Oyster card

File:Oyster Card Under16.JPG

An Under 16s Oyster photocard.

The Oyster card is a form of electronic ticketing used on Transport for London and National Rail services within the Greater London area of the United Kingdom. The card was first issued to the public in 2003 with a limited range of features and there continues to be a phased introduction of further functions. By March 2007 over 10 million Oyster cards had been issued and more than 80% of all journeys on services run by Transport for London used the Oyster card.

Background

The Oyster brand name was agreed after a lengthy period of research managed by TranSys, the company contracted to deliver the ticketing system in London, and agreed by Transport for London. A number of alternative names were considered; however, Oyster was chosen as a fresh approach that was not directly linked to transport, ticketing or London. According to Andrew McCrum, now of Appella brand name consultants, who was brought in to find a name by Saatchi and Saatchi Design (in turn contracted by TranSys), Oyster was conceived and subsequently promoted because of the metaphorical implications of security and value in the component meanings of the hard bivalve shell and the concealed pearl. Its associations with London through Thames estuary oyster beds and the popular idiom 'the world is your oyster' were also significant factors in its selection as was the uniqueness of the word Oyster.

The Oyster card is a contactless smartcard, with a claimed proximity range of about 8 cm (3 inches). The scheme is operated by TranSys, and is based on Philips' MIFARE Standard 1k chips provided by G&D and SchlumbergerSema. It is the same contactless smartcard as Touch 'n Go card in Malaysia which is mainly used for tollway fares.

Travellers touch the card on a distinctive yellow circular reader (a Cubic Tri-Reader) on the automated barriers at London Underground stations to 'touch in' and 'touch out' at the start and end of a journey (contact is not necessary, but the range of the reader is only a couple of centimetres). Tram stops and buses also have readers, on the driver/conductor's ticket machine or, in the case of articulated buses, near the other entrance doors as well. Oyster cards can be used to store both period travelcards and bus passes (of one week or more), and a Pay as you go balance.

The system is asynchronous, with the current balance and ticket data held electronically on the card rather than in the central database. The main database is updated periodically with information received from the card by barriers and validators. Tickets purchased online or over the telephone are "loaded" at a preselected barrier or validator.

Non-Oyster tickets (referred to below as paper tickets) take various forms. Bus tickets issued at bus stops are usually thermally printed; tickets usable at tube, DLR, and rail stations are cards with a magnetic strip which activates barriers in the same way as Oyster cards.

Features

Registration and Protection

Oyster cards can be registered or protected for loss or theft. Full registration of a card must be done in person at a Tube station, Oyster ticket stop (shop) or a Travel Information Centre. An Oyster registration form must be filled out (either at time of purchase or at any time in the future) and allows the customer to buy any product for the card, allows them to have an after sales service, and protects against theft or loss. The customer needs to supply a Security Answer which is either their Mother's maiden name, a memorable place or a memorable date.

Oyster cards cannot be fully registered online. However a customer can protect their card online by setting up a personal account and recording their card to that account. This allows for an after sales service and protection against theft or loss, but the customer cannot purchace Monthly Travelcards or longer unless they fully register the card.

Period travelcards

Main article: Travelcard

The card can hold up to three ticket products at the same time. These tickets may be Travelcards valid in specified zones or bus passes. Both Travelcard and bus passes may be issued for periods of validity of one week or longer, up to one year. The Oyster card is designed to be multi-modal and works across London's Tube, DLR, tram and bus network. Users with period Travelcards can also travel on rail services within the Travelcard zones, roughly corresponding to the Greater London area, in all the zones for which they have validity on their cards. Travelcards can be loaded onto the Oyster card up to a month in advance of their start date.

Pay as you go

On the Underground the Oyster card allows users to pass through the gateline.

In addition to ticket products, Oyster cards can also be used for stored value travel. Oyster cards can be topped up with stored value of up to £90. The Pay as you go (initially known as "pre pay") balance is automatically debited by the correct fare at the end of each journey by Tube or DLR and each time a bus or tram is boarded. The balance is also debited by the relevant amount if the user travels by tube or DLR beyond the zonal validity of any travelcards stored on the card. Pay as you go can be topped up either at stations or at participating shops which provide an oyster card reader at the counter.

When using Pay as you go at stations with barriers, debiting is seamless, as users need to use the card to open the barriers. At stations without barriers, users have to remember to touch the card on a validator at the beginning and end of the journey in order to debit the card by the correct amount.

