"SJCWHUK" wrote in message ...
John & Annabel's Query...............

John

Oyster cards with travelcards loaded are set to allow one exit outside the
zones which would create a negative balance in the pre-pay slot. The journey
you quoted via Stratford does seem to be the reason.

FYI. If you travel from a station where your travelcard isn't valid or you
are using prepay, when you touch-in it will deduct the minimum fare for that
zone (£1.10 or £1.60). If you fail to touch-out at your destination it will
hold the fare at the minimum but after 2 hours will fix the fare at the
minimum and not create an unresolved journey.

What a load of fuss and bother. WHy the hell didn't LUL implement a
system
whereby you could put a fixed number of DAILY travelcards on your
oyster
so if someone travels somewhere on one day then the next date that
they use
their card one daily card is deducted. Simple and neat. And if they
need to go out of zone they simply top up the current daily card in
the oyster to
whatever zones they need. NO more did they /didn't they go through the
gate
nonsense with all this ******** about must touch in/out all the time
and
getting ripped off if you forget.
Still , its a simple logical solution which, this being LUL, is
probably why it
wasn't selected.

B2003

Firstly LUL wanted something to replace paper tickets and once everything is
running you will have the equivalent of a capped fare for any one day. They
could not allow 1 day travelcards because the train operators haven't all
come over to Oyster card.

Also if the maximum fare is charged on your card because it wasn't touched
both ends of the journey, this can be corrected at the ticket office or with
a phone call.

Max fare is to discourage passengers from avoiding the correct fare for
their journey.

S

"Boltar" wrote in message
m...
"SJCWHUK" wrote in message
...
John & Annabel's Query...............

John

Oyster cards with travelcards loaded are set to allow one exit outside
the
zones which would create a negative balance in the pre-pay slot. The
journey
you quoted via Stratford does seem to be the reason.

FYI. If you travel from a station where your travelcard isn't valid or
you
are using prepay, when you touch-in it will deduct the minimum fare for
that
zone (£1.10 or £1.60). If you fail to touch-out at your destination it
will
hold the fare at the minimum but after 2 hours will fix the fare at the
minimum and not create an unresolved journey.

What a load of fuss and bother. WHy the hell didn't LUL implement a
system
whereby you could put a fixed number of DAILY travelcards on your
oyster
so if someone travels somewhere on one day then the next date that
they use
their card one daily card is deducted. Simple and neat. And if they
need to go out of zone they simply top up the current daily card in
the oyster to
whatever zones they need. NO more did they /didn't they go through the
gate
nonsense with all this ******** about must touch in/out all the time
and
getting ripped off if you forget.
Still , its a simple logical solution which, this being LUL, is
probably why it
wasn't selected.

B2003

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 at 13:01:57, SJCWHUK
wrote:

They
could not allow 1 day travelcards because the train operators haven't all
come over to Oyster card.

Um - I don't quite see why not, since you can use period Travelcards on
national rail, within the relevant zones. What am I missing?
--
Annabel - "Mrs Redboots"
(trying out a new .sig to reflect the personality I use in online forums)

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 15:48:25 +0100, Annabel Smyth
wrote:

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 at 13:01:57, SJCWHUK
wrote:

They
could not allow 1 day travelcards because the train operators haven't all
come over to Oyster card.

Um - I don't quite see why not, since you can use period Travelcards on
national rail, within the relevant zones. What am I missing?

this is a complex issue but I'll try to explain.

If you had one day travelcards stored on the Oyster card you need to
tell a machine to activate it on the card as there could be several
cards of different zone combinations stored on the card and a dumb
device like a reader cannot know which one you want to activate. This
means you have to queue at a machine or ask a bus driver to activate
your card which slows down the bus - not what Oyster is about.

With period Travelcards the validity is simply there because you bought
it at the station or wherever. Therefore you can happily travel about
and if you encounter a gate it can typically be read or if you encounter
an inspector or conductor they have a device to read it. I don't know if
people still get the paper inspection ticket still or not.

With pre-pay and capping there is a very real issue about people
starting from NR stations which do not have any Oyster validation
equipment. If you start from Penge West (I'm assuming it hasn't got
gates) how do you start a daily balance to create a running total of
journeys which can then get capped depending on what time you start your
first trip, what day and what zone. AIUI the Oyster Card maintains a
tally of the start time, day, zones travelled through and obviously
values deducted.

If you start at 09.35 in Zone 2 and go to Zone 1 then the cap would be a
ODTC for Z12. If you then toddle along to Zone 3 by Tube the cap rises
to the price of ODTC for Z14. If you went by bus the cap stays at Z12
price because a travelcard for any zone is valid all over London. If you
remain within zones 1-4 for Tube or Rail or DLR travel for the rest of
the day then the cap stays at Z14 ODTC.

If you made all the trips by bus then you should be capped at the price
of a One Day Bus Pass.

If you start in the peak but don't use NR then you would get capped to
the LT Card price for the zones and so one. The lack of NR validation
and non participation in Pre-Pay presents a very real issue about how
you allow capping to work in the context of ODTC validity. There are
fraud risks which I won't go into here but the use of the maximum fare
being deducted on entry in order to incentivise validation of the card
for each trip does have a real purpose.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

"Boltar" wrote in message
m...
"SJCWHUK" wrote in message
...
John & Annabel's Query...............

John

Oyster cards with travelcards loaded are set to allow one exit outside
the
zones which would create a negative balance in the pre-pay slot. The
journey
you quoted via Stratford does seem to be the reason.

