I'm confused between what Oyster can do, and what it will do.

I travel regularly but infrequently, so my pattern may be a Z1-6 daily
travelcard 4-5 days a month (though I've never worked out if it's
cheaper to buy anything else, if I leave early, I sometimes buy a Z6 -
1 single and then a Z1-6 travel card after 9.30 for my next trip). I'll
also perhaps buy a couple of returns inside Z6 or Z5 & 6 on a weekend.

It's not worth my while buying a monthly or weekly pass, so I think that
makes me a prime candidate for an Oyster Prepay. I'd like to be able to
load up a card with £100 and just tap the gate on entry to a station.
If I make two journeys I'd be charged two lots of Singles, if I make a
third, I'd like the Oyster card to make itself into a Travelcard.

Am I dreaming?

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 15:54:18 GMT, Thunderbug
wrote:

I'm confused between what Oyster can do, and what it will do.

I travel regularly but infrequently, so my pattern may be a Z1-6 daily
travelcard 4-5 days a month (though I've never worked out if it's
cheaper to buy anything else, if I leave early, I sometimes buy a Z6 -
1 single and then a Z1-6 travel card after 9.30 for my next trip). I'll
also perhaps buy a couple of returns inside Z6 or Z5 & 6 on a weekend.

It's not worth my while buying a monthly or weekly pass, so I think that
makes me a prime candidate for an Oyster Prepay. I'd like to be able to
load up a card with £100 and just tap the gate on entry to a station.
If I make two journeys I'd be charged two lots of Singles, if I make a
third, I'd like the Oyster card to make itself into a Travelcard.

Am I dreaming?

probably not - as I understand the functionality there will be a series
of "caps" with prepay. You load cash to the card and it deducts the
value for your trips within the zones that you are travelling in. If you
started in zone 6 and went to zone 1 the card knows this and therefore
will continue to deduct your trips for the day until you exceed the
equivalent cost of the applicable day travelcard. It then stops
deducting value for the remainder of the day for all subsequent trips
unless you go beyond Zone 6 to an LUL station where pre-pay works - e.g
Chorleywood. The higher day travelcard price would be the new cap.

Note that I do not know how pre-pay will deal with the fact that there
are peak and off peak day travelcards. If all journeys were after 09.30
then it makes sense to cap at the off peak price. If, as per your
example above, you travelled before 09.30 and then wanted the card to
re-start its daily total and then act as a one day off peak travelcard I
really don't know that would work.

Hope the above helps a bit. I must nag the prestige team for a copy of
the commercial rules!
--
Paul C
Admits to Working for London Underground!

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 15:54:18 GMT, Thunderbug
wrote:

I'm confused between what Oyster can do, and what it will do.

I travel regularly but infrequently, so my pattern may be a Z1-6 daily
travelcard 4-5 days a month (though I've never worked out if it's
cheaper to buy anything else, if I leave early, I sometimes buy a Z6 -
1 single and then a Z1-6 travel card after 9.30 for my next trip). I'll
also perhaps buy a couple of returns inside Z6 or Z5 & 6 on a weekend.

It's not worth my while buying a monthly or weekly pass, so I think that
makes me a prime candidate for an Oyster Prepay. I'd like to be able to
load up a card with £100 and just tap the gate on entry to a station.
If I make two journeys I'd be charged two lots of Singles, if I make a
third, I'd like the Oyster card to make itself into a Travelcard.

Am I dreaming?

I have a similar travel pattern to yours - my journeys change on a day
to day basis and on any given day I have to decide whether it's more
economical to buy a one day travelcard (either off peak or full price
depending on the time my journey starts) or a straight single or
return ticket.

I have a question about what happens when the 2004 fare structure
comes in in January. The TfL site shows preferential rates (ie. held
at 2003 levels) for those who pre-pay on certain fares. The August
press release from TfL about 2004 fares, still the most recent I can
find on their website, says "by this time the "pre-pay" faciliy on the
new Oyster smartcard will be operational, allowing passengers to
charge their Oystercards with money before travelling". The same
press release refers to those who "choose" to pay by cash having to
pay more.

I wish I felt more confident that pre-paying via Oyster for single
journeys will be up and running by January 4th. The Oyster website
still says that tickets for less than 7 days are still on paper, but
"later, we'll be launching an exciting new pay-as-you-go product
exclusive to Oyster called Pre-Pay". Does "later" mean in 5 weeks
time, or are those of us whose journey patterns mean we need to buy a
daily ticket going to be penalised for not pre-paying without being
given the option to do so?
Perhaps the printed fares leaflet for January will shed more light.
Does anyone know when it's due to be available to the public? ISTR
this time last year the on line version of it was already loaded on
the TfL website - this year I can only find a table of *proposed*
fares for 2004 linked from the August press release. Have I missed
something here?
Jill

I have a similar travel pattern to yours - my journeys change on a day
to day basis and on any given day I have to decide whether it's more
economical to buy a one day travelcard (either off peak or full price
depending on the time my journey starts) or a straight single or
return ticket.


I'd not thought of the Oyster system working out if you're better off on
a weekly or a series of daily tickets. It would be very rare for me to
be better off on a weekly ticket though, so I personally wouldn't be
upset if the system could optimise tickets on only a daily basis.

