"tim....." wrote:
wrote in message
...
In article ,
(tim.....) wrote:

wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Roland Perry) wrote:

In message , at
03:26:01 on Tue, 15 Jul 2014, remarked:
and it's particularly bad at penalising you if you make a single
peak journey, only capping you at the peak cap instead of

off?

My guess too.

peak cap plus single fare for peak journey.

It even does this if the peak journey is a bus journey that has no
concept of differential fares for TOD (and might even be considered
as "free" if you exceed the bus cap for the day).

(I have no experience of it actually doing this, the above has come
from reading the explanations, very very carefully)

I thought it would cap at off-peak cap plus single peak fare?

I think that's what Tim is saying it doesn't do.

That's why I was puzzled. I'm sure I read that that should happen.

It seems to say that, but it doesn't

It says:

Calculating peak and off-peak capping

As you travel, the system combines all the zones, times and fares
recorded on your Oyster card so it can calculate the cheapest cap to
apply. This means that sometimes you could be charged a cheaper
Off-Peak cap even if you've travelled during the peak. This is
because the system calculates the cost of:
.All the journeys you made during the peak
.All the journeys you made during the off peak

It then adds these together to work out which cap would offer the
best value. If this total is less than a Peak cap, you'll be charged:
.An Off-peak cap, and
.The cost of the individual journey(s) you made during the peak

If this total is more than the Peak cap, then a Peak cap will be
applied.

Do you see the subtle difference here between what it says, and what
you (and I) think it should say?

The question is? Is it just badly worded, or do they actually do
what the above says?

Maybe I'm missing something but how does that differ from what I said? There
is one peak and a number of off-peak journeys.

Let's say the OP cap is 12.00 and the peak cap is 20.00.

A) you spend 15.00 OP and 3.00 P (18.00 total). It caps you at the OP
cap plus 3 pounds = 15.00.

b) you spend 18.00 OP and 3.00 P (21.00 total). It caps you at peak cap of 20.00.

c) you spend 8.00 OP and 6.00 P (14.00 total, but crucially, more than
the OP cap). It charges you the OP cap plus 6.00 = 18.00!

(c) can't be right, but that is what it says it does

I read it to be A.

"Tim Woodall" wrote

my other hand.) It would be nice if there was a way to force this break
of journey without the risk of using the wrong card somewhere and ending
up with two incomplete journeys.

You can certainly force a break of journey by using a bus. Given the rest of
this thread this may not reduce the cost though !



--
Mike D

On Tue, 15 Jul 2014 17:03:20 +0100
Paul Corfield wrote:
I really can't see, based on past experience, that anyone on this
group can provide the definitive answer.

Given that Oyster exists purely for the benefit of TfL , not the passenger, it
must be assumed that they'll take the lazy option in coding up all the
possible permutations - ie they won't bother.

--
Spud

"Paul Corfield" wrote

1. Someone asks on the unofficial Oyster Rail website. Mike Whittaker,
the owner of said site, is pretty clued up on the workings of Oyster
and answers queries pretty quickly.

http://www.oyster-rail.org.uk/peak-off-peak-and-caps/

And here is what seems to be an answer to the original poster's question
(no reference to caps)

http://www.oyster-rail.org.uk/peak-o...#comment-18954

.. There are three ways to do this simply, depending on whether you value
time or money. The fastest and most expensive costs £8.60 each way. Just
take the Northern line to Euston and any London Midland train to Watford
Junction.

The second way involves splitting the journey at Euston to take advantage of
the off-peak fares in the ‘wrong’ direction on the Euston to Watford line.
If you wait at least 40 minutes between touching out of the tube and
touching in at the NR station then the fare comes down to £2.10+£4.50 =
£6.60 each way. On the way back you only have to wait at least 20 minutes
between touch out at the NR station and touch in on the tube. You could
touch in on a bus and then get straight back off again outside Euston
station which would cost £1.40 but you wouldn’t have to wait.

The third way involves taking the Bakerloo line to Willesden Junction and
touching out and back in again before taking the London Overground to
Watford Junction. This would cost £2.80+£1.60 = £4.40 each way, but would be
quite a bit slower

==




--
Mike D

On Tue, 15 Jul 2014 16:28:42 +0100, "tim....."
wrote:
(c) can't be right, but that is what it says it does

I can't see it doing that. More likely a bad explanation.

Neil

--
Neil Williams. Use neil before the at to reply.

On Tue, 15 Jul 2014 03:10:14 -0500,
wrote:

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

All they say is that using Oyster is cheaper than either:

*a* paper ticket (probably some form of Travelcard) that would have
enabled all your journeys that day.

a series of paper singles.

A lie of course. if I want cheap travel around London I invariably do better
with a paper travelcard.

