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TfL faces big fight to keep Oyster name
Dick Murray, Transport Editor11.08.08
Tube bosses face a fierce battle to keep the Oyster card name in a legal dispute which could cost millions of pounds.
Transport for London has sacked private sector contractor TranSys from the £100million-a-year Oyster card deal after two major failures allowed hundreds of thousands of passengers to travel free.
TfL is using a "break" clause to terminate the 17-year contract in 2010.
But TfL wants to retain the Oyster brand name, owned by TranSys - and the sacked company does not appear to be giving it up willingly. It could force TfL to issue new cards to the current six million holders.
Senior sources have told the Standard the legal battle could cost "tens of millions of pounds".
A TfL spokesman confirmed: "Tran-Sys owns the Oyster name. We intend that Oyster will continue, including in name. We are confident that we will get better value for money out of the contracts." He added: "There won't be any discernible changes for card holders."
A source at TranSys said: "If we can't come to an arrangement with TfL they will have to issue a complete set of new cards."
Reader views (7)
Has the brand got any value?
Do we love it?
- Pete, London
Change the name - "Routemaster" would be a good choice and a nice way of honouring Ken's time in charge.
- John, London
Further proof of the incompetence of Ken's regime .... oh, hold on Hendy the Bendy Bus man is still the Commissioner isn't he. How?
- Brian, London
I agree with Oscillator. It's basic licensing common-sense for a party making public use of a trade mark to get the ownership of the trade mark in this type of agreement. I thought, before all this blew up, that TfL had developed the trade mark separate from the RFID card software it was licensing. What a screw-up.
In any case, some good comes out of it. Oyster is a silly name, and one that I never liked. So TfL just has to think up a new catchy trade mark. Why not hold a contest, with some nice prize for the best submission?
- Phil Jones, London UK
It's a silly name for a card anyway!
- Steve, London
Seeing as the Oyster card has proved that it's inherently insecure as card can be scanned and forged, shouldn't we be going with an entirely new software system using the current hardware to save costs? A re branding exercise could be just what's needed?
- Harry Clam, London
How can anyone have signed a fixed term contract where the private firm retains onwership of the brand beyond the contract term?! Sheer unbelievable incompetence if true, whoever was responsible should be sacked.
- Oscillator, London UK
