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Bus drivers are cunts
- Thread starter Sick Boy
- Start date
You wouldn't happen to be a bus driver, would you?
crackerjack
Well-known member
more than cunting bus drivers, i hate the fact that without my oyster i have to pay 2 quid, but with it, its 1.20. how fucking stupid. sometimes you dont have enough on your card and the nearest top up place is miles away. why should i have to pay 80p more as a result? cunting boris. but back to bus drivers, yeah some of them are arseholes. but its a tough job, in fairness. they have to put up with a lot of shit. but rather than risk being turned away the other weekend, i just sneaked on when the driver wasnt looking. i wasnt about to risk being stranded in fucking stratford at 3am.
It's a reward for providing all that lovely personalised data about your movements. Actually drivers aren't even obliged to take cash on some routes are they?
Taking a sightly more generous view maybe the idea is partly to offer lower fares to residents who are more likely to have cards? Which probably doesn't make a lot of sense as visitors are likely to buy travelcards anyway.
Possibly, but I'm not against punishing tourists for how they clog up the streets. If I get on a bus and haven't got enough money on my card then I sometimes just keep walking and pretend I didn't hear it make the 'you have no money' beeping sound. I don't make a habit of this, but think I've only ever been called back once.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Which Big Brother is no doubt storing on a database somewhere for some unspeakably nefarious purpose...
Seriously though, surely it's just to make the whole thing quicker for passengers and drivers alike? Think about how busy some routes are - if everyone paid in cash the bus would never get anywhere and the driver would have to carry about a grand in change, it'd be ridiculous. Having said that I used to like the old Routemasters with their conductors.
Yeah, no doubt. I shouldn't worry though, if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear.
This is correct. Before the introduction of Oyster cards buses hardly ever moved and when they did they were unable to go up hills due to the vast amounts of change being carried.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Oh god, I can feel myself getting dragged into one of those arguments...
but really, how can you read anything sinister into an automated ticket system for riding buses and trains? You're on camera the moment you step outside your front door, for heaven's sake. Anyone sufficiently high up in government who wanted to track my day-to-day movements could easily do so via CCTV, satellite and mobile signals. Not that this is itself a Good Thing, but it makes worrying about any sinister implications of Oyster cards a bit redundant, don't you think?
Edit: any case, time and again the government has proven that when it comes to big central IT projects, it can't find its arse with both hands. At least the last government was like that, and I see no reason the current one should be any different, especially with all the cutzzz.
but really, how can you read anything sinister into an automated ticket system for riding buses and trains? You're on camera the moment you step outside your front door, for heaven's sake. Anyone sufficiently high up in government who wanted to track my day-to-day movements could easily do so via CCTV, satellite and mobile signals. Not that this is itself a Good Thing, but it makes worrying about any sinister implications of Oyster cards a bit redundant, don't you think?
Edit: any case, time and again the government has proven that when it comes to big central IT projects, it can't find its arse with both hands. At least the last government was like that, and I see no reason the current one should be any different, especially with all the cutzzz.
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grizzleb
Well-known member
Change given out on buses? Londoners are spoiled. Firstbus pockets the change up here. Pretty shitty when it's a £1.35 ticket and you've only got two pounds.
And as for the oyster being used to track individuals... I've worked in the civil service and there is a huge amount of personal data that exists but on various different databases that aren't linked in any way, and not really organised at all (certainly not centrally), and not cross-referenced either. It would take ridiculous amounts of effort and money to put such personal data to any real use. The only thing I can think it being used for is to see what buses are busy and at what times to increase or decrease service.
Even something which does have a certain nefarious undertone, for example social networking sites being huge data farms that collect personal information about people is only used for the reasonably benal purpose of trying to market products.
And as for the oyster being used to track individuals... I've worked in the civil service and there is a huge amount of personal data that exists but on various different databases that aren't linked in any way, and not really organised at all (certainly not centrally), and not cross-referenced either. It would take ridiculous amounts of effort and money to put such personal data to any real use. The only thing I can think it being used for is to see what buses are busy and at what times to increase or decrease service.
Even something which does have a certain nefarious undertone, for example social networking sites being huge data farms that collect personal information about people is only used for the reasonably benal purpose of trying to market products.
I don't know why anyone in government would want to track your movements but if they did then looking up your Oyster card would be a pretty good way. The system seems to work quite well actually.
Supermarkets are keen for you to register a 'reward' card so they can target you with ads for stuff that your recorded purchasing habits suggest you might be susceptible to being sold. And yes, they can sod off with that.
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what do you mean by 'real use'? It's quite easy to use that data, as you say marketers do it all the time.
All that's needed for the purposes of planning services, or stocking shelves, is the figures.
grizzleb
Well-known member
It would be hard to truly personalise it, as you say. That you may or may not have to register using your name to use oyster (I don't know, I'm not a londoner) is pretty academic when you think of the numbers involved. It's not personalised at all, each oyster card is just a point, a small and insignificant number who makes up a part of the travelling public. It's the broad 'travelling public' they will be looking for data from. The fact that this may be John Smiths oyster is really irrelevant. That information has no context about you as an individual.
Put to use as in put to use nefariously, i.e to build complex sets of information which collate all a persons data which exists within public sphere. There's no linkup between any government departments is what I mean. If there was a big centralised database with everything about you on it then maybe I would start worrying, but the relative impossibility of this task makes the likelihood of such a system emerging in the near future pretty slim I'd say
Put to use as in put to use nefariously, i.e to build complex sets of information which collate all a persons data which exists within public sphere. There's no linkup between any government departments is what I mean. If there was a big centralised database with everything about you on it then maybe I would start worrying, but the relative impossibility of this task makes the likelihood of such a system emerging in the near future pretty slim I'd say
Nah, most Oyster cards are registered. I think you can still get one 'anonymously', and presumably you could make stuff up on the form, but you do need to register it if you want to put a season ticket on it.
Individually identifiable information about journeys is kept for eight weeks and then it's unlinked. Supposedly it's kept for the purposes of dealing with customer queries which is fair enough. It's not difficult at all though, that's what they do. And it is kept 'centrally'.
Individually identifiable information about journeys is kept for eight weeks and then it's unlinked. Supposedly it's kept for the purposes of dealing with customer queries which is fair enough. It's not difficult at all though, that's what they do. And it is kept 'centrally'.
yea i thought that only if you were a season ticket holder then you had to submit your address details? also I think you can register if you top up quite a high amount each month, in case something goes wrong or you lose your oyster basically. That's a good idea to be honest.
I have countless oysters floating around my house.
I have countless oysters floating around my house.