I have a question about what happens when the 2004 fare structure
comes in in January. The TfL site shows preferential rates (ie. held
at 2003 levels) for those who pre-pay on certain fares. The August

Good point indeed. My bet is that the Oyster prepay discount comes in
just after the January fare structure comes into place - they'll make
more money on the increased ticket prices and won't have to reprogramme
anything they do between now and then.


At the moment I have a soon-to-expire weekly Oyster card which I've
loaded £50 onto. Once the weekly pass expires my understanding is that
I'll have to use the big ticket machines to buy a paper ticket
(single/travelcard etc) and "pay" using the Oyster card instead of the
debit card I'd normally use. That's a slight improvement, I end up with
one £50 receipt to put into my accounts intead of 20 smaller receipts.

That's where the Oyster convenience stops though, right? I'd end up
with a normal paper ticket which has to go through the gates each time.
It can't be a big leap to load a ticket onto the Oyster card instead
of print something out.

Ideally though, I'd just walk through the gate without visitng the
machine, and let the gate deduct me £3.80 or whatver from my card. The
only parellel I have in this operation would be using Singapore's new
EZ-Card system - operates just as I have described, load money on, don't
visit the ticket machine, just walk through the gate and tap the reader.
It, though, has an LCD screen which displays your balance. I have
only seen LCD screens on the gates at Baker St (beside the yellow disc),
most other stations just have a red/orage/green LED. Not a lot of use
if you want to track how much credit you have remaining.

On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 12:02:10 GMT, Thunderbug
wrote:


Ideally though, I'd just walk through the gate without visitng the
machine, and let the gate deduct me £3.80 or whatver from my card.

This is exactly how pre-pay will work.

a) You go through an entry gate. The value of the most expensive tube
journey gates gets take off the Oyster card.

b) You go through an exit gate. The balance between the most
expensive journey and your actual journey is restored onto the card.


Rog.
--
rob at robertwoolley dot co dot uk

In message ,
Thunderbug writes

At the moment I have a soon-to-expire weekly Oyster card which I've
loaded £50 onto. Once the weekly pass expires my understanding is that
I'll have to use the big ticket machines to buy a paper ticket
(single/travelcard etc) and "pay" using the Oyster card instead of the
debit card I'd normally use. That's a slight improvement, I end up
with one £50 receipt to put into my accounts intead of 20 smaller receipts.

If you've loaded it into your pre-pay slot, you have the choice of
keeping it there until you can use it next year or phoning customer
Services for a refund.
--
Kat Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax
and get used to the idea - Robert A. Heinlein

On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 12:26:17 +0000, Robert Woolley
wrote:

On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 12:02:10 GMT, Thunderbug
wrote:


Ideally though, I'd just walk through the gate without visitng the
machine, and let the gate deduct me £3.80 or whatver from my card.

This is exactly how pre-pay will work.

a) You go through an entry gate. The value of the most expensive tube
journey gates gets take off the Oyster card.

b) You go through an exit gate. The balance between the most
expensive journey and your actual journey is restored onto the card.


Rog.

It is fun watching the frustration on several Oyster Card users, when
their card won't operate through their handbag or wallet and they have
to get the card out to operate the gates!!!! I'll stick with my
annual season ticket.

Life without sex just isn't life.
Make love not war!

Christine typed


It is fun watching the frustration on several Oyster Card users, when
their card won't operate through their handbag or wallet and they have
to get the card out to operate the gates!!!! I'll stick with my
annual season ticket.

Yebbut you can't laugh long. You'll *have* to get an Oyster when your
ticket comes up for renewal.

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 18:45:33 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 15:54:18 GMT, Thunderbug
wrote:
It's not worth my while buying a monthly or weekly pass, so I think that
makes me a prime candidate for an Oyster Prepay. I'd like to be able to
load up a card with £100 and just tap the gate on entry to a station.
If I make two journeys I'd be charged two lots of Singles, if I make a
third, I'd like the Oyster card to make itself into a Travelcard.
Am I dreaming?

probably not - as I understand the functionality there will be a series
of "caps" with prepay. You load cash to the card and it deducts the
value for your trips within the zones that you are travelling in. If you
started in zone 6 and went to zone 1 the card knows this and therefore
will continue to deduct your trips for the day until you exceed the
equivalent cost of the applicable day travelcard. It then stops
deducting value for the remainder of the day for all subsequent trips
unless you go beyond Zone 6 to an LUL station where pre-pay works - e.g
Chorleywood. The higher day travelcard price would be the new cap.

The OysterCard Helpline told me that the value of single journey would
be deducted (and where no 'exit' is recorded a Z1-6 fare) on a journey
by journey basis - i.e. there wouldn't be caps through the day - and
overnight the system would update to adjust to the appropriate
Travelcard fare if this was cheaper.

Obviously I can't vouch for the accuracy of this information!


Cheers,

Jason.

On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 09:03:25 GMT, Helen Deborah Vecht
wrote:

Christine typed


It is fun watching the frustration on several Oyster Card users, when
their card won't operate through their handbag or wallet and they have
to get the card out to operate the gates!!!! I'll stick with my
annual season ticket.

Yebbut you can't laugh long. You'll *have* to get an Oyster when your
ticket comes up for renewal.

Even if it's purchased from a National Rail station?


Cheers,

Jason.