On May 11, 9:10*am, Tim Woodall wrote:

On Thu, 7 May 2009 22:35:08 +0100,
* * Recliner wrote:

[snip]

Certainly, my first reaction was that there must have been some
expensive unresolved journeys, but it appears not. But I needed to do
some spreadsheet work to be sure.

I don't think I've had a correct day on the journey history since end of
March. Below is the current mess that it has for my journey history.

Currently it appears that Euston is not registering at all except for
Auto top-up. Also the pricing appears to have gone weird - why I'm being
debited 1.50 when I exit at Watford - which implies I'm being charged
2.00 at entry at Euston. I think it should be 5.00 debit at Euston
followed by 1.50 credit at Watford.

Previously to that it was Watford Junction that stopped registering at
all.

It's extremely hard confirm it's correct because there are days missing
- e.g. nothing has registered from Moorgate entry on 17/04 to Watford
Junction entry on 22/04 but there must have been at least 15GBP of
journeys for the Auto top-up to have triggered. Because I sometimes
travel before 06:30, sometimes don't do a normal journey - e.g. that
17/04 day where I did WJ-Moorgate; Moorgate-Euston - and I don't keep
a record of exactly when I travel where.

Tim, the problem here is with the *online* journey history display -
as displayed via Oyster online - as opposed to the underlying Oyster
central database being incorrect.

In other words what's being displayed doesn't make a lot of sense
because some exits and entries are missing on the online journey
history - however the definitive record, as held by the central Oyster
database, is correct. You should therefore find that you have not been
overcharged - you can ask the Oyster help desk for a PDF of all the
journeys you've done in the past three months, which won't have any
gaps in it (unlike the online journey history).


I know for a fact that occasionally exits can fail to register (I
believe it has happened on entry as well but I can only be 99% sure).
It's happened to my girlfriend the very first journey she made on PAYG.
I was explaining to her how it all worked and how you had to make sure
you always touched in and out. On that particular journey she exited via
the barriers at Watford Junction - I watched her open them with her
oyster card and walk through - but she ended up with an unresolved
journey. And because she's not that often in London and credits can only
be put back onto your card when you use an oyster gate, LUL "stole" that
money because she couldn't get her credit back within 8 weeks.

I have never come across this issue before. It's worth noting that
when you touch-in or touch-out on a gate (or standalone Oyster reader)
a transaction occurs there and then between the validator and the
smartcard - this means that the fare is debited from the card
immediately, i.e. without any recourse to the Oyster central database
(which just keeps tabs on all the transactions).

In this particular instance I'm not sure what happened - perhaps the
validators on the gates at Watford Jn were not functioning correctly
(it was early days of PAYG at Watford Jn) and so let her out but
somehow didn't properly conduct the transaction with her Oyster card.
Otherwise I wonder if she inadvertently walked through on someone
else's ticket, though from your account that sounds unlikely. The
other thing that comes to mind was whether this was a problem of the
whole journey 'timing out' - which could perhaps happen if she had
started the journey from a Tube station, then made the interchange at
Euston, then travelled on to Watford Jn and the total time of the
whole journey was over 2 hours (this limit has now been raised to 2
1/2 hours, and is in the process of being changed again so that it
reflects the distance a passenger has travelled).


Tim.

* * **
* * *Date * * Time *Location * * * * Action * * * * Fare Price cap Balance
* * **
[snip list]

Sorry Tim, I'm not going to provide a free consultancy service on this!