For the past week or so, Oyster pre-pay has worked on every bus I've
tried it with. The reader light goes from amber to green, 70p is
deducted from the credit on the card and the remaining balance is
displayed.

So despite the anticipated launch being at least a month away, the
service is ready to use.

Interestingly, prior to this, it was possible to use Oyster to get
free travel on most DOO services. Throughout much of January, if you
attempted to use Oyster prepay on a bus, the reader light would go
from amber to red, credit was not deducted, and a rather stupid error
message appeared on the fare machine: "OYSTER IS VALID FOR TRAVEL
THROUGHOUT LONDON BUSES". Despite the red light, the contradictory
error message meant that most bus drivers would let you on for free.

On 4 Feb 2004, Steph Davies wrote:

For the past week or so, Oyster pre-pay has worked on every bus I've
tried it with. The reader light goes from amber to green, 70p is
deducted from the credit on the card and the remaining balance is
displayed.

Apparently, it worked for me on a 254 the other day. I was rather
surprised when i found out about this, as i have a travelcard! I went to a
tube station to see if i could get it corrected, and was told there were
no bus journeys on my card; i thought that was a bit odd, as they're plain
as day if i swipe on a ticket machine and look at the log. I'll try again
at some point.

tom

--
Oh, well of course *everything* looks bad if you remember it

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
...

Apparently, it worked for me on a 254 the other day. I was rather
surprised when i found out about this, as i have a travelcard! I went to a
tube station to see if i could get it corrected, and was told there were
no bus journeys on my card; i thought that was a bit odd, as they're plain
as day if i swipe on a ticket machine and look at the log. I'll try again
at some point.

Perhaps as pre-pay on buses isn't offically enabled the machines the ticket
office the clerks use haven't had upgraded software ?

On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Robin Mayes wrote:

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
...

Apparently, it worked for me on a 254 the other day. I was rather
surprised when i found out about this, as i have a travelcard! I went to a
tube station to see if i could get it corrected, and was told there were
no bus journeys on my card; i thought that was a bit odd, as they're plain
as day if i swipe on a ticket machine and look at the log. I'll try again
at some point.

Perhaps as pre-pay on buses isn't offically enabled the machines the
ticket office the clerks use haven't had upgraded software ?

Could be. The thing is, the software in the ticket machines _can_ handle
it; why would one be able to do it but not the other?

tom

--
All we need now is a little energon and a lotta luck

In article , Steph Davies wrote:
For the past week or so, Oyster pre-pay has worked on every bus I've
tried it with. The reader light goes from amber to green, 70p is
deducted from the credit on the card and the remaining balance is
displayed.

So despite the anticipated launch being at least a month away, the
service is ready to use.

Interestingly, prior to this, it was possible to use Oyster to get
free travel on most DOO services. Throughout much of January, if you
attempted to use Oyster prepay on a bus, the reader light would go
from amber to red, credit was not deducted, and a rather stupid error
message appeared on the fare machine: "OYSTER IS VALID FOR TRAVEL
THROUGHOUT LONDON BUSES". Despite the red light, the contradictory
error message meant that most bus drivers would let you on for free.

I've had exactly the same situation on my regular bus, the 209 from
Hammersmith to Mortlake. I have a perfectly valid Z3 Travelcard on my
Oyster which should let me onto any TFL bus for nowt; however, the 209
readers always gave the error you described. Now, this weekend, suddenly
it's fixed, but I'm wondering whether it's deducting money from my
Prepay balance instead of letting me on because I've got a TC. I've just
sent off a query to Oyster via the website; whether I'll get any
response is a different matter..


--
| grendel at durge dot org | web technologist | london, uk
| "It's people like you what cause unrest"

(Steph Davies) wrote in message m...
For the past week or so, Oyster pre-pay has worked on every bus I've
tried it with. The reader light goes from amber to green, 70p is
deducted from the credit on the card and the remaining balance is
displayed.

So despite the anticipated launch being at least a month away, the
service is ready to use.

Interestingly, prior to this, it was possible to use Oyster to get
free travel on most DOO services. Throughout much of January, if you
attempted to use Oyster prepay on a bus, the reader light would go
from amber to red, credit was not deducted, and a rather stupid error
message appeared on the fare machine: "OYSTER IS VALID FOR TRAVEL
THROUGHOUT LONDON BUSES". Despite the red light, the contradictory
error message meant that most bus drivers would let you on for free.

I'm going to try to use my Oyster on the 371 bus route in Richmond tomorrow;
I'll report back on whether or not it works. If it does work, then I guess
TfL got it functioning ahead of schedule, but didn't want to risk a massive
crash or anything if everybody at once began using it. Is that plausible?

Brad

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Robin Mayes wrote:

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
...

Apparently, it worked for me on a 254 the other day. I was rather
surprised when i found out about this, as i have a travelcard! I went
to a
tube station to see if i could get it corrected, and was told there
were
no bus journeys on my card; i thought that was a bit odd, as they're
plain
as day if i swipe on a ticket machine and look at the log. I'll try
again
at some point.

Perhaps as pre-pay on buses isn't offically enabled the machines the
ticket office the clerks use haven't had upgraded software ?

Could be. The thing is, the software in the ticket machines _can_ handle
it; why would one be able to do it but not the other?

Different machines, different software patches?

On Thu, 5 Feb 2004, Robin Mayes wrote:

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
...

On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Robin Mayes wrote:

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
...

Apparently, it worked for me on a 254 the other day. I was rather
surprised when i found out about this, as i have a travelcard! I
went to a tube station to see if i could get it corrected, and was
told there were no bus journeys on my card; i thought that was a
bit odd, as they're plain as day if i swipe on a ticket machine
and look at the log. I'll try again at some point.

Perhaps as pre-pay on buses isn't offically enabled the machines the
ticket office the clerks use haven't had upgraded software ?

Could be. The thing is, the software in the ticket machines _can_ handle
it; why would one be able to do it but not the other?

Different machines, different software patches?

Must be. So what can i do about it?

tom

--
This isn't right. This isn't even wrong.

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 5 Feb 2004, Robin Mayes wrote:

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
...

On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Robin Mayes wrote:

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
...

Apparently, it worked for me on a 254 the other day. I was rather
surprised when i found out about this, as i have a travelcard! I
went to a tube station to see if i could get it corrected, and was
told there were no bus journeys on my card; i thought that was a
bit odd, as they're plain as day if i swipe on a ticket machine
and look at the log. I'll try again at some point.

Perhaps as pre-pay on buses isn't offically enabled the machines the
ticket office the clerks use haven't had upgraded software ?

Could be. The thing is, the software in the ticket machines _can_
handle
it; why would one be able to do it but not the other?

Different machines, different software patches?

Must be. So what can i do about it?

Contact the Oystercard helpdesk might be a good first step!