On Jan 23, 2:03*pm, MIG wrote:

On 23 Jan, 13:33, Mizter T wrote:
[snip]
One of the useful things about Oyster PAYG is being able to make a
morning peak journey (one that starts before 09:30), then make several
off-peak journeys and benefit from paying the *off-peak cap* plus the
*single peak fare* if that's cheaper than the peak cap (which is now
exactly the same as the cost of the Anytime Day Travelcard).

One thing I have realised is that if one was to make a peak-time
journey into a central London terminus on NR - say to Victoria - and
then transfer on to LU, then because of the out-of-station interchange
(OSI) at Victoria the whole thing is counted as one through journey,
and UIVMM one would be charged the *peak* through NR+LU fare, even if
the LU part of the journey all happened after 09:30.

Looking at the fares tables (via London Reconnections [1]), it seems
this does leave open the opportunity for people to be charged more
than they think they might be w.r.t. single fares. Also, the fact that
the journey 'continues' at Victoria might possibly have repercussions
if someone had thought they could just pay for a peak NR fare, with
all their other journeys falling under the off-peak cap umbrella.

OK, this is one possible scenario - Bob makes a peak NR journey from
Nunhead (z2) to Victoria (z1) - on it's own this costs £2.10. However
Bob then heads onto the Underground to go to Heathrow (he's with his
wife who's flying off on business) - when he enters the Tube station
the time is *past* 09:30. When he gets to Heathrow I think he'd then
be charged the *peak* through NR+LU fare from z1 to z6 of £6 - if so,
then this would be more expensive than the peak NR z1&2 fare of £2.10
plus the off-peak LU z1-6 fare of £2.40.

If Bob then thought he could gallivant all around the whole of London
(e.g. visiting friends in Epping *and Purley!) and just pay the off-
peak z1-6 cap of £7.50 plus the peak NR fare of £2.10 (i.e. £6.60
total), he might be in for a surprise, as I think he could end up
paying for the £6 peak through NR+LU fare, plus the off-peak z1-6 cap
of £7.50 (if he'd made enough journeys in the relevant zones of
course).

If I've got all that right, then Bob's mistake would be to presume
that the Nunhead to Victoria NR journey would be treated separately
from the Victoria to Heathrow LU journey (and thus he should have
ignored his wife and travelled up on the 09:43 train from Nunhead, not
the 09:13, because they got to Heathrow airport four hours before the
flight anyway!).

I suppose I might have got that wrong - but AFAICS given the OSI at
Victoria, once on had entered the LU network then the journey would
surely be regarded as a continuation of the original journey from
Nunhead instead of being two separate journeys. (AIUI, Oyster cannot
retrospectively split a previously combined journey into two separate
journeys if that would work out cheaper for the punter.)

I suppose that in the real world, this isn't something that most
people would encounter. It would of course make life easier if there
was but one pan-London fare scale that applied to both NR and LU, but
alas that would be hard to achieve given the current set up of the
TOCs.

Bob has to get an off-peak zone 1-6 *travelcard at Victoria, as long
as they remain available. *Sortid.

Or Bob could use two Oyster cards (and then inevitably get confused as
to which is which!).

In a sense this issue is not really any different to that which
existed pre-Oyster, where if Bob wanted to save a few, er, bob, he
would have bought a single from Nunhead to Victoria, then an off-peak
z1-6 Day Travelcard at Victoria, instead of buying an expensive z1-6
Peak Day Travelcard at Nunhead. (Of course Peak Day Travelcards, now
known as Anytime Day Travelcards, are in and of themselves a
relatively recent innovation anyway - though IIRC they do pre-date
Oyster).

Also, I should stress that in the post above I was putting forward a
hypothesis, I can't confirm that it's right. (At least not until I
find an opportunity to waste time and money trying it out myself!)