FYI. If you travel from a station where your travelcard isn't valid or
you
are using prepay, when you touch-in it will deduct the minimum fare for
that
zone (£1.10 or £1.60). If you fail to touch-out at your destination it
will
hold the fare at the minimum but after 2 hours will fix the fare at the
minimum and not create an unresolved journey.

What a load of fuss and bother. WHy the hell didn't LUL implement a
system
whereby you could put a fixed number of DAILY travelcards on your
oyster
so if someone travels somewhere on one day then the next date that
they use
their card one daily card is deducted. Simple and neat.


1. I'm quite happy paying single fares with Oyster. I don't want to be
charged £x per day, I am happy being charged per journey as it is.
2. These daily cards you talk about putting on in advance - what if I need
a 1-6 one day and 1-4 another? How would this be dealt with?
3. When you look at all the combinations and that people will want to pay
the minimum fare every time, it starts getting complex and with the Evening
Standard out there, it has to be right first time. Hence the capping, etc.
hasn't come in yet

From: "Chris"
"Boltar" wrote in message
What a load of fuss and bother. WHy the hell didn't LUL implement a
system
whereby you could put a fixed number of DAILY travelcards on your
oyster
so if someone travels somewhere on one day then the next date that
they use
their card one daily card is deducted. Simple and neat.


1. I'm quite happy paying single fares with Oyster. I don't want to be
charged £x per day, I am happy being charged per journey as it is.

And theres no reason that couldn't be available too with the proviso that
people are made aware that the system is not perfect and they could lose
money if they don't leave via a gate.
It doesn't say much about a new computerised ticket system if it can't have
as many variations as the old paper ticket system does it?

2. These daily cards you talk about putting on in advance - what if I need
a 1-6 one day and 1-4 another? How would this be dealt with?

Umm , you pick what you think you'll need on the ticket machine screen in
advance. The tickets wouldn't be dated in advance however and if the
furthest zone you travel to one day is zone 4 then next day it removes a
zone 4 daily , if you go to zone 6 then next day it removes a zone 6. Simple.

3. When you look at all the combinations and that people will want to pay
the minimum fare every time, it starts getting complex and with the Evening
Standard out there, it has to be right first time. Hence the capping, etc.
hasn't come in yet

Its not complex , compared to what a lot of other computer systems (eg
point of sale, airline booking systems) have to deal with its a piece of ****.
I wish I only had to deal with half a dozen simple ticket types and fares on
the system I'm involved with at the moment.

B2003

You can but really only where they have the readers. They are discouraged
at other stations. Also when it comes to pre-pay National rail aren't set
up for it.


"Annabel Smyth" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 at 13:01:57, SJCWHUK
wrote:

They
could not allow 1 day travelcards because the train operators haven't
all
come over to Oyster card.

Um - I don't quite see why not, since you can use period Travelcards on
national rail, within the relevant zones. What am I missing?
--
Annabel - "Mrs Redboots"
(trying out a new .sig to reflect the personality I use in online forums)

Paul Corfield wrote to uk.transport.london on Fri, 13 Aug 2004:


If you had one day travelcards stored on the Oyster card you need to
tell a machine to activate it on the card as there could be several
cards of different zone combinations stored on the card and a dumb
device like a reader cannot know which one you want to activate. This
means you have to queue at a machine or ask a bus driver to activate
your card which slows down the bus - not what Oyster is about.

Ah yes, I hadn't really thought of that - I was thinking of buying the
ODTC on the day you use it, as you do with paper tickets! Actually,
could that not happen? I know it *doesn't* happen, but it might be
feasible to buy and store dated ODTCs on your Oyster, no?

With period Travelcards the validity is simply there because you bought
it at the station or wherever. Therefore you can happily travel about
and if you encounter a gate it can typically be read or if you encounter
an inspector or conductor they have a device to read it. I don't know if
people still get the paper inspection ticket still or not.

Oh indeed they do!
--
Annabel - "Mrs Redboots"
(trying out a new .sig to reflect the personality I use in online forums)

In message , Annabel Smyth
writes

Ah yes, I hadn't really thought of that - I was thinking of buying the
ODTC on the day you use it, as you do with paper tickets!

Not necessarily - many people buy paper ODTCs in advance of the day of
travel in order to save delays. I almost always by mine the evening
before I actually need to use it.

--
Paul Terry

Paul Corfield wrote in message . ..
On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 15:48:25 +0100, Annabel Smyth
wrote:

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 at 13:01:57, SJCWHUK
wrote:

They
could not allow 1 day travelcards because the train operators haven't all
come over to Oyster card.

Um - I don't quite see why not, since you can use period Travelcards on
national rail, within the relevant zones. What am I missing?

this is a complex issue but I'll try to explain.

If you had one day travelcards stored on the Oyster card you need to
tell a machine to activate it on the card as there could be several
cards of different zone combinations stored on the card and a dumb
device like a reader cannot know which one you want to activate. This

As I've mentioned in another post , it doesn't have to know. The oyster logs
the max & min zones travelled in for a given date and the next date you travel
a travelcard for the appropriate zones is deducted from the the stored
cards for that previous trip. Obviously the card will have to know the max and
min zones of all the cards it has stored so someone can't travel to zone 6 on
a day when they only have zone 4 cards but given that your average oyster card
has more processing power than a 1980s home computer this isn't going to tax
its abilities much. However all LUL seem to use it for is to either store a
pair of dates for monthly/yearly cards or stored a cash value. Thats it. What
a waste of technology.

B2003