MPTE Walrus Smart Card

[wirralbus]

RE: MPTE Walrus Smart Card
The Walrus cards sound like a pig in a poke , i think everybody thought they would work off the shelf just like the Oyster in london.

[Valandil]

RE: MPTE Walrus Smart Card
It's another technological revolution ... just look how much it has improved our lives ...

[Myllenium2453]

RE: MPTE Walrus Smart Card
Technological flop I would say

[DEM777Y]

RE: MPTE Walrus Smart Card
In my opinion, the Walrus cards are a right pain in the behind. The Saveaway/Solos take at least four times as long to process as the old-fashioned 'flash passes' which has a huge effect when you're loading a large queue.

Yet another example of technology doing anything but improving the status quo.

[Harryn9000]

RE: MPTE Walrus Smart Card
It been like that since solo was added to warlus card, savaways work fine on them. It solo ticket arriva been aware of it for weeks yet it still not fixed. My mum had issues when trying to go work with one

[PO59 MXJ]

RE: MPTE Walrus Smart Card
The main problem is the passengers not putting their card on the reader correctly. Why they think they are DJs and start spinning their cards around or start trying to swipe it across the reader, i would never know. Then you have the ones who put it on and immediately take it back off and say 'oh its upside down' or the idiots that just cannot wait for the green light. Exactly the same problem with the concessions. People in the South of England dont have this problem, must be the Northern air.

[E400]

RE: MPTE Walrus Smart Card
It shouldn't take as long as it does to read the card though, nor should it corrupt the data if it is taken off after a couple of seconds. I am a student and my student card has a similar near-field chip in it used for accessing buildings after hours. That is immediate, sometimes activating before it has even touched the reader. When I first got an NFC pass I kept my student card with my pass and about 10cm from the ticket machine (before I'd even had chance to put it on) and it would corrupt the reader.

Maybe these tickets need a stronger chip with a larger field of interaction. It isn't the fault of the ticket machine if it can attempt to read a stronger chip from 10cm away, surely?

[Barney]

RE: MPTE Walrus Smart Card

(13/10/2015 09:42)Enviro400 Wrote:  It shouldn't take as long as it does to read the card though, nor should it corrupt the data if it is taken off after a couple of seconds. I am a student and my student card has a similar near-field chip in it used for accessing buildings after hours. That is immediate, sometimes activating before it has even touched the reader. When I first got an NFC pass I kept my student card with my pass and about 10cm from the ticket machine (before I'd even had chance to put it on) and it would corrupt the reader.

Maybe these tickets need a stronger chip with a larger field of interaction. It isn't the fault of the ticket machine if it can attempt to read a stronger chip from 10cm away, surely?

The Walrus card and the software involved is clearly not up to scratch unlike the old paper tickets (please excuse the awful pun). There is a fundamental truth in the old adage: Buy cheap, buy twice. It would be interesting to learn how much Merseytravel has paid for this system and how much other transport undertakings have paid for a system that works properly. I suspect that it cost a lot more.

[Myllenium2453]

RE: MPTE Walrus Smart Card
I agree. Lets get rid of this electronic scanning rubbish and go back to the systems we all knew, scratch off saveaways, solo and trio tickets with a passengers photo.

All this electronic rubbish is just that, RUBBISH.
GET RID OF IT MERSEYTRAVEL.

[Barney]

RE: MPTE Walrus Smart Card

(13/10/2015 10:33)Myllenium2453 Wrote:  I agree. Lets get rid of this electronic scanning rubbish and go back to the systems we all knew, scratch off saveaways, solo and trio tickets with a passengers photo.

All this electronic rubbish is just that, RUBBISH.
GET RID OF IT MERSEYTRAVEL.

Resorting to paper tickets is never going to happen as, in so many aspects of life, technology IS the way forward. How many of us would give up our smart phones or ipads and start buying/relying on newspapers or books to service our needs? No, the fundamental problem is cost. Last week I read that London receives 24 times the amount of public money than the north west does for public transport initiatives. Merseytravel has a very limited budget and has to live within it, unlike TfL.