Pay as you go users can also use certain sections of National Rail (mainly between stations also served by London Underground). Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London is trying to persuade National Rail train operating companies to allow Oyster Pay as you go on all of their services within London.

Pay as you go users can also travel within Greater London on most bus routes operated under London Local Service Agreements for £1.

Pricing

Pricing is fairly complex, and changes from time to time. The most up to date fares can be found on Transport for London's FareFinder website (see External Links).

To encourage passengers to switch to Oyster, non-Oyster fares were substantially increased after the introduction of Oyster, and Oyster fares are generally much cheaper than non-Oyster.

As of 1 January 2007 a cash bus and tram fare costs £2, while the single Oyster fare is £1, but capped at £3 for any number of trips in a day. When using Oyster on the Underground, a single trip within Zone 1 costs £1.50 (£4 cash), or £1 (£3 cash) within any other single zone. When travelling on the Underground and DLR in addition to buses and tram the price of journeys is capped at 50p below the price of the relevant one-day Travelcard. London is the only city in the world that offers this kind of capping.

Single Oyster fares on the tube and DLR start at £1

Discounts

As of 20 August 2007 Oyster card users on a means tested social security benefit called 'income support' will pay just 50p for a one way bus trip or half price period bus passes with a 'Bus and Tram Discount photocard.' This has been posible because of a deal between Transport For London and Venezuelan oil company, Petroleos, to provide fuel for the London buses at a 20% discount, in return Transport for London officials will open an office in the Venezuelan capital Caracas to offer expertise on Town planning, Tourism, Public Protection and Environmental Issues.

Single ticket type (Within the Greater London area, stations south of Moor Park)	Paper ticket	Oyster
		Mon-Fri 7am-7pm	All other times
Zone 1 only	£4	£1.50
Zone 1 to 6		£3.50	£2
Zone 1 to A or B	£5.50	£4.50	£3
Zone 1 to C or D	£7	£5.50
Zone 2 to A or B	£4	£3	£2
Zone 2 to C or D	£5.50	£4
Zone 3 to A or B	£4	£2.50	£1
Zone 3 to C or D		£3.50
Zone 4 to A or B	£3	£2
Zone 4 to C or D	£4	£3
Zone 5 to A or B	£3	£2
Zone 5 to C or D		£2.50
Zone 6 to A or B		£1.50
Zone 6 to C or D		£2
Zone 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 (any two adjacent zones but not zone 1)		£1
Zone 2 to 6		£1.80	£1.00
Single ticket type (Stations north of Moor Park in zones A to D)	Paper ticket	Oyster
		Mon-Fri 7am-7pm	All other times
Within one or two adjacent zones (A, AB, B, BC, C, CD, D)	£3	£1
Within three or four adjacent zones (ABC, ABCD, BCD)		£1.50	£1

There are anomalies in Oyster peak fares involving journeys encompassing through travel in the London zones (1-6) and stations in zones A-D, north of Moor Park. These are most marked for stations north of Chorleywood, the last, indeed only, station in zone B. The anomalies arise because Moor Park straddles the border between Zone A and Zone 6, and is therefore in both zones. For example the published through fare for travel from Zone 1 to Zone D is £5.50, whereas two separate journeys from Zone 1 to Moor Park and Moor Park to Zone D would be a published total of £5; likewise the through fare for Zone 2 to Zone D is £4.00, against £3.30 for two separate journeys.

Oyster cards can be purchased at London Underground ticket windows, from cash-only vending machines at some stations, from about 2,300 Oyster Ticket Stop agents, from a select number of National Rail stations also served by London Underground, over the web at oystercard.com or by calling the Oyster helpline at 0845 330 9876. A refundable deposit of £3 is paid unless a weekly or longer period ticket is loaded to the card in the first instance. A registration form is provided at the time of purchase. If the form is not completed the Oyster card is restricted to Pay as you go and weekly tickets.

National Rail

Main article: Oyster card (pay as you go) on National Rail

c2c accepts Oyster for Pay as you go on its main route in London but most other rail operators do not.

The acceptance of Pay as you go on National Rail has been limited to a restricted number of services where alternate routes are available on London Underground. In response to an offer, from Transport for London, of funding to the train operating companies that have services within Greater London, there are currently various plans to expand its acceptance across the rail network in London. It is expected that Oyster Pay as you go will be accepted on most National Rail services within London by January 2009.

