On 3 Jan, 11:04, MIG wrote:
On 3 Jan, 10:59, JS wrote:



On 3 Jan, 10:41, MIG wrote:

On 3 Jan, 03:17, Mudchute wrote:

I have a Zone 1 and 2 Travelcard on my Oyster and wanted to travel
from Charing Cross to Catford Bridge this Saturday evening and was
hoping to be able to put an Oyster Extension Permit on at one of the
ticket machines at Charing Cross but this option wasn't available. I
did manage to top up my PAYG balance though. I decided then to go to
the ticket office and (surprise, surprise) nobody in the ticket office
knew what an Oyster Extension Permit was. I told them my situation and
one of them said I could just touch in and touch out at the other end
while someone else told me it would be cheaper if I bought a paper
ticket extension. The TfL website still mentions OEPs so it amazes me
that at a big mainline station like Charing Cross the staff haven't
been trained properly for the launch. Has anyone had similar issues on
other routes?

According to the documents posted in another thread, you only need an
OEP if your journey starts on LU/DLR. *You'd be starting on NR.

Given that nothing should be deducted when you start within zones, I
don't know how this all ties up with being deducted a higher amount on
entry, given that you won't need to be deducted when on a travelcard.

Start mode is irrelevant - the original poster correctly attempted to
load an OEP at Charing Cross. *It looks like we have a problem....

In another thread, someone posted the result of an FOI request, which
included a TfL staff briefing, which included this statement.

"An Oyster Extension Permit is only needed when a journey is started
within the zones covered by a Travelcard at a LU/London Overground or
DLR station and involves travel by National Rail beyond its validity."

Seehttp://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/23222/response/62007/attach/4/P.....

It seems bonkers to me too, but has it ever been suggested that NR
stations can issue OEPs?

Could there also be some cross-london journeys where travelcard
holders without the central zones on their tickets could require two
(or more) OEPs (due to the original OEP being cancelled by a gateline
en-route)? I suspect that ticket-holders with this type of ticket
could see some non-optimal charges as well.

The more I read about all this, the more confused I get!

DP

On 3 Jan, 11:20, Daniel wrote:
On 3 Jan, 11:04, MIG wrote:





On 3 Jan, 10:59, JS wrote:

On 3 Jan, 10:41, MIG wrote:

On 3 Jan, 03:17, Mudchute wrote:

I have a Zone 1 and 2 Travelcard on my Oyster and wanted to travel
from Charing Cross to Catford Bridge this Saturday evening and was
hoping to be able to put an Oyster Extension Permit on at one of the
ticket machines at Charing Cross but this option wasn't available.. I
did manage to top up my PAYG balance though. I decided then to go to
the ticket office and (surprise, surprise) nobody in the ticket office
knew what an Oyster Extension Permit was. I told them my situation and
one of them said I could just touch in and touch out at the other end
while someone else told me it would be cheaper if I bought a paper
ticket extension. The TfL website still mentions OEPs so it amazes me
that at a big mainline station like Charing Cross the staff haven't
been trained properly for the launch. Has anyone had similar issues on
other routes?

According to the documents posted in another thread, you only need an
OEP if your journey starts on LU/DLR. *You'd be starting on NR.

Given that nothing should be deducted when you start within zones, I
don't know how this all ties up with being deducted a higher amount on
entry, given that you won't need to be deducted when on a travelcard.

Start mode is irrelevant - the original poster correctly attempted to
load an OEP at Charing Cross. *It looks like we have a problem....

In another thread, someone posted the result of an FOI request, which
included a TfL staff briefing, which included this statement.

"An Oyster Extension Permit is only needed when a journey is started
within the zones covered by a Travelcard at a LU/London Overground or
DLR station and involves travel by National Rail beyond its validity."

Seehttp://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/23222/response/62007/attach/4/P....

It seems bonkers to me too, but has it ever been suggested that NR
stations can issue OEPs?

Could there also be some cross-london journeys where travelcard
holders without the central zones on their tickets could require two
(or more) OEPs (due to the original OEP being cancelled by a gateline
en-route)? I suspect that ticket-holders with this type of ticket
could see some non-optimal charges as well.

The more I read about all this, the more confused I get!

Well, in the OEP staff briefing it says, in one place

"Once the OEP is loaded, when the customer touches-in to start a
journey even if it is within a Zone covered by their Season ticket, an
entry charge will be deducted from the card.
If they touch-out still within the Zonal coverage of their Season
ticket, the entry charge will be refunded and the OEP will remain on
the card. If they touch-out in another Zone the fare for the
additional travel will be deducted from the entry charge, the PAYG
balance will be adjusted accordingly and the OEP will be cancelled."

