In message , Tim Roll-Pickering
writes

Well currently Epsom Downs doesn't have Sunday services or for that matter a
ticket office (the station building is now a nursery) but the other stations
do and the point does apply to evenings. In the old days the solution was
obvious - buy a permit to travel and sort it out on the train or the
destination.

But a permit to travel only covers the user from the starting station to
a point at which they can pay for a ticket.

In the case that you cite, the passenger will already be covered for the
first part of their journey by their season ticket - the OEP is needed
to cover the later part of their journey, when travelling outside their
zones.

What I'm saying is that the situation from 2/1/2010 is no worse than it
is at present - the journey will have to be interrupted at some point in
order to either buy an extension ticket or collect an OEP if neither are
available at the start of the journey.

--
Paul Terry

In message , Arthur
Figgis writes

Paul Terry wrote:

What do people from, say, Epsom Downs do now when they want to
travel beyond their zones on a Sunday evening?

Walk. There is no Sunday service.

Quite. (It was a bit mean of me to highlight that particular station
from Tim's list).
--
Paul Terry

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...
I think I will start a campaign to have validators installed on trains
so I don't have to get off at the boundary point (one of your big
complaints!). Thought you might find that a little amusing.

I think a campaign to get a PAYG purse enabled on our staff passes might be
a better idea. Is there any reason why one couldn't?
--
Cheers, Steve.
Change jealous to sad to reply.

In message , Steve
Dulieu writes

I think I will start a campaign to have validators installed on trains
so I don't have to get off at the boundary point (one of your big
complaints!). Thought you might find that a little amusing.

I think a campaign to get a PAYG purse enabled on our staff passes
might be a better idea. Is there any reason why one couldn't?

I would second that - not all of us have Privs either.
--
Steve Fitzgerald has now left the building.
You will find him in London's Docklands, E16, UK
(please use the reply to address for email)

On Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:13:23 +0000, asdf
wrote:

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that withdrawing the paper
ODTC would harm London's reputation as a tourist destination.

I think it is, if you offered basically the same product on an Oyster,
which would be a PAYG Oyster with the amount of money required for a
cap on it.

Plenty of other, newer systems don't do paper tickets, particularly in
the far East.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:49:26 +0000 (UTC), d
wrote:

Oyster was introduced to benefit TfL, no one else.

Rubbish. It benefits passengers as well, by...

1. Removing any need for bus conductors, thus reducing the cost to
TfL, and thus reducing fares (or reducing their increase).

2. Making buses move more quickly.

3. Removing the need to carry as much cash.

4. Removing the need to stop to buy a ticket.

5. Removing the need to predict whether you need a Travelcard at the
start of the day or not.

6. Allowing journeys to be extended without stopping off to buy a
ticket or indeed decide you wish to do it before boarding (give or
take OEPs, which I disagree with as a concept).

I'm sure there are more.

There are some disbenefits. But overall, Oyster's introduction has
benefitted both TfL and the passenger.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:06:10 -0800 (PST), John B wrote:

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that withdrawing the paper
ODTC would harm London's reputation as a tourist destination.

I think it's a massive and absurd exaggeration. For a start, I don't
think the vast majority of travellers even particularly think about
the public transport system where they're going, much less the
ticketing methods used on it.

They might if it has a reputation for having a visitor-hostile
ticketing system.

In any case, TfL could easily ensure that Oyster cards were available
for gbp10 with gbp7 credit and gbp20 with gbp17 credit from vending
machines at all airports, mainline terminals and major Tube stations -
and from behind the counter at hotels, ticket stops, etc, packaged
with a 10-language leaflet on how to top them up. That'd be pretty
straightforward for everyone.

That's not even remotely straightforward (especially compared to just
buying a paper ODTC). And you typed "gbp10 with gbp7 credit" without
seeing the obvious marketing problem with that?

(and very few people would bother getting a refund, which is a bonus
from Londoners' perspective.)

So not only should TfL mug tourists for £3+, but we should all be smug
about it too?

On 13 Dec, 00:41, John B wrote:
On Dec 12, 1:54*pm, MIG wrote:





On 12 Dec, 13:27, John B wrote:

On Dec 11, 11:30*pm, MIG wrote:

On 11 Dec, 16:17, John B wrote:

On Dec 11, 2:09*pm, MIG wrote:

In any case, TfL could easily ensure that Oyster cards were available
for gbp10 with gbp7 credit and gbp20 with gbp17 credit from vending
machines at all airports, mainline terminals and major Tube stations -
and from behind the counter at hotels, ticket stops, etc, packaged
with a 10-language leaflet on how to top them up. That'd be pretty
straightforward for everyone.

(and very few people would bother getting a refund, which is a bonus
from Londoners' perspective.)

That would mean doing something helpful that takes into account
people's circumstances.

That is not the general approach to the introduction of Oyster so far,
so why should it suddenly change?

Yes it is. See: pioneering daily capping; giving people two years to
get used to touching in and out before imposing penalties; ensuring
that top-up machines were fitted in all stations before abolishing
paper seasons; etc.