Capping

A 'capping' system was introduced on 27 February 2005, which guarantees that an Oyster card user will be charged no more than the cheapest combinations of single tickets, travelcards and/or bus pass that cover all journeys made that day. A 50p discount is given where the price is capped at the travelcard or bus pass rate. Unlike paper daily travelcards, Oyster cards capped at travelcard rates are not valid on National Rail services other than those routes which accept Oyster Pay as you go.

Recharging

File:London-underground-travelcard.jpg

Capping is intended to replace paper daily travelcards, but is not valid on all main-line rail services.

Users of the system can purchase tickets or increase the Pay as you go balance on their card at the ticket office or at touch-screen ticket machines at Underground stations, over the telephone, online at the Oyster card website or from around 2,300 Oyster Ticket Stop agents.

Auto top-up

Customers can also register a debit or credit card online, which will be debited automatically by their preference of £20 or £40 when the Pay as you go balance on the card falls below £5. A light on the Oyster reader flashes to indicate the auto top-up has taken place and an email is sent to confirm the transaction.

Penalty fares & maximum cash fare

Articulated buses have Oyster validators inside each of three sets of doors.

In order to prevent "misuse" by a stated 2% of passengers, from 19 November 2006 Pay as you go users who do not both 'touch in' at the start and 'touch out' at the end of their Tube, DLR and rail journeys are charged a 'maximum cash fare' of £4 for most journeys, or £5 if the journey begins or ends at certain National Rail stations. Users must touch in and out even if the ticket barriers are open. At stations without ticket barriers (where Oyster is accepted), an Oyster reader will be provided for the purposes of touching in and out. The maximum cash fare applies even if the daily price cap has been reached and does not count towards the cap. On Tramlink you only need to touch in at the platform you board at (and not out, except when exiting Wimbledon station through the automatic gates). When interchanging from Tube to DLR at Bank using Pay as you go you must touch the reader by the DLR platform and when exiting the DLR. When connecting from the DLR to the Jubilee Line at Canary Wharf you must touch out at the DLR station to avoid a penalty fare, but when you touch into the Underground gates your journey will be combined and charged as a single underground journey, and similarly in the other direction, where single paper tickets get retained by the ticket gates at Canary Wharf. Passengers who do not touch in during a bus, NR, Tube, Tramlink or DLR journey may be charged a Penalty Fare (currently £20) and/or reported for prosecution if caught by revenue protection inspectors.

Reporting

Oyster cards can be used on all London Underground services.

Touch screen ticket machines report the last eight journeys and last top-up amount. The same information is available as a print-out from ticket offices. The balance is displayed on some Underground barriers at the end of journeys that have caused a debit from the balance and can also be requested at newsagents and National Rail stations that provide a top-up facility. A report detailing all transactions where the Oyster card has been 'swiped' can be requested from Transport for London: Transport for London can provide the journey history for the previous 8 weeks, but no further back. The Oyster website gives details of the most recent journeys charged to Pay as you go if and only if credit has been purchased online, but not for other journeys, or those paid for by travelcard.

Oyster photocards

Oyster card can be used on the DLR network.

Oyster photocards, with an image of the authorised user on the card front, are issued to members of groups eligible for free or discounted travel. The cards are encoded to offer discounted fares and are currently available for students in full-time education (30% off season tickets), 16-17 cards (child rates for single journeys, discounted period travelcards, free travel on buses and trams for students that live and attend fulltime education in London) and for children under 16 years old (free travel on buses and trams and discounted single fares on the Underground and DLR). An Oyster Freedom Pass, with separate non-Oyster photocard, is issued to those over 60 or with disabilities for free travel.

Students over 18

Pay as you go users touch a validator before boarding a tram

Student Oyster photocards, valid for one year and giving 30% discount on period tickets, are available to full-time students over 18 at registered institutions within the area of the M25 motorway, an area slightly larger than Greater London, at a cost of £5. There is no discount for Pay as you go.

A replacement for lost/stolen cards cost £5 and involves a new application with a photo. The funds/remaining travel is non-transferable to a new student Oyster and is refundable instead. The refund of a lost/stolen Oyster card is based on the original pro-rata daily rate. Thus if you lose an annual student Oyster, the refund will not cover the remainder of the year due to the higher monthly/weekly pro-rata charges for the remainder of the year. This can leave students at a considerable disadvantage (adults receive replacement card and existing travel).

Since 8 September 2006, students at some London universities have been able to apply for their student photocard online by uploading a digital image and paying with a credit or debit card. According to Transport for London, other universities are expected to join the scheme.

