London Banter - View Single Post

Mizter T · **London Overground from 11 Nov 2007**

wrote:

On Nov 12, 10:14 am, Mizter T wrote:
Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
asdf wrote:

Are there any cases where a travelcard holder can make a detour journey,
even an unusual one, staying entirely within validity but get charged an
extension because the system assumes a trip into zone 1?

Yes, this will happen in every such case, as the system does not know
which route the passenger actually took.

Each pair of origin/destination stations is assigned a set of zones
that the passenger is assumed to pass through when travelling between
them.

Which does somewhat clash with the basic concept of the travelcard...

See my other post - I come to the possible conclusion that holding a
paper season Travelcard might actually be preferable for some longer
journeys on the NLL. Which, as a fan of Oyster, isn't the kind of
conclusion I like.

It's a pity you can't buy "paper" tickets with oyster.

Imagine going up to the ticket machine at WJ and clicking to buy an
all-zones travel card. Touching your oyster PAYG and you're done. The
travelcard is loaded onto the oyster card for the day.
(Obviously you'd actually need the paper ticket if you are going on
trains where the guards don't have oyster readers so maybe the machine
could (optionally?) print a paper ticket as well - "Only valid when
presented with oyster card whatever")

Tim.

First off, almost all ticket inspectors on trains in London do have
Oyster readers - including on the lines that don't accept Oyster PAYG.
Why? Because passengers might well have a Travelcard season loaded on
their Oyster card.

But I'm afraid to say I disagree with your idea anyway. What your
proposal boils down to in essence is to use an Oyster as if it were a
cashless card system, and so use the PAYG balance to buy a ticket.
Instead I'd say that if you want a Day Travelcard you can just as well
buy it with cash or a debit/credit card.

The preferable situation would be for all lines in London to accept
Oyster PAYG, and then all passengers could benefit from daily price
capping (which is in a way akin to a Day Travelcard except you don't
have to plan ahead before you start travelling that day).

Of course there would still be the tricky issue of which route the
Oyster system presumed you had taken, regardless of what actual route
you did in fact take.