On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 07:58:08PM +0000, Paul Terry wrote:
In message , Tim Roll-Pickering
writes
Yes but if you have the season/travelcard already on it's difficult to use
PAYG. For instance if I have a Zones 1-3 travelcard and want to go Forest
Gate (Z3) to Ilford (Z4) I *can't* just use PAYG - I will *have* to get an
OEP which won't be available at my local starting station.
Agreed - you'd have to go to the Oyster shop just opposite the station.
OTOH, you can add the OEP at any time and from any convenient place that
supplies it - it costs nothing and it remains there to use for whenever
you want it.

Although you can only have one on there, and only use it once, so if you
make that journey fairly often (but not often enough to make a
travelcard worthwhile) then you have to visit that grotty little shop
every time, and hope that the spotty youth working there on that day
knows what the hell you're talking about, and that the equipment works.

My experience of trying to buy Oyster in shops outside the centre
indicates that this will not work well.

But I suspect that NR ticket offices in the London area will eventually
provide the full range of Oyster services - it would be madness not to
do so.

Yes, I expect they will eventually. Only when they do - all of them -
will I consider PAYG to be usable. And there need to be several
machines in the station from which to collect OEPs, to avoid queueing
and to make Oyster (mostly) simple and convenient. Or OEPs need to be
abolished. Stations will also need to be able to deal with Oystery
problems, setting up of auto-topup, and all the other things that
currently require a visit to a tube station or an expensive premium-rate
phone call.

And no doubt the paper extension fare will be whacked up to punish me
for not buying something unavailable to me.
It's not "unavailable" unless you can't cross the road to the Oyster
shop, and I've not seen any evidence in the 2010 fares tables of zone
extension tickets being "whacked up".

Please could you let me know where the nearest *competent* Oyster shop
is to Thornton Heath station whose equipment actually works? Last time
I asked TfL they couldn't tell me. The nearest shop, according to them,
was about ten minutes walk away, and their machine was broken. The
other two they suggested didn't know how to work the machine, and didn't
have any cards to sell.

--
David Cantrell | Cake Smuggler Extraordinaire

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life
-- Samuel Johnson