Whole Stadium to be a Cash free zone. (UPDATED)

[Dirk Gently]

http://www.barclaycard.co.uk/personal-home/cards/one-pulse-balance-transfer/index.html?WT.mc_id=96255513311019176-&TC=AFMFX17319

This might look a touch familiar in its operation. Man City have already (it appears) taken this techonology on board and there is a view that it might be very widespread soon.

The software and technology we use started off as the "Man City system" so this sort of convergence is definitely a possibility.

[North Somerset Royal]

http://www.barclaycard.co.uk/personal-home/cards/one-pulse-balance-transfer/index.html?WT.mc_id=96255513311019176-&TC=AFMFX17319

This might look a touch familiar in its operation. Man City have already (it appears) taken this techonology on board and there is a view that it might be very widespread soon.

The software and technology we use started off as the "Man City system" so this sort of convergence is definitely a possibility.

I hope it is. It has speeded up service in the Upper West so that its now possible to buy refreshments at half time without missing any of the match. I never used to bother at half time as it was too much hassle so I am spending more as a result which , if I am typical, is good news for the club.

[gazzer, loyal royal]

http://www.barclaycard.co.uk/personal-home/cards/one-pulse-balance-transfer/index.html?WT.mc_id=96255513311019176-&TC=AFMFX17319

This might look a touch familiar in its operation. Man City have already (it appears) taken this techonology on board and there is a view that it might be very widespread soon.

The software and technology we use started off as the "Man City system" so this sort of convergence is definitely a possibility.

I hope it is. It has speeded up service in the Upper West so that its now possible to buy refreshments at half time without missing any of the match. I never used to bother at half time as it was too much hassle so I am spending more as a result which , if I am typical, is good news for the club.

to be fair though this has nothing to do with the new system, just the fact they now have beers lined up before the rush, so we don't have to wait for them to pull them to order but can be simpy handed over the bar instead of the long wait

[North Somerset Royal]

There were some problems with the Quick Pay system yesterday. The first was that full normal prices were initially being charged without the promissed 10% discount. I spoke to a guy representing the caterers and another in a club blazer and they eventually discovered that the system had not been re-set from the last rugby match. They rectified this and then discused with a rep from the Quick Pay firm how they could refund the overcharges. None of them could come up with a solution. The guy from the caterers told me that they had also had problems with people asking for unused balances to be refunded as it was the last game. He said that this could only be done by people filling in a form and sending it to the club who would send a cheque idc. Naturally people were not too happy with this. He also said that as queuing times had been reduced dramatically to an average 3 mins it is almost certain that the system will be rolled out to the rest of the stadium next season although they will be seeking feedback from supporters.

[gazzer, loyal royal]

i thought on saturday the service was so slow, we queued for 15 minutes at hlaf time to get a pint and the woman couldn't understand the pie and pint deal, trying to charge us for 2 pints and two pies.

the paying system wasn't the problem, the staff are so poorly trained its untrue and the can't understand english

[North Somerset Royal]

Yes it seemed that when they started the trial they drafted in "the A team" as the service was much improved but on Saturday it was back to the normal standard.

[premiership_bound]

So is this being extended throughout the stadium then?

[North Somerset Royal]

A guy from the caterers who was observing at the last home game told me that it would be extended next season as it had cut average queuing times so much. On that basis I have not reclaimed the credit balance I had left on my card. However I wonder whether the new catering arrangements with Wairose will effect this. I am not clear as to whether the previous caters are carrying on with Waitrose merely supplying some food or whether the whole set up is changing. At the moment as they have not offered me a refund I am assuming that the card scheme is going to continue.

[Roger the Rabbit]

There is no way that anyone would have been able to say at the last game that it was going to be extended - not disputing he may have said it but I know for a fact that no decision had been made at that point !

I also don't understand quite how Waitrose fit in, I'd be pretty sure they won't be manning the kiosks so it may just be them supplying some goods - although I also don;t understand how that would make sense financially !

[Rex]

Cash free will eventually be phased into all stands gradually. The only issue i can really see is if there is a software failure where no-one will be able to get food or drink. Therefore the emphasis is on gradually.

[Roger the Rabbit]

Cash free will eventually be phased into all stands gradually. The only issue i can really see is if there is a software failure where no-one will be able to get food or drink. Therefore the emphasis is on gradually.

I think the implications of a failure are much worse for the ticketing system, and if they have enough backup to cope with that the catering side should be OK, and the easy fall back would just be to revert to cash.

Really wonder about a full stadium roll out, given the packed concourses in the N and E I reckon the initial implementation could be really tricky but there certainly were differences in the UW.

[West Stand Man]

Perhaps I read it wrongly, but my understanding of the Waitrose thing is that they will provide food for the hospitality rather than the kiosks?

