"Alek" wrote in message ...
Reading through the spiralling number of Oyster related postings would I be
out of order in asking for a single cash-fare paper ticket next time I`m in
London....?

You cretinous lump of septic pus.

On Wed, 7 Jan 2004 22:00:22 +0000, Tom Anderson
wrote:

On 7 Jan 2004, umpston wrote:


Phone and utility companies have always billed their customers in this
way,

But they have much simpler ways of charging - standing charge plus x pence
per unit, perhaps with the rate falling if you use more. Travel tickets
are much more complicated. I suppose the right thing to do would be to
reform the fare structure to make it all work (eg a single is 2 pounds or
whatever, but if you buy lots in a month, it's cheaper; you'd have to work
it out so current travelcard holders didn't get charged huge amounts).


BT at least have made their tarriffs more complicated (for commercial,
not technical, reasons). For instance there used to be a low user
refund which kicked in automatically, but this was replaced by a
'supportline' service where you needed to switch explicitly to a low
user tarriff.

Although the fare system is complex, the case that I mentioned isn't
much more difficult than the price-capping one day. It would be a
case of capping the amount that I spent on extensions into zone 3 over
a period, when that amount was equal to the extra cost of a zone1-3
season compared to a zone 1-2 season.

snipped


Maybe one day (reliable vehicle detection technology permitting) you
could pay your congestion charges and Oyster charges on the same TfL
monthly 'travel' bill.

I like it! They could even just bung it on your council tax and have one
big London bill.


I like that one too. As it happens, I've just been reading something
by Stafford Beer (somewhat idiosyncratic and visionary management guru
active in the 1960s and 1970s) proposing something similar way back in
1973

Anyone failing to pay their direct debit would simply have their card
cancelled until they cleared the debt - and lose any accrued discounts.

Ah, but what's to stop them getting another card? You'd need a new bank
account (else TfL could tell it was the same person), but you could still
do it. At least the utility companies have a wire or pipe going into your
house that they can actually turn off.


Banks and mobile phone companies need to check people's
credit-worthiness, and don't have a wire or pipe going into the home.
Both, of course, attract a certain amount of fraud though.

Martin

Thought so.....I`ve always found Guinness and Oysters to be somewhat hard on
the intestines.......

On Wed, 07 Jan 2004 21:54:22 +0000, Dave Arquati
wrote:

Secondly, why on earth are Carnets cheaper at £1.50/ticket than Oyster?
I thought TfL are meant to be encouraging Oyster. At the moment there is
no particular reason to persuade anyone to get prepay other than the
novelty - since Carnets are cheaper and prepay can't yet be used on buses?

Pre-pay is working on buses - although officially it's not supposed to
be. Some fares are being recorded correctly, while others were (still
are?) showing as 1p.


Cheers,

Jason.

Jason wrote:
On Wed, 07 Jan 2004 21:54:22 +0000, Dave Arquati
wrote:


Secondly, why on earth are Carnets cheaper at £1.50/ticket than Oyster?
I thought TfL are meant to be encouraging Oyster. At the moment there is
no particular reason to persuade anyone to get prepay other than the
novelty - since Carnets are cheaper and prepay can't yet be used on buses?


Pre-pay is working on buses - although officially it's not supposed to
be. Some fares are being recorded correctly, while others were (still
are?) showing as 1p.

I thought TfL would have sorted this out by now; it probably wasn't much
of a problem before Prepay came out, but now people have Prepay cards a
number of them may well be unaware that it's not officially supposed to
work on the buses... and will get pleasantly surprised if they get
charged 1p, thus depriving TfL of 69p of revenue...

Personally I haven't had the guts to try my prepay on a bus yet. Does
anyone know why it does work properly on some buses (i.e. 70p charged)
but not on others?

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7

On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 11:57:33 +0000, Dave Arquati
wrote:

Jason wrote:
On Wed, 07 Jan 2004 21:54:22 +0000, Dave Arquati
wrote:


Secondly, why on earth are Carnets cheaper at £1.50/ticket than Oyster?
I thought TfL are meant to be encouraging Oyster. At the moment there is
no particular reason to persuade anyone to get prepay other than the
novelty - since Carnets are cheaper and prepay can't yet be used on buses?


Pre-pay is working on buses - although officially it's not supposed to
be. Some fares are being recorded correctly, while others were (still
are?) showing as 1p.

I thought TfL would have sorted this out by now; it probably wasn't much
of a problem before Prepay came out, but now people have Prepay cards a
number of them may well be unaware that it's not officially supposed to
work on the buses... and will get pleasantly surprised if they get
charged 1p, thus depriving TfL of 69p of revenue...

Personally I haven't had the guts to try my prepay on a bus yet. Does
anyone know why it does work properly on some buses (i.e. 70p charged)
but not on others?

I suspect this is to do with roll-out.

Do be aware that as pre-pay on buses has nor formally been launched
your pre-pay is not valid for travel. In the event of a revenue check,
expect trouble....


Rob.
--
rob at robertwoolley dot co dot uk

Personally I haven't had the guts to try my prepay on a bus yet. Does
anyone know why it does work properly on some buses (i.e. 70p charged)
but not on others?

I suspect this is to do with roll-out.

Do be aware that as pre-pay on buses has nor formally been launched
your pre-pay is not valid for travel. In the event of a revenue check,
expect trouble....


I tried to use prepay on the bus the other day before I realised it wasn't
valid (of course there is nothing to say it is not valid on the busses
when you load up your Oyster at a ticket machine at a tube station). Of
course it didn't work, and the red light came on. The driver looked at
his screen, printed it out on a ticket and gave it to me, and waved me t
hrough. The ticket read something like:

***ERROR****
transaction failed

Travelcard valid throughout route

No wonder the driver thought it was a valid ticket!

SR

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 09:37:30 -0000, Stephen Richards
wrote:

I tried to use prepay on the bus the other day before I realised it wasn't
valid (of course there is nothing to say it is not valid on the busses
when you load up your Oyster at a ticket machine at a tube station). Of
course it didn't work, and the red light came on. The driver looked at
his screen, printed it out on a ticket and gave it to me, and waved me t
hrough. The ticket read something like:

***ERROR****
transaction failed
Travelcard valid throughout route
No wonder the driver thought it was a valid ticket!

My wife has been using her Pre-Pay on buses, and on the majority of
trips the validator has returned a red-light. The drivers just wave
her through and ignore about it!

Luckily she only ever travels about three or four stops and in two
years I've never seen revenue check done.


Cheers,

Jason.