Roll-out history

Oyster card vending machine, installed at London Bridge station in December 2006.

The roll-out of Oyster features and migration from the paper-based system has been phased. Milestones so far have been:

• London Underground ticket barriers, bus ticket machines, Docklands Light Railway stations and Croydon Tramlink stops fitted with validators. Cards issued to Transport for London, London Underground, and bus operator staff (2002)
• Cards issued to the public for annual and monthly tickets (2003)
• Freedom Passes issued on Oyster (2004)
• Pay as you go (prepay) launched on the tube and DLR (January 2004)
• Off-peak fares launched (January 2004)
• Annual tickets available only on Oyster (2004)
• Monthly tickets available only on Oyster, unless purchased from a station operated by a train company rather than TfL (2004)
• Prepay on buses (May 2004)
• Daily prepay price capping (February 2005)
• Student Oyster Photocards for students over 18 (early 2005)
• Oyster Child Photocards for under 16s — free travel on buses and reduced fares on trains (August 2005)
• Automatic top-up (September 2005)
• Weekly tickets available only on Oyster (September 2005)
• Oyster single fares up to 33% less than paper tickets (January 2006)
• Auto top-up on buses and trams (June 2006)
• Journey history for Pay as you go transactions available online (July 2006)
• Ability for active and retired railway staff who have a staff travel card to obtain privilege travel fares on the Underground with Oyster (July 2006)
• £4 or £5 'maximum cash fare' charged for Pay as you go journeys without a 'touch in' and 'touch out' (November 2006)
• Oyster Card for visitors branded cards launched and sold by Gatwick Express.

Impact

Since introduction, the Oyster card has caused the number of customers paying cash fares on buses to drop dramatically. In addition, usage of tube station ticket offices has dropped, to the extent that in June 2007, TfL announced that a number of ticket offices would close, with some others dropping to reduced opening hours. TfL suggested that the staff would be 're-deployed' elsewhere on the network, including as train drivers.

Usage statistics

Over 10 million cards have been issued of which around 5 million are in regular use. As of March 2007, more than 80% of all tube and bus journeys use Oyster. Around 22% of all Tube journeys are Oyster Pay as you go, around 4% cash.

Future

Beyond London

There are no immediate plans to extend the Oyster card to the national railway network outside the Greater London area, though the Association of Train Operating Companies is interested in developing an ISO 14443-type card like Oyster. Oyster was developed before the Integrated Transport Smartcard Organisation (ITSO) smartcard specification was agreed, and does not meet this specification. Consequently many of the modern computer-based, rail ticketing systems are able to issue Oyster-compatible tickets as of 2006; some older ticket-issuing equipment at stations served by London Underground but managed by Network Rail or their operators has been converted for use with Oyster Card. However, a derivation of Cubic FasTIS ticket machines (derived from the LUL Ticket Office Machine developed for the TfL Prestige Project) called FasTIS+ can retail TfL Oyster products.

The Department for Transport is endeavouring to get Transport for London to make Oyster an ITSO compliant system by 2009.

E-money

In 2005, Transport for London shortlisted two financial services suppliers to add e-money payment capability to the Oyster card. The scheme was planned to be used for purchases of low value, typically below £5 in retailers such as newsagents. It was planned that the e-money payment facility could be available from 2006. It was later reported that e-payment plans had been shelved.

Instead, in December 2006, TfL announced that they had partnered with Barclays plc to pair standard credit card functionality with Oyster functionality on a single card. Under this arrangement, contactless e-money functionality would be provided using Visa Wave and Pay rather than Oyster Pay as you go.

The new card from Barclaycard is due to be launched in Autumn 2007 and is called OnePulse

Redesign

Design re-issues

All three versions of the standard Oyster card.
Larger versions: Front • Back

Trial versions, Transport for London staff versions and the first version of the standard Oyster card for the public were originally released with the roundels on the front of the cards in red. Though the staff versions of the Oyster card still retain the red roundel, standard issues of the Oyster card have been updated since the first public release in order to meet TfL's Design Standards.

So far, there have been three issues of the standard Oyster card, including the original red roundel issue, but all three Oyster cards have retained their original dimensions of 85mm x 55mm, with Oyster card number and reference number located in the top right hand corner and bottom right hand corner of the back of the card respectively, along with the terms and conditions.

The second issue of the standard Oyster card saw 'Transport for London' branding on the back of the card, along with the Mayor of London (having replaced just the 'LONDON' branding in the blue segment of the card's back). The roundel on the front of the card was changed from the colour red to white, as white was seen to represent Transport for London (whereas a red roundel is more known to represent London Buses).