A lie?

See
https://www.tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-pay.../price-capping

"Capping compared to Travelcards

If you make several rail journeys or a mixture of rail, bus and tram
journeys in one day, daily capping is usually better value than buying
a Day Travelcard.

Compare these daily caps and Day Travelcards (at adult rate):
Journeys in:
Peak Off-peak
Cap Travelcard
Cap Travelcard
Zones 1-2
£8.40 £9.00 £7.00 £8.90*
Zones 1-4
£10.60 £11.40 £7.70 £8.90*
Zones 1-6
£15.80 £17.00 £8.50 £8.90
Zones 1-9
£19.60 £21.00 £11.60 £12.50

* You can only buy an Off-Peak Day Travelcard for Zones 1-6 or 1-9. If
you're only travelling in Zones 1-4, capping will be better value"

So it seems to me that it is always cheaper on Oyster. No lie. I
wonder why they only claim "usually"?

Richard.

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
"tim....." wrote:
wrote in message
...
In article ,
(tim.....) wrote:

wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Roland Perry) wrote:

In message , at
03:26:01 on Tue, 15 Jul 2014,
remarked:
and it's particularly bad at penalising you if you make a single
peak journey, only capping you at the peak cap instead of

off?

My guess too.

peak cap plus single fare for peak journey.

It even does this if the peak journey is a bus journey that has no
concept of differential fares for TOD (and might even be considered
as "free" if you exceed the bus cap for the day).

(I have no experience of it actually doing this, the above has come
from reading the explanations, very very carefully)

I thought it would cap at off-peak cap plus single peak fare?

I think that's what Tim is saying it doesn't do.

That's why I was puzzled. I'm sure I read that that should happen.

It seems to say that, but it doesn't

It says:

Calculating peak and off-peak capping

As you travel, the system combines all the zones, times and fares
recorded on your Oyster card so it can calculate the cheapest cap to
apply. This means that sometimes you could be charged a cheaper
Off-Peak cap even if you've travelled during the peak. This is
because the system calculates the cost of:
.All the journeys you made during the peak
.All the journeys you made during the off peak

It then adds these together to work out which cap would offer the
best value. If this total is less than a Peak cap, you'll be charged:
.An Off-peak cap, and
.The cost of the individual journey(s) you made during the peak

If this total is more than the Peak cap, then a Peak cap will be
applied.

Do you see the subtle difference here between what it says, and what
you (and I) think it should say?

The question is? Is it just badly worded, or do they actually do
what the above says?

Maybe I'm missing something but how does that differ from what I said?
There
is one peak and a number of off-peak journeys.

Let's say the OP cap is 12.00 and the peak cap is 20.00.

A) you spend 15.00 OP and 3.00 P (18.00 total). It caps you at the OP
cap plus 3 pounds = 15.00.

b) you spend 18.00 OP and 3.00 P (21.00 total). It caps you at peak cap
of 20.00.

c) you spend 8.00 OP and 6.00 P (14.00 total, but crucially, more than
the OP cap). It charges you the OP cap plus 6.00 = 18.00!

(c) can't be right, but that is what it says it does

I read it to be A.

The examples are not mutually exclusive

they are all possible

tim

In message , at 22:28:09 on
Wed, 16 Jul 2014, Richard remarked:
All they say is that using Oyster is cheaper than either:

*a* paper ticket (probably some form of Travelcard) that would have
enabled all your journeys that day.

a series of paper singles.

A lie of course. if I want cheap travel around London I invariably do better
with a paper travelcard.

A lie?

See
https://www.tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-pay.../price-capping

"Capping compared to Travelcards

If you make several rail journeys or a mixture of rail, bus and tram
journeys in one day, daily capping is usually better value than buying
a Day Travelcard.

Note it says "a" Travelcard.

It might be cheaper for example to buy a 1-4 Peak travelcard plus one
4-5 off-peak single, than the cost of a 1-6 peak cap (if your journey
fitted that travel pattern).

Compare these daily caps and Day Travelcards (at adult rate):
Journeys in:
Peak Off-peak
Cap Travelcard
Cap Travelcard
Zones 1-2
£8.40 £9.00 £7.00 £8.90*
Zones 1-4
£10.60 £11.40 £7.70 £8.90*
Zones 1-6
£15.80 £17.00 £8.50 £8.90
Zones 1-9
£19.60 £21.00 £11.60 £12.50

* You can only buy an Off-Peak Day Travelcard for Zones 1-6 or 1-9. If
you're only travelling in Zones 1-4, capping will be better value"

So it seems to me that it is always cheaper on Oyster. No lie. I
wonder why they only claim "usually"?

