Oyster in South London is rubbish
 

What a nightmare.

I travel from London Bridge down to East Croydon on the overland using my
Oyster Travelcard 1-4, expecting to use pre-pay at the other end to pay
the extra. Oh no, "pre-pay doesn't work here". So, I queue behind six
(SIX!) people waiting to buy their zone extension tickets and/or get
fined.

I was lucky - East Croydon is, for the trains, zone 5, so it was a simple
zone extension. However, the woman in front of me only had a zone 1-2; she
was fined £10 (and was most indignant about it, since she was under the
impression that her pre-pay would have covered her, and nobody told her
otherwise).

And, just to make life more bewildering, get out of the zone 5 station,
and hop on a tram which works on a zone 1-4 travelcard...

(Oh, and when entering Wimbledon at the other end of the tram, use
Oystercard to get in, but with no opportunity to use it on the way out in
Waterloo, I now have an unresolved journey. Nice.)

This is anything *but* simple.

Oyster in South London is rubbish
 

I was lucky - East Croydon is, for the trains, zone 5, so it was a simple
zone extension. However, the woman in front of me only had a zone 1-2; she
was fined £10 (and was most indignant about it, since she was under the
impression that her pre-pay would have covered her, and nobody told her
otherwise).


I agree its ridiculous that they couldn't have got Oyster to work with NR
but in their defence (at least on the Eastern side of London Bridge) they've
got huge great posters saying it doesn't work on NR services - so she/you
wouldn't have had a valid excuse. Did you use Central services or not see
the posters ("Using Oyster From This Station")?

Oyster in South London is rubbish
 

In article ,
(JB) wrote:

I agree its ridiculous that they couldn't have got Oyster to work with
NR
but in their defence (at least on the Eastern side of London Bridge)
they've
got huge great posters saying it doesn't work on NR services - so
she/you
wouldn't have had a valid excuse. Did you use Central services or not
see
the posters ("Using Oyster From This Station")?

I didn't see those posters at all: having walked onto the platform and
straight onto the train.

And, since six people were in front of me from one
not-particularly-crowded mid-Saturday train, I wasn't the only one:
there's a major problem here, and bunging up a few posters isn't going to
fix it.

j

Oyster in South London is rubbish
 

On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 22:57:33 +0000 (UTC) james007
said...

What a nightmare.

I travel from London Bridge down to East Croydon on the overland using my
Oyster Travelcard 1-4, expecting to use pre-pay at the other end to pay
the extra. Oh no, "pre-pay doesn't work here". So, I queue behind six
(SIX!) people waiting to buy their zone extension tickets and/or get
fined.

The most logical solution would be for National Rail to fall in line with
LUL when it comes to a pricing structure for single or return journeys
within the 6 zones. In other words all fares on a zone to zone basis
rather than point to point. Therefore you could fully integrate concepts
like Oyster Pre-pay for all forms of transport no matter where you start
or end your journey in what basically is Transport for London's domain.

--
Phil Richards
London, N4

Oyster in South London is rubbish
 

Phil Richards wrote in message ET...
On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 22:57:33 +0000 (UTC) james007
said...

What a nightmare.

I travel from London Bridge down to East Croydon on the overland using my
Oyster Travelcard 1-4, expecting to use pre-pay at the other end to pay
the extra. Oh no, "pre-pay doesn't work here". So, I queue behind six
(SIX!) people waiting to buy their zone extension tickets and/or get
fined.

The most logical solution would be for National Rail to fall in line with
LUL when it comes to a pricing structure for single or return journeys
within the 6 zones. In other words all fares on a zone to zone basis
rather than point to point. Therefore you could fully integrate concepts
like Oyster Pre-pay for all forms of transport no matter where you start
or end your journey in what basically is Transport for London's domain.

I don't mean to be a pessimist, but would that mean that NR would have
to lower their fares and/or change their fare schedule to allow people
to pay less for journeys? If so, then IMVHO it might be resisted - if
for no other reason than that it means less money for NR.

But it would be nice if ALL of the NR TOCs inside the Greater London
area switched to a zonal fare system - then the Oyster validators
would start popping up and the NR system wouldn't be so confusing to
people (the NR system makes less sense to me than the bus system...)

Brad

Oyster in South London is rubbish
 

I don't mean to be a pessimist, but would that mean that NR would have
to lower their fares and/or change their fare schedule to allow people
to pay less for journeys? If so, then IMVHO it might be resisted - if
for no other reason than that it means less money for NR.

But it would be nice if ALL of the NR TOCs inside the Greater London
area switched to a zonal fare system - then the Oyster validators
would start popping up and the NR system wouldn't be so confusing to
people (the NR system makes less sense to me than the bus system...)

Brad

I don't know much about tickets but I would think a few NR fares would rise
if they went the zone system. Some cheap day returns, etc are far less than
two singles and they've got that 4 friends travel ticket (whatever each TOC
calls it). Certainly be nice and simple though. Then they could extend
free underground travel to TOC employees :-)

Oyster in South London is rubbish
 

Oyster in South London is rubbish
 

Oyster in South London is rubbish
 

On Thu, 26 Feb 2004, TheOneKEA wrote:

Show me an Underground-style map of the NR routes and I will find it
less confusing. THAT'S why I never use it, because I can never figure
out where the hell I may end up!

Search for a map called "London Connections". This may be its
present-day embodiment (located thanks to Google):

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/info/maps/connections.pdf

(but not the different map of the same name on the Thameslink site).

The tube web site also offers a london connections map, but it
emphasises the LUL lines - the NR lines are shown more as incidentals.

http://tube.tfl.gov.uk/content/tubem...onnections.pdf

hope this helps (and you have a decent printer ;-)

Oyster in South London is rubbish
 

"Alan J. Flavell" wrote in message .gla.ac.uk...
On Thu, 26 Feb 2004, TheOneKEA wrote:

Show me an Underground-style map of the NR routes and I will find it
less confusing. THAT'S why I never use it, because I can never figure
out where the hell I may end up!

Search for a map called "London Connections". This may be its
present-day embodiment (located thanks to Google):



Or there's an even more tube-like map, at least for south london rail
services, he

http://www.overgroundnetwork.com/pdf...etwork-map.pdf

Dan