On 29 Apr, 23:54, MIG wrote:

(snip)

I really don't think it's anything to do with the lifts. I
hypothesise that there was a general decision to place validators
wherever anyone could enter or leave a DLR platform, regardless
of the barrier situation.

Not having them at Bank would have made Bank an exception, rather than
the other way round, and maybe the argument was never made.


Not true - there are no standalone Oyster readers/ validators at
Canning Town station, which is a gated station run by LU. There did
used to be standalone validators at the entrance to the NLL platforms
to enable those pax transferring between a paper rail ticket and
Oyster PAYG to touch-in/out, but the NLL at Canning Town is no longer
and neither are the validators.

The standalone Oyster validators at Bank are indeed somewhat
mysterious, though here on utl we have come up with a number of
theories about it in the past, the details of which I forget now!

How about this one - a passenger with a zones 1&2 Travelcard loaded on
Oyster boards a District line train at Olympia without touching-in
(the station is ungated), travels to Monument and then changes to the
DLR at Bank before travelling out to Beckton in zone 3 - this
passenger can thus validate their Oyster card at Bank DLR to enable
them to use Oyster PAYG to pay for the extra to travel in zone 3.
True, perhaps knowing that they were going to travel outside their
Travelcard's zones they should have touched-in at Olympia before they
began their journey, but nonetheless these readers at Bank DLR cater
for those who didn't for some reason.

I have a second theory, but you'll have to read on for that one...


Far more mysterious (has this been raised before?) are the Carnet
validators, which don't seem to exist at any other DLR stations.
Maybe they are to do with the lifts.


Carnets were only for use on the Underground in zone 1, so these
Carnet validators provided for passengers arriving into Bank on the
DLR who were using another DLR-only ticket to continue their journey
on the Underground with a pre-purchased carnet ticket.

Now someone's going to ask me about DLR-only tickets! Well, a number
of DLR rover and season tickets used to exist, though I'm not sure if
you could ever get a DLR-only single ticket to/from Bank, as I forget
the details of DLR ticketing in days gone by.

Indeed, one DLR-only ticket does still exist - or should I say DLR-and-
riverboat only, because it's the "DLR Rail & River Rover" ticket.

May I therefore suggest that the mysterious standalone validators at
Bank DLR cater for people who wish to touch-in/out and transfer
between using this DLR-only ticket and Oyster PAYG. Obscure perhaps,
but bear in mind that when Oyster was being planned there were still
other DLR-only tickets around, so maybe these validators are the
vestiges of this earlier planning. Additionally, perhaps the thinking
at one time was that the DLR might possibly charge different PAYG
fares from the Underground, in which case these validators would cater
for that (though it would be a nightmare nonetheless!).