There's another paragraph in the same document which says

"If the customer completes their journey within the zones covered by
their season ticket, the OEP will remain on their card. If requested,
you must remove the OEP from their Oyster card to make sure they do
not incur an incomplete journey whilst travelling within the zones
covered by their season ticket."

I am still grappling with how you can find a ticket office to cancel
your OEP where you couldn't complete your journey by touching out.
Maybe it's only for if you are planning a future journey where you
don't touch out, eg extending a travelcard outside the zones.

So you put an OEP on and don't use it. Then a few days later you go
from Euston to Tring with a paper extension to your zones and the
train leaves from platform 8, so you touch at a barrier with your
travelcard. Presumably your lurking OEP would then clobber you for
not touching out at Tring?

What a nightmare. At least at Euston you could find an LU office
reasonably near to take off the OEP (if you remembered), but that
wouldn't be true at all NR stations where the travelcard was valid.

On 3 Jan, 11:42, MIG wrote:
On 3 Jan, 11:20, Daniel wrote:



On 3 Jan, 11:04, MIG wrote:

On 3 Jan, 10:59, JS wrote:

On 3 Jan, 10:41, MIG wrote:

On 3 Jan, 03:17, Mudchute wrote:

I have a Zone 1 and 2 Travelcard on my Oyster and wanted to travel
from Charing Cross to Catford Bridge this Saturday evening and was
hoping to be able to put an Oyster Extension Permit on at one of the
ticket machines at Charing Cross but this option wasn't available. I
did manage to top up my PAYG balance though. I decided then to go to
the ticket office and (surprise, surprise) nobody in the ticket office
knew what an Oyster Extension Permit was. I told them my situation and
one of them said I could just touch in and touch out at the other end
while someone else told me it would be cheaper if I bought a paper
ticket extension. The TfL website still mentions OEPs so it amazes me
that at a big mainline station like Charing Cross the staff haven't
been trained properly for the launch. Has anyone had similar issues on
other routes?

According to the documents posted in another thread, you only need an
OEP if your journey starts on LU/DLR. *You'd be starting on NR.

Given that nothing should be deducted when you start within zones, I
don't know how this all ties up with being deducted a higher amount on
entry, given that you won't need to be deducted when on a travelcard.

Start mode is irrelevant - the original poster correctly attempted to
load an OEP at Charing Cross. *It looks like we have a problem.....

In another thread, someone posted the result of an FOI request, which
included a TfL staff briefing, which included this statement.

"An Oyster Extension Permit is only needed when a journey is started
within the zones covered by a Travelcard at a LU/London Overground or
DLR station and involves travel by National Rail beyond its validity."

Seehttp://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/23222/response/62007/attach/4/P....

It seems bonkers to me too, but has it ever been suggested that NR
stations can issue OEPs?

Could there also be some cross-london journeys where travelcard
holders without the central zones on their tickets could require two
(or more) OEPs (due to the original OEP being cancelled by a gateline
en-route)? I suspect that ticket-holders with this type of ticket
could see some non-optimal charges as well.

The more I read about all this, the more confused I get!

Well, in the OEP staff briefing it says, in one place

"Once the OEP is loaded, when the customer touches-in to start a
journey even if it is within a Zone covered by their Season ticket, an
entry charge will be deducted from the card.
If they touch-out still within the Zonal coverage of their Season
ticket, the entry charge will be refunded and the OEP will remain on
the card. If they touch-out in another Zone the fare for the
additional travel will be deducted from the entry charge, the PAYG
balance will be adjusted accordingly and the OEP will be cancelled."

There's another paragraph in the same document which says

"If the customer completes their journey within the zones covered by
their season ticket, the OEP will remain on their card. If requested,
you must remove the OEP from their Oyster card to make sure they do
not incur an incomplete journey whilst travelling within the zones
covered by their season ticket."

I am still grappling with how you can find a ticket office to cancel
your OEP where you couldn't complete your journey by touching out.
Maybe it's only for if you are planning a future journey where you
don't touch out, eg extending a travelcard outside the zones.

So you put an OEP on and don't use it. *Then a few days later you go
from Euston to Tring with a paper extension to your zones and the
train leaves from platform 8, so you touch at a barrier with your
travelcard. *Presumably your lurking OEP would then clobber you for
not touching out at Tring?

What a nightmare. *At least at Euston you could find an LU office
reasonably near to take off the OEP (if you remembered), but that
wouldn't be true at all NR stations where the travelcard was valid.

Again - the advice I have is that all NR TVMs that are Oyster enabled
should also offer the option to set / remove OEPs. I don't know who
is responsible for effecting the changes required.