[Roger the Rabbit]

I'm not sure it's been made entirely clear, but the original announcement did talk about them providing food 'throughout' the stadium.

[RoyalBlue]

Cash free will eventually be phased into all stands gradually. The only issue i can really see is if there is a software failure where no-one will be able to get food or drink. Therefore the emphasis is on gradually.

I think the implications of a failure are much worse for the ticketing system, and if they have enough backup to cope with that the catering side should be OK, and the easy fall back would just be to revert to cash.

Trust me, as someone who has a fair amount of experience of working with cashless vending systems (having introduced one at my place of work a good number of years ago) it would not be an easy fall back! The systems do not tend to give prior warning that they will crash (although generally they are very robust) and, when they do, the 'law of sod' dictates that they will do so at your busiest time. Even assuming that the caterers have kept hold of their cash tills (extremely unlikely and even if they have, space constraints mean that they are unlikely to be positioned at the point of sale), you then have the question of cash floats that you would need to hold and then distribute around all of the vending points - 'Have you the right change please?' is hardly likely to help with queue times!

In truth, once you go down the cashless system you are fully committed and there is no easy way back. Therefore you have to be 99.99% certain that all is in place and fully proven, with as many system fail-safes and backups as possible in place, before you make the full switch.

[Roger the Rabbit]

Not sure about the bit regarding tills, AFAIK the system doesn't need different tills. The cashless element is simply a reader attached to the existing till so that rather than placing cash in the till you swipe the card as the form of payment. Given that the pilot only ran for football yet there were still rugby games going on it would suggest the cashless and cashless methods can work almost in parallel. Of course the normal system is also computerised and it's possible that a crash could also bring that down ! On the basis that I don;t recall that happening in the hundreds of games there have been it may well be that the system is 100% robust !

The need for a float could be minimised by sensible pricing points.

[RoyalBlue]

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the cashless system (I acknowledge that the systems do tend to be pretty robust) - just that you wouldn't want to be around should it crash!! Even when a card loader goes wrong - and they very definitely do- it's a right pain in the *rse!

As for minimising the cash float required, even at the extortionate prices currently charged, most items cost well below a fiver. Therefore, even if all prices were rounded to the pound, you are still going to need to have a pretty sizeable cash float available and be in a position to distribute it quickly and effectively.

There was an earlier posting about people not being given the discounts they were due and no-one being able to work out how to correct/fix this. There are ways of correcting/fixing it within any decent system, albeit they take a bit of effort. Therefore, assuming it wasn't a lack of a will to provide refunds, I would suggest things might not yet be fully up to speed. If that is the case, it's probably not advisable to proceed to a 100% implementation quite yet.

[Roger the Rabbit]

It's never going to be simple !

Realistically they wouldn;t roll it out to the whole stadium in one hit. If they do take it further I'd imagine it would take whole season to get it in 100% of the ground. The pilot was always going to throw up minor issues and whilst I understand it went pretty well I'm sure there willbe lessons to learn.

Not sure about the discount question as everything was priced at the discount prices, effectively the UW had a different price list to the rest of the ground and the tills don;t need a price to be entered so don't understand how someone could not have been given their discount unless it was a software bug of some kind. The suppliers had people on site who quite amazingly were fixing problems in real time, very impressive !!!

Cash distribution is definitely an issue, but there is a system already operating for handling cash during events and I don;t think it would be hard to use that in reverse. Not going to go into any detail about how it works in case there are muggers reading !!!

It's an interesting project for sure and I know lots of other clubs are watching with a view to doing the same thing - but once again RFC are the leaders !!

[North Somerset Royal]

At the last home game I arrived in the UW concourse shortly after the ground opened and on buying a beer found that the full price had been charged to my card with no discount. I queried this with the guy serving me but he did not understand what I was on about and just shrugged his shoulders. I reported this to the observers. They investigated and discovered that the pricing system had not been reset from the last rugby match. They were able to rectify this straight away so the problem only effected a few early birds. However they did not have any method of rectifying the overcharges and suggested that I write to the club requesting a refund. As it was only 30p obviously that was not worthwhile.

[g]

RFC are deffo the leaders in mugging their own supporters with flashy plastic.

[Roger the Rabbit]

They were able to rectify this straight away so the problem only effected a few early birds. However they did not have any method of rectifying the overcharges and suggested that I write to the club requesting a refund. As it was only 30p obviously that was not worthwhile.

Seems to me it could have been done by going to the standalone till and them loading 30p credit back onto the cards of anyone affected, it would then have been up to the club to reconcile the discepancy between the till records and the contents of the till (not hard given there would have been a matching discrepancy on the severy tills...)