Re:Ask HN: Why are credit card chip readers so slow?
by mianos on Monday June 26, 2017 @12:23PM
(#14637959)
Oyster cards are settled between the reader and the card at the time of contact (then the reader will batch the transactions for forwarding later). POS are generally settled on the switch network, obviously this takes a lot longer.
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Re:Ask HN: Why are credit card chip readers so slow?
by Reason077 on Monday June 26, 2017 @12:30PM
(#14638016)
TfL can and do batch contactless transactions, too.
The charge for travel on a given day is not made against your account until early the next morning. And card readers on buses, for example, don't always have a reliable data connection, so must be able to be processed offline.
You might be right that they are authorising in real time on the Tube readers, though. This would explain the poor performance.