains to be seen. Is this something that is on the horizon or a figment of your imagination? Swiss Railways have this as a function called EasyRide on their travel app. Their website explains it here link and this Railway Technology article has details link |
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Post by silenthunter on Jul 25, 2023 19:51:29 GMT
In case anyone is wondering, I also checked this with TfL - they gave me back £3.40 and said nothing else on the matter.
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Post by trt on Jul 26, 2023 9:32:57 GMT
Swiss Railways have this as a function called EasyRide on their travel app. Their website explains it here link and this Railway Technology article has details linkThat still requires some form of manual interaction, though. I expect it's based on GPS tracking that determines as best it can the route you took. It's feasible for an overground railway with a fairly good view of the sky, not so good for an underground area. Maybe it could be automated by automatically connecting you to the on-board WiFi using a certificate installed by an app instead of some self-registering The Cloud like system. NR trains mostly have GPS and possibly even an alternative location system. Would be doable underground? I expect so, especially if there's a means of recording which actual carriages someone rode in at what time - possibly even gathering location data en route using the TBTS positioning system. But that's fantasy world, especially when there's an easier and cheaper system. Now as you would need a mixed system of ticketing and beacon charging, you would also need to retain a demarcation between ticket and non-ticket areas such as a paid gateline, you would need to work out how to detect a phone running the travel payment app and open the gate just as that person was in the approach channel and close it again right afterwards. That would be next to impossible I think. |
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Post by 35b on Jul 26, 2023 10:41:07 GMT
Swiss Railways have this as a function called EasyRide on their travel app. Their website explains it here link and this Railway Technology article has details linkThat still requires some form of manual interaction, though. I expect it's based on GPS tracking that determines as best it can the route you took. It's feasible for an overground railway with a fairly good view of the sky, not so good for an underground area. Maybe it could be automated by automatically connecting you to the on-board WiFi using a certificate installed by an app instead of some self-registering The Cloud like system. NR trains mostly have GPS and possibly even an alternative location system. Would be doable underground? I expect so, especially if there's a means of recording which actual carriages someone rode in at what time - possibly even gathering location data en route using the TBTS positioning system. But that's fantasy world, especially when there's an easier and cheaper system. Now as you would need a mixed system of ticketing and beacon charging, you would also need to retain a demarcation between ticket and non-ticket areas such as a paid gateline, you would need to work out how to detect a phone running the travel payment app and open the gate just as that person was in the approach channel and close it again right afterwards. That would be next to impossible I think. You would also need to wrap that in a significant level of security to manage the “right” tracking (i.e. for fares) while not getting into the “wrong” sort (i.e. for spying on people). I suspect that TfL would be a bit reluctant to have to take their fares processing systems to the level of security required to manage threat to life security of passengers. |
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Post by burkitt on Jul 26, 2023 11:58:20 GMT
I think it could be made to work fairly simply in TfL, given the presence of station WiFi which can track every smartphone as it moves around every station, even if not actually connected to the WiFi for browsing, as mentioned in previous posts about the 2016 trials. Indeed I suspect this would allow easier, more accurate tracking that trying to use GPS to monitor location of people in mountainous Switzerland.
You'd open the app and press "start journey" when you enter the station, use your phone to open the ticket gate with authorization from the app, make your journey with the WiFi at each station tracking the exact route you take, tap out through the gate line at the end, then use the app to end your journey.
The obvious problem here is that because of the gatelines, the app has just just made travel more complicated for the vast majority of journeys that don't include tapping an interchange Oyster reader. Not to mention adding lots of extra cost to TfL having to maintain this app functionality, and making station WiFi critical to enabling tracker-app travel.
The only advantages I can think of such an app on TfL are
a) replacing paper travel cards for enthusiasts wanting to travel round all day without getting a penalty for making an over-length Oyster journey (too niche)
b) if we were to start charging higher fares for taking specific routes - eg it's more expensive to take the Liz from Liverpool Street to Bond Street than the Central (too confusing and unpopular)
c) getting rid of gatelines and replacing all tickets with a tracking app (realistically not going to happen)
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Post by trt on Jul 26, 2023 12:20:35 GMT
Same applies for existing ticketing methods. The backend for the journey record has to show time of entry, time of exit, location of entry, location of exit, route flag for not passing through zone 1, card details etc. I don't think that privacy concern is above and beyond what they do at present. They can pinpoint people of habit now for revenue purposes. To the split second records of gate use coupled with CCTV lets them get descriptions of repeat offenders. They can get live data for entry and exits triggered by suspect payment cards, set gates to flag up anything from an individual card use to a class of cards being presented.
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Post by spsmiler on Jul 26, 2023 19:47:29 GMT
a) replacing paper travel cards for enthusiasts wanting to travel round all day without getting a penalty for making an over-length Oyster journey (too niche) People who use wheelchairs also prefer paper travel cards - especially if they have self-propelled wheelchairs because they often need to stop and rest their arms during the journey. Too often this need (to stop and rest) sees them breach Oyster journey time limits. Another cause of delays is waiting for staff to assist them, at some stations. So...... its not just "enthusiasts wanting to travel round all day without getting a penalty for making an over-length Oyster journey" |
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Jul 26, 2023 20:09:58 GMT
[People who use wheelchairs also prefer paper travel cards - especially if they have self-propelled wheelchairs because they often need to stop and rest their arms during the journey. Too often this need (to stop and rest) sees them breach Oyster journey time limits. Has there been anything to suggest this is actually the case, or is it something you perceive could be a problem? I don't think I've ever heard of this being a problem before - possibly because in most cases, those wheelchair users living in Greater London would have the use of a Disabled Persons Freedom Pass. |
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rincew1nd
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Post by rincew1nd on Jul 26, 2023 20:49:53 GMT
People who use wheelchairs also prefer paper travel cards - especially if they have self-propelled wheelchairs because they often need to stop and rest their arms during the journey. Too often this need (to stop and rest) sees them breach Oyster journey time limits. Citation needed on this I think. A friend of mine uses a wheelchair (self propelled) and when we travelled together on LU she used her phone to pay, because a piece of card was too flimsy to handle in her gloves. |
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Post by Chris M on Jul 26, 2023 20:59:49 GMT
I know someone who has fairly recently had to start using a wheelchair to get around, and they have had issues with journey time. They live in the part of Essex served by the Central line so are not eligible for a freedom pass but London Underground is their primary mode of transport. Their solution to the journey time issue is to get refunds from the helpline (who afaik have never said no) rather than use a paper travelcard, which they would find much more inconvenient (and it would have been even more so when they used two sticks) - indeed the solution they suggested is a flag that could be set on a given account that allows longer to make journeys, particularly those involving interchanges.
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Post by spsmiler on Jul 27, 2023 17:42:40 GMT
I need to research as I was told that this is a key reason why wheelchair users want the paper ODTC retained.
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Post by brigham on Jul 28, 2023 7:38:12 GMT
You would also need to wrap that in a significant level of security to manage the “right” tracking (i.e. for fares) while not getting into the “wrong” sort (i.e. for spying on people). The mind boggles. |
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Post by spsmiler on Jul 28, 2023 20:39:29 GMT
I need to research as I was told that this is a key reason why wheelchair users want the paper ODTC retained. Hello, some of the tweets and other pages that I've seen on this topic... Although not directly relevant to the wheelchair users topic, this web page helps explain why the Mayor feels that he has to withdraw these tickets. www.london.gov.uk/md3142-withdrawal-day-travelcards-tfl-network |
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rincew1nd
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Post by rincew1nd on Jul 30, 2023 19:45:08 GMT
It seems there's a variance between the need for a one day product and a paper ticket.
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