How about an outboundary travelcard (whose uplift varies, admittedly),
especially if bought with a railcard?
--
Roland Perry

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 15 Jul 2014 16:28:42 +0100, "tim....."
wrote:


wrote in message
om...
In article ,
(tim.....) wrote:

wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Roland Perry) wrote:

In message , at
03:26:01 on Tue, 15 Jul 2014,
remarked:
and it's particularly bad at penalising you if you make a single
peak journey, only capping you at the peak cap instead of

off?

My guess too.

peak cap plus single fare for peak journey.

It even does this if the peak journey is a bus journey that has
no
concept of differential fares for TOD (and might even be
considered
as "free" if you exceed the bus cap for the day).

(I have no experience of it actually doing this, the above has
come
from reading the explanations, very very carefully)

I thought it would cap at off-peak cap plus single peak fare?

I think that's what Tim is saying it doesn't do.

That's why I was puzzled. I'm sure I read that that should happen.

It seems to say that, but it doesn't

It says:

Calculating peak and off-peak capping

As you travel, the system combines all the zones, times and fares
recorded on your Oyster card so it can calculate the cheapest cap to
apply. This means that sometimes you could be charged a cheaper
Off-Peak cap even if you've travelled during the peak. This is
because the system calculates the cost of:
.All the journeys you made during the peak
.All the journeys you made during the off peak

It then adds these together to work out which cap would offer the
best value. If this total is less than a Peak cap, you'll be charged:
.An Off-peak cap, and
.The cost of the individual journey(s) you made during the peak

If this total is more than the Peak cap, then a Peak cap will be
applied.

Do you see the subtle difference here between what it says, and what
you (and I) think it should say?

The question is? Is it just badly worded, or do they actually do
what the above says?

Maybe I'm missing something but how does that differ from what I said?
There
is one peak and a number of off-peak journeys.

Let's say the OP cap is 12.00 and the peak cap is 20.00.

A) you spend 15.00 OP and 3.00 P (18.00 total). It caps you at the OP cap
plus 3 pounds = 15.00.

b) you spend 18.00 OP and 3.00 P (21.00 total). It caps you at peak cap
of
20.00.

c) you spend 8.00 OP and 6.00 P (14.00 total, but crucially, more than the
OP cap). It charges you the OP cap plus 6.00 = 18.00!

(c) can't be right, but that is what it says it does

We have debated this issue multiple times and got precisely nowhere in
reaching a definitive conclusion. I've gone through presentations and
other stuff and explained it to people and just got tens, possibly
hundreds, of subsequent posts disagreeing with what was written or
doing "angels on pin heads" semantics on the language used.

I think there are only two options left.

1. Someone asks on the unofficial Oyster Rail website. Mike Whittaker,
the owner of said site, is pretty clued up on the workings of Oyster
and answers queries pretty quickly.

http://www.oyster-rail.org.uk/peak-off-peak-and-caps/

2. Someone writies in to TfL and asks them for a formal explanation of
the system workings for a variety of peak and off peak journey
combinations.

I really can't see, based on past experience, that anyone on this
group can provide the definitive answer.

I don't want a definitive answer, well I do but not to how it works

I want to know if the description on the website is entirely correct, or
just plain wrong

After all, it's only a web site. It isn't a difficult job (for someone at
TfL) to change it if it is wrong

tim

In article ,
(Richard) wrote:

On Tue, 15 Jul 2014 03:10:14 -0500,
wrote:

In article ,
(Roland Perry) wrote:

All they say is that using Oyster is cheaper than either:

*a* paper ticket (probably some form of Travelcard) that would have
enabled all your journeys that day.

a series of paper singles.

A lie of course. if I want cheap travel around London I invariably do
better with a paper travelcard.

A lie?

See
https://www.tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-pay.../price-capping

"Capping compared to Travelcards

If you make several rail journeys or a mixture of rail, bus and tram
journeys in one day, daily capping is usually better value than buying
a Day Travelcard.

Compare these daily caps and Day Travelcards (at adult rate):
Journeys in:
Peak Off-peak
Cap Travelcard
Cap Travelcard
Zones 1-2
£8.40 £9.00 £7.00 £8.90*
Zones 1-4
£10.60 £11.40 £7.70 £8.90*
Zones 1-6
£15.80 £17.00 £8.50 £8.90
Zones 1-9
£19.60 £21.00 £11.60 £12.50

* You can only buy an Off-Peak Day Travelcard for Zones 1-6 or 1-9. If
you're only travelling in Zones 1-4, capping will be better value"

So it seems to me that it is always cheaper on Oyster. No lie. I
wonder why they only claim "usually"?

That was not the claim I was objecting to if you go back up this thread.

--
Colin Rosenstiel