On 3 Jan, 11:58, JS wrote:
On 3 Jan, 11:42, MIG wrote:





On 3 Jan, 11:20, Daniel wrote:

On 3 Jan, 11:04, MIG wrote:

On 3 Jan, 10:59, JS wrote:

On 3 Jan, 10:41, MIG wrote:

On 3 Jan, 03:17, Mudchute wrote:

I have a Zone 1 and 2 Travelcard on my Oyster and wanted to travel
from Charing Cross to Catford Bridge this Saturday evening and was
hoping to be able to put an Oyster Extension Permit on at one of the
ticket machines at Charing Cross but this option wasn't available. I
did manage to top up my PAYG balance though. I decided then to go to
the ticket office and (surprise, surprise) nobody in the ticket office
knew what an Oyster Extension Permit was. I told them my situation and
one of them said I could just touch in and touch out at the other end
while someone else told me it would be cheaper if I bought a paper
ticket extension. The TfL website still mentions OEPs so it amazes me
that at a big mainline station like Charing Cross the staff haven't
been trained properly for the launch. Has anyone had similar issues on
other routes?

According to the documents posted in another thread, you only need an
OEP if your journey starts on LU/DLR. *You'd be starting on NR.

Given that nothing should be deducted when you start within zones, I
don't know how this all ties up with being deducted a higher amount on
entry, given that you won't need to be deducted when on a travelcard.

Start mode is irrelevant - the original poster correctly attempted to
load an OEP at Charing Cross. *It looks like we have a problem.....

In another thread, someone posted the result of an FOI request, which
included a TfL staff briefing, which included this statement.

"An Oyster Extension Permit is only needed when a journey is started
within the zones covered by a Travelcard at a LU/London Overground or
DLR station and involves travel by National Rail beyond its validity."

Seehttp://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/23222/response/62007/attach/4/P....

It seems bonkers to me too, but has it ever been suggested that NR
stations can issue OEPs?

Could there also be some cross-london journeys where travelcard
holders without the central zones on their tickets could require two
(or more) OEPs (due to the original OEP being cancelled by a gateline
en-route)? I suspect that ticket-holders with this type of ticket
could see some non-optimal charges as well.

The more I read about all this, the more confused I get!

Well, in the OEP staff briefing it says, in one place

"Once the OEP is loaded, when the customer touches-in to start a
journey even if it is within a Zone covered by their Season ticket, an
entry charge will be deducted from the card.
If they touch-out still within the Zonal coverage of their Season
ticket, the entry charge will be refunded and the OEP will remain on
the card. If they touch-out in another Zone the fare for the
additional travel will be deducted from the entry charge, the PAYG
balance will be adjusted accordingly and the OEP will be cancelled."

There's another paragraph in the same document which says

"If the customer completes their journey within the zones covered by
their season ticket, the OEP will remain on their card. If requested,
you must remove the OEP from their Oyster card to make sure they do
not incur an incomplete journey whilst travelling within the zones
covered by their season ticket."

I am still grappling with how you can find a ticket office to cancel
your OEP where you couldn't complete your journey by touching out.
Maybe it's only for if you are planning a future journey where you
don't touch out, eg extending a travelcard outside the zones.

So you put an OEP on and don't use it. *Then a few days later you go
from Euston to Tring with a paper extension to your zones and the
train leaves from platform 8, so you touch at a barrier with your
travelcard. *Presumably your lurking OEP would then clobber you for
not touching out at Tring?

What a nightmare. *At least at Euston you could find an LU office
reasonably near to take off the OEP (if you remembered), but that
wouldn't be true at all NR stations where the travelcard was valid.

Again - the advice I have is that all NR TVMs that are Oyster enabled
should also offer the option to set / remove OEPs. *I don't know who
is responsible for effecting the changes required.

Actually, I can't even remember seeing OEPs mentioned anywhere in the
Normal world outside of this group. I doubt if several hundred
thousand holders of season tickets on Oyster have any idea about them.

MIG wrote:

Well, in the OEP staff briefing it says, in one place

"Once the OEP is loaded, when the customer touches-in to start a
journey even if it is within a Zone covered by their Season ticket, an
entry charge will be deducted from the card.
If they touch-out still within the Zonal coverage of their Season
ticket, the entry charge will be refunded and the OEP will remain on
the card. If they touch-out in another Zone the fare for the
additional travel will be deducted from the entry charge, the PAYG
balance will be adjusted accordingly and the OEP will be cancelled."

Okay the nightmare station for Oyster - Wimbledon. What if you have a stored
OEP but enter the barriers to use the tram?

