On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 19:48:09 +0000 (UTC), David Jackman
wrote:

"Graham J" wrote in
:


Would there be any point in loading a one day Travelcard (say zones
1-4) onto an Oyster card on a day when I need it, or might I just as
well carry on buying paper tickets?

You can't actually load a one day travelcard onto an Oyster. Although
I'd find it useful myself I can see why they never bothered with it as
it is just as easy to hand you a paper ticket.

Is this one of the things that will change on Feb 27th? Or does capping
limit pre-pay deductions to the cost of a travelcard but not actually
create a travelcard (and thus not valid on national rail unless you could
use pre-pay for the journey you are making)?

Having seen some of the training materials today and looked through the
wide range of examples of how it will work your statement is broadly
correct. As many NR stations do not have pre-pay validity then it is
pretty pointless to opt for capping to One Day ticket prices when the
card cannot record your trips. People needing to use NR services are a
specific exception to the "best value" facility for capping and the
training literature advises the continued use of One Day Travelcards for
such customers.

It is stated in the TfL Board agenda papers for 9/2/05 that the DfT have
decreed that TfL zonal fares will apply to all NR journeys within the
zonal area by 2007. Implementation will be on a TOC by TOC basis
between now and 2007. Pre-pay will be part of the roll out of this
policy.

I hope the lack of information on offical tfl sites does not mean the
details are still being worked out...

I think you can rest assured that a hell of a lot of detail has been
worked out.

The simple basis is that trip data is used to determine what modes,
times and zones people travel in. The caps are then set at the
appropriate one day ticket.

If you exclusively use buses and tramlink then you will be capped to the
One Day Bus Pass price.

If you travel across LUL, buses and trams during off peak times then you
will be capped to the equivalent off peak one day travelcard for the
zones travelled through.

When trips are a combination of peak and off peak bands then it gets
more complicated as the cap can be the lower of the appropriate day
travelcard *or* the summation of say a peak Tube fare (e.g. Z6-Z!) for
your first trip and then if all your subsequent trips were in Z12 then
the Z12 day travelcard price. I have to say that looking at the more
complex examples used in the training material that I now understand why
it has taken time to get the system knocked into some sort of shape to
provide the cheapest trips given the complex range of combinations.

I'll also happily confess that I don't fully understand all of the
examples but I haven't had time to really study them. I'm not qualified
to go on the training course but I'd secretly like to go on it to fully
understand what goes on. Still they are asking for us office people to
volunteer to help with the launch and provide advice at stations so
perhaps I'll get to have a basic briefing, don my hi-vi and freeze to
death in a windy ticket hall :-)
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!