German railways merge NFC networks Frankfurt's regional travel authority is to merge its NFC infrastructure with the national rail operator, creating an interoperable network for travelling across Germany with a tap of the phone. That's still some way off, but both Deutsche Bahn and Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund (the national and local operators respectively) …
I live in Oxford and regularly travel into London (a mere 45 minutes away on the train). If I don't wish to use cash, I will need to have two NFC cards (one, dubbed 'The Key' for Oxford buses, and then the Oyster card for London). And I still need to pay cash for my train ticket. It would be great if I could beep my PAYG Oyster at the start of my journey, and at the end, and have the cash taken off.
NFC integration, at least regionally, would make life a whole lot simpler. The London-centric south-east of England would do well to standardize all public transport on Oyster. Other regions where customers are less likely to have Oyster cards may wish to standardize on the nearest big city's transport NFC card.
Chiltern Railways are a subsidiary of DB, as well as being the only UK rail operator run by railwaymen as opposed to beancounters - one of the reasons they deliver a far above average service (for the UK - it would be an execrable rip-off on most of the continent).
Mine's the anorak, ta.
Barcode readers at ticket gates cost significantly more and are slower, so bar-codes will only tend to be used in non gated environments. NFC on the other hand is both quick and secure (not like the Reg to fail to spot this issue with bar-codes) and will be the standard at some point. The only question is when.
@Guy 3: there's a national smart-card standard called ITSO (which the Key adheres to) that will ultimately be accepted everywhere in the UK including TfL as an alternative to Oyster. An NFC phone will be able to store both smart-cards on its SIM and therefore solve your problem.
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