"Tim Roll-Pickering" wrote:
Paul Terry wrote:

So the interesting legal point - can a TOC legally enforce a penalty
fare
if
it can be shown that the correct ticket was not available to
passengers at
the starting station?

Probably not (or at least the PF can be appealed against). The DfT
make
the situation clear he

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/legis...policya?page=7

Those rules don't explicitly take into account the nuances of the
machines
not being able to issue all reasonable tickets. The touch screen
machines
can generally handle any turn up & go fare, and the old button
machines
usually had every single direct station and reasonable interchange on
them,
with permit to travel machines covering some of the gaps, but nowadays
a lot
of machines aren't

But with OEPs rapidly becoming available on automatic ticket
machines
across London, it would probably be necessary to establish that the
ticket
machine was broken and there was no other one available nearby.

Yes but as stated elsewhere on the thread there are a number of
stations and
operators who don't have the Oyster pads on the machines - National
Express
doesn't have them at Forest Gate or Stratford; Barking (which
operator?)
didn't have them before Christmas. Okay Stratford has TfL machines as
well
but the others, particularly Forest Gate which has only one machine
and
isn't staffed in late evenings, don't. I'm not sure the presence of
nearby
newsagents with different opening times who have Oyster facilities
would
suffice as alternatives. (And also yesterday when in one of the ones
here I
asked for reference if I could get an "Oyster Extension Permit" there
and
the man at the till looked at me blankly so I said that it seemed to
only be
available at stations. So a further question is whether passengers can
be
held responsible if they can't get the product because somewhere along
the
line the information has not reached the till staff.)

Just to add to this-the Southeastern machines at Bromley South have now
had their Oyster pads enabled. The machines allow top-up and purchase of
weekly seasons, but no setting of OEPs. Brilliant work.
--
Current nearest station: Peckham Rye