Announcements over contactless and Oyster

Yeah we even get it in Roding Valley. I think as you pretty much said the point is there's a small chance that the reader might recognise both cards and charge you on both cards so you pay twice.

Yes, I'd heard that the actual likelihood of being double-charged is quite low and you could probably get a refund anyway, but I think they're just covering themselves. Besides there's nothing TfL like more than sending out an irritating announcement, in lieu of something helpful.

Mind you, I often find than when there's service disruption and I'm waiting for a train - don't know when it's going to arrive - my mind tends to wander and I find myself thinking: 'Should I keep my oyster card and contactless payment card together? It'd really help me organise my various cards and reduce the number of holders and wallets and stuff...' So, y'know, whilst I may be cynical, it is always useful to hear that timely reminder, telling me I should keep them separate. I forget, you see, I need to be told something four or five times every day

I seem to remember that announcements are now done locally to sound more, well, local and personal, rather than a scripted corporate voice. (Am I right?) However they often sound A) bored and obviously script reading or B) unintelligible owing to mumbling or poor clarity of speech. I also question how useful such an announcement is continually, however the TfL edict seems to be that any quiet time is ample space for another announcements.

Harking back to the 1972 "Regulations Concerning The Working Of Stations", one of the clauses reads (paraphrased) "Announcements must not be continuous, to avoid irritating passengers. They must not be made when a train is arriving or leaving, as this will interfere with the quality of the broadcast". If only today's management read that!

Hear, hear!



You're absolutely right. I think it is also a cost-saving measure to obviate the need to re-hire professional voice-over artists but as you point out, the resultant quality isn't all that. In most cases they do sound bored - agreed.

It's quite contradictory really as T/Ops on here have often alluded to the target-driven culture of scoring extra points for making manual announcements over the PA, whereas the management have emphasised on several public events (e.g. S Stock mock-up) that their objective is to have as many digital voice announcements as possible (and hence complimentary on-screen messages) so as to keep the manual PAs to the bare minimum.

The other possibility is that it only sees one of the cards and so charges that one, but sees only the other one when you exit resulting in two incomplete journeys.

On the topic of voice quality there are a couple of platform staff at Bank who have better quality diction and clarity than some voiceover artists. One in particular would make a fabulous compère. The same cannot be said of anyone I've heard at Debden.

Certainly not the case on quite a few local stations (North West London) - also quite a few announcers here have thick foreign accent to the point of being difficult to understand.

Yes, getting to the point where I can memorise and and join in with the "card clash" announcement. Was at Stratford one evening last week for a total period of 17 minutes (due to delays) and the "card clash" announcement was played no fewer than 11 times! I'm hoping that's either a broken timer somewhere on the automatic announcement!

I don't think there's going to be much call for the well-dressed passengers message... Also, people might take it the wrong way and think you're taking the Michael

I shall take that as a complement. And greetings to t'other Michael too.

Well now, I love this bit of the BBC News item:


Commuters have been urged to avoid paying twice in "card clash" by making sure only one card touches the reader.

Rather inspires confidence in the system, that does.

Still, item 3 on the national news headlines on the right hand side is better reading:

"Goldfish has brain op".(and it was successful, folks!)

So, there's now at least some chance of someone somewhere in authority understanding that mixing the two systems is the cause of card clash, not the PBI of Tube travel-the commuters .

Waitrose seem to manage to use contactless readers at their checkouts without making a song and dance about "card clash".

The problem TfL has is nothing to do with Oyster being a closed proprietary system. It is all about having to recognise *three* forms of smartcard - Oyster, ITSO and now CPCs. Supermarket readers have to recognise one - CPCs for low value transactions. Anything else card based involves the contact element of the card being placed inside the reader.

The other crucial factor is how people interract with the readers. I have never seen people tap their purse, wallet or handbag or jacket pocket on a retail card unit. People specifically choose the card they wish to pay with and use that on or in the reader. Transport is different because people are inevitably in a mad dash and have for many years adopted a range of behaviours about where they keep their travel ticket and what they keep with it. The ability for a smartcard to be read through a bag or pocket or wallet has reinforced the "don't bother to take the card out" behaviour. Now the technology has been updated those long learnt behaviours have to change. Even if the system was entirely CPC based there would still be card clash because many people will have more than one CPC in their wallet e.g. a debit card and a credit card. It is the presence of more than one card and the target being unable to clearly identify one is the issue.

I make no judgement as to what is "right". I've always kept my travelcard separate from any other card - even when they were issued on bits of cardboard never mind being a magnetic ticket or an Oyster Card.