I know that you've got an irrational phobia of Oyster, but suggesting
that it's made life more rather than less difficult for people, and
has failed to take into account people's circumstances, is simply
false - and TfL has demonstrably offset

Hell, look at the NR roll-out: it's now clear that the vast majority
of NR stations inside the zones will have Oyster top-ups enabled by
January (against the sneering from here 'oooh, you'll have to get a
permit at a Tube station because NR doesn't do Oyster', etc ad
nauseam).

"TfL could easily" have done a number of things that took into account
reality over the the last few years, but they refused.

The only things TfL could've done to make Oyster more useable would've
required the permission of the TOCs, and with DfT refusing to wield
big sticks at them TfL's hands were tied. OEPs are a massive,
ridiculous pain in the arse, as is the fact that new PAYG lines will
be on rail rather than standard Tube payscales. TfL spent years trying
to ensure that they weren't, but ultimately couldn't.

It was, and still is, entirely within TfL's control not to charge
penalty fares to punish people for not using Oyster despite Oyster not
being fully available.

If Oyster is so good, why do they fine people so heavily for not using
it, even when they haven't got the option of using it?

Unless that can be answered, all apologist claptrap is worthless.

They don't. That a simple enough answer?

Seriously: you can't be 'fined' (I'm assuming 'fined' means 'charged a
bit more for your ticket', as the literal definition is just nonsense)
for not using Oyster if you don't have the option of using it.

On the routes where you don't have the option of using Oyster - say,
Crayford to London Bridge - you can buy a CDS or CDR; on the routes
where you do have the option of using Oyster - say, London Bridge to
High Barnet - you can touch in and get the Oyster fare.

Before Oyster, you'd still have needed to buy separate paper tickets
from Crayford-LBG and LBG-High Barnet: nothing has changed. Or you
could have bought a ODTC covering the whole journey, which you still
can: nothing has changed.

Oyster has brought massive benefits to people living within the areas
where it's fully accepted. It's much less relevant to people living in
the areas where it isn't fully accepted, which is the fault of the
TOCs and the DfT and which will finally (mostly) be addressed by
January.

But it hasn't made life *any worse* for people living in the areas
where it isn't accepted. The way it's been implemented, with old-style
NR fares available on all NR routes, with low point-to-point Tube and
bus fares available to anyone with an Oyster card whether they live in
Angel, Bexley or Timbuktu, and with ODTCs still fully available to all
comers, means that it definitionally can't.

You don't seem to take into account the fact that many hundreds of
thousands of people (if not millions) live in places where Oyster is
not available but spend a lot of time in travelling to and perhaps
working in places where non-Oyster ticketing is penalised, either by
hugely hiked fares or by ridiculous inconvenience, like having to get
off to touch in or out.

But all this has been done over and over.

There are no places where Oyster is not available. There are some
places where Oyster is not valid on some or all means of transport.
The whole reason I came up with the example above was because I was
trying, and failing, to find somewhere where non-Oyster users were
subjected to a choice of hugely hiked fares or ridiculous
inconvenience.

The one I missed (and as far as I can see it *is* the only one) is
being the holder of a paper season Travelcard who wants to go outside
their zones on LU/DLR. Yes, that's a pain the way the system is
currently set up. The obvious and completely painless way round it for
people within the zones is to *get your season Travelcard on Oyster*,
which has absolutely no negative effects and solves all your problems.

It's not painless; it's both inconvenient and unreliable, when you
have to do a detour via a shop or non-local station where the machine
may not be working or there may be a huge queue etc etc. Sometimes,
due to circumstances, one ends up with a paper season from one's local
station (maybe considerably later for work than if one hadn't tried to
use a broken Oyster machine in the first place).


...which solely leaves people with season Travelcards from outside the
zones. Now, these are z123456, so we're solely talking about the
occasional Tube trip to the wilds of Bucks and Herts. Yes, Oyster has
made life rubbish for those people on those trips. D'you want to
suggest the B/CA on that, because I'm suspecting the C column's not
going to be vast...?

But there is a bleedin obvious solution, which TfL point-blank refuses
to consider: sell extension tickets to holders of paper seasons at
less than the penalty fare rate. What's so difficult about that? The
fact that they won't disproves any claims to benevolence.

On Sat, 12 Dec 2009 05:27:04 -0800 (PST), John B wrote:

Before Oyster, you'd still have needed to buy separate paper tickets
from Crayford-LBG and LBG-High Barnet: nothing has changed.

Err, no. Before Oyster you could buy singles and returns from any NR
station to any LU station.

On 13 Dec, 15:49, (Neil Williams)
wrote:
On Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:49:26 +0000 (UTC),
wrote:

Oyster was introduced to benefit TfL, no one else.

Rubbish. *It benefits passengers as well, by...

1. Removing any need for bus conductors, thus reducing the cost to
TfL, and thus reducing fares (or reducing their increase).

2. Making buses move more quickly.

3. Removing the need to carry as much cash.

4. Removing the need to stop to buy a ticket.

5. Removing the need to predict whether you need a Travelcard at the
start of the day or not.

6. Allowing journeys to be extended without stopping off to buy a
ticket or indeed decide you wish to do it before boarding (give or
take OEPs, which I disagree with as a concept).

The opposite is true. When you are extending beyond the area covered,
you can no longer get an extension without getting off to touch out
or, if you don't use it for any part of the journey, you get charged
an enormously-hiked cash fare.