On 3 Jan, 13:06, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:
MIG wrote:
Well, in the OEP staff briefing it says, in one place
"Once the OEP is loaded, when the customer touches-in to start a
journey even if it is within a Zone covered by their Season ticket, an
entry charge will be deducted from the card.
If they touch-out still within the Zonal coverage of their Season
ticket, the entry charge will be refunded and the OEP will remain on
the card. If they touch-out in another Zone the fare for the
additional travel will be deducted from the entry charge, the PAYG
balance will be adjusted accordingly and the OEP will be cancelled."

Okay the nightmare station for Oyster - Wimbledon. What if you have a stored
OEP but enter the barriers to use the tram?

Hopefully the platform Tramlink validator would reset it when touched
in there.

A few notes on OEP behaviour:

having one set flashes up your PAYG balance on entry when using the
newer gates even when in your Travelcard zones

Tube and rail journeys within Travelcard zones made while an OEP is
set now appear on the online journey history.

lt seems that the instruction to only set prior to the journey to be
extended is not mandatory, but is to avoid customer confusion.

On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 03:42:50 -0800 (PST), MIG
wrote:

So you put an OEP on and don't use it. Then a few days later you go
from Euston to Tring with a paper extension to your zones and the
train leaves from platform 8, so you touch at a barrier with your
travelcard. Presumably your lurking OEP would then clobber you for
not touching out at Tring?

Which is really bloody silly.

The solution to all this is to remove all situations (other than
equipment failure) where you'd legitimately touch in using an Oyster
and not touch out. This would be done by changing paper BZ extensions
such that they are valid for any journey from inside the Zones the
Travelcard is valid for to the specified destination, but are shown as
only valid when carrying the specific numbered Oyster card shown (and
checked) at purchase (to prevent double-use).

An option not to deduct the "entry charge" on NR when using a
Travelcard could then be offered. This would be done by not putting
any PAYG balance on the card at all. At that point, you'd be liable
for a PF if travelling outside your Zones for any reason using that
card.

So they would be marked as something like:-

==
STD OFF PEAK SINGLE

From: LONDN ZONES 1-3
To: TRING

Valid: Only with Oyster #12345678
==

....and would open any barrier in London zones 1-3, but if an inspector
came around to check then a PF would be due if the appropriate Oyster
was not being carried (not touched in). Thus there would be no need
to touch in at all, and the problem would go away.

Neil

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

Neil Williams wrote:

The solution to all this is to remove all situations (other than
equipment failure) where you'd legitimately touch in using an Oyster
and not touch out. This would be done by changing paper BZ extensions
such that they are valid for any journey from inside the Zones the
Travelcard is valid for to the specified destination, but are shown as
only valid when carrying the specific numbered Oyster card shown (and
checked) at purchase (to prevent double-use).

It's a solution but it doesn't take into account the number of stations that
are simply not physically designed for the peak hour crowds to all have stop
to use readers, let alone barriers. My local station, Forest Gate, is just
one where the evening crowd is so big that I can easily see chaos, fights
and people risking their lives by crossing the fast tracks to the quiet
platform all for the sake of getting out of the station quicker rather than
waiting an eternity to squeeze through a narrow hallway with only a couple
of readers - and having to deal with London bound passengers fighting to get
to their own platform. The station just isn't designed * for that and for
that matter it will also create problems on the trains and at Stratford
because even more people will be trying to wedge themselves into the front
carriages in the hope of getting out quicker. Until the station, and many
like it, are designed to make the crowd flow smoother, requiring everyone to
touch out will be utterly unworkable.

(* Actually when originally built Forest Gate was actually reasonably
designed for this because stopping services used what are now the fast
tracks and vice versa. On that configuration the evening peak crowd would
have used platform 4 which had both its own staircase to the ticket hall and
also a ramp to a direct street exit. The staircase has now been bricked up.)

On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 20:46:14 -0000, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:

Until the station, and many
like it, are designed to make the crowd flow smoother, requiring everyone to
touch out will be utterly unworkable.

But it *wouldn't* require everyone to touch out. Only those who have
some PAYG credit.

(I think that's a "user friendlier" way of making the differentiation
than the OEP - "you have to have the money on your card before you
start your journey if you wish to go out of zone").

Neil

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

Neil Williams wrote:

Until the station, and many
like it, are designed to make the crowd flow smoother, requiring everyone
to
touch out will be utterly unworkable.

But it *wouldn't* require everyone to touch out. Only those who have
some PAYG credit.

(I think that's a "user friendlier" way of making the differentiation
than the OEP - "you have to have the money on your card before you
start your journey if you wish to go out of zone").

How many people with season tickets can actually remember if they have any
PAYG on their card? I've sometimes gone months on end without needing PAYG
and so wouldn't know myself. And the aim of the OEP is to prevent fare
dodging by not touching out so how can they check that?