The most recent issue of the standard Oyster card sees TfL branding on the front of the Oyster card, having removed it from the back of the card from the previous issue. The Mayor of London branding has also been moved from the blue segment from the back of the card to underneath the terms and conditions, where it is more prominent.

Oyster card holder/wallet

All three versions of the standard Oyster card, with their respective holders.

With the release of the Oyster card, TfL released an accompanying Oyster card holder to replace the existing designs, previously sponsored by companies such as Yellow Pages and Direct Line, as well as London Underground's and London Buses own releases of the holder which came without advertising.

The official Oyster branded holders have only been redesigned twice, keeping up with various versions of the Oyster card.

The Oyster card holder has recently been redesigned by British designers including Katharine Hamnett, Frostfrench and Gharani Strok for Oxfam's I'm In campaign to end world poverty. The designer wallets are available for a limited period of time from Oxfam's street teams in London who will hand them out to people who sign up to the I'm In movement. Also, to celebrate 100 years of the Piccadilly Line, a series of limited edition Oyster card wallets were commissioned from selected artists from the Thin Cities Platform for Art project.

Issues

The system has not been without technical setbacks and criticisms.

Privacy

The system has been criticised as a threat to the privacy of its users. Each Oyster card is uniquely numbered, and registration is required for monthly or longer tickets, which are no longer available on paper. Usage data are stored both on the card and centrally by Transport for London for up to 8 weeks; recent usage can be checked by anyone in possession of the card at some ticket machines. Privacy groups consider it a form of mass surveillance and are concerned with how these data will be used, especially given the introduction of the London congestion charge by Mayor of London Ken Livingstone in February 2003.

The police have used Oyster card data as an investigative tool, and this use is increasing. Between August 2004 and March 2006 TfL's Information Access and Compliance Team received 436 requests from the police for Oyster card information. Of these, 409 requests were granted and the data was released to the police.

Design

The system has been criticised for usability issues in general system, website and top-up machine design. The most significant usability issue is that Pay as you go customers who do not 'touch out' at the end of their journeys will not be charged correctly. Additionally, users who have run up a Pay as you go debt of £1 or more are prohibited from using any period travelcards on the card until the debt is repaid.

For longer term users of the system, there are other areas of confusion. For instance, if your Oyster card fails to function or requires replacement, you need to fill out a form for this new card, and all your details are transferred across to it. Then when you log into the administration page online, you need once again to update your Oyster card details manually (by inputting the number on the back of it). Failure to spot this results in you buying tickets for the old, discarded Oyster card with no warnings given.

Software fault

On 10 March 2005 a software fault meant that the Oyster system was inoperable during the morning rush hour. Ticket barriers had to be left open and Pay as you go fares could not be collected.

Pre-pay launch 'bug'

On the day that the Pay as you go went live on all Oyster cards, some season ticket passengers were prevented from making a second journey on their travelcard. Upon investigation each had a negative prepay balance. This was widely reported as a major bug in the system. However, the reason for the "bug" was that some season ticket holders, either knowingly or otherwise, were passing through zones not included on their tickets. The existing paper system could not prevent this kind of misuse as the barriers only checked if a paper ticket was valid in the zone the barrier was in.

The difference between Pay as you go and Travelcards

Transport for London has heavily promoted the Oyster card, with many adverts seeking to portray it as an alternative to the Travelcard. However one-day Travelcards cannot be loaded onto the cards, whilst the Pay as you go facility does not work on most National Rail routes. In late 2005 the Advertising Standards Authority ordered the withdrawal of a poster that directly presented Oyster Pay as you go as a substitute for a paper Travelcard and claimed it was "more convenient" with "no need to plan in advance", after the ASA ruled that the lack of National Rail support meant that the two products were not directly comparable.

Validity of Pay as you go fares on National Rail routes has been a source of confusion since the launch of Oyster, with passengers frequently being caught out trying to use Pay as you go on rail routes where it is not valid. On some rail journeys for which PAYG is accepted, users may not board or alight at intermediate stations, which adds to the confusion and the risk of inadvertently failing to pay the correct fare. TfL published a list of routes and stations, but it was not until November 2006, three years after the launch of Oyster, that National Rail issued a map detailing the extent of Pay as you go validity.

External links

• Transport for London - Oyster card
• Transport for London - Design Standards at Transport for London
• Transport for London FareFinder