wrote in message
ups.com...
I wonder how many people who refuse Oyster cards are working in the
black economy and don't want their regular 5-day a week journies from
A-to-B recorded?

I think the main reason is that some people live in zone 2 north - say
Kentish Town - but work in zone 2 on the other side of zone 1 - say Canary
Wharf. By buying a zone 2 paper weekly they hope to avoid the fare for zone
1 every day, which with Oyster they can't do; i know that many people have
switched back to paper tickets because Oyster charged them an extra £3.20 a
day.

When weeklies change to Oyster I think these people will simply buy their
weeklies from NR stations.

In article ,
Alan OBrien wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...
I wonder how many people who refuse Oyster cards are working in the
black economy and don't want their regular 5-day a week journies from
A-to-B recorded?

I think the main reason is that some people live in zone 2 north - say
Kentish Town - but work in zone 2 on the other side of zone 1 - say Canary
Wharf. By buying a zone 2 paper weekly they hope to avoid the fare for zone
1 every day, which with Oyster they can't do;

They can't do it with paper tickets, eitherm when the Revinue Protection
crowd get ahold of them.

(Unless they - say - use the NLL to avoid zone 1 properly, but then
the oyster card won't charge them)

--
Mike Bristow - really a very good driver

I think the main reason is that some people live in zone 2 north - say
Kentish Town - but work in zone 2 on the other side of zone 1 - say Canary
Wharf. By buying a zone 2 paper weekly they hope to avoid the fare for zone
1 every day, which with Oyster they can't do;

They can't do it with paper tickets, eitherm when the Revinue Protection
crowd get ahold of them.

(Unless they - say - use the NLL to avoid zone 1 properly, but then
the oyster card won't charge them)

On the day prepay launched enough people with season tickets accrued
negative balances for the media to report it as a bug.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3422051.stm

There was of course no bug. All of those people did not have zone 1 on their
travelcards and for the first time the system was able to catch them out.

TKD wrote:
I think the main reason is that some people live in zone 2 north - say
Kentish Town - but work in zone 2 on the other side of zone 1 - say Canary
Wharf. By buying a zone 2 paper weekly they hope to avoid the fare for zone
1 every day, which with Oyster they can't do;

They can't do it with paper tickets, eitherm when the Revinue Protection
crowd get ahold of them.

(Unless they - say - use the NLL to avoid zone 1 properly, but then
the oyster card won't charge them)

On the day prepay launched enough people with season tickets accrued
negative balances for the media to report it as a bug.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3422051.stm

There was of course no bug. All of those people did not have zone 1 on their
travelcards and for the first time the system was able to catch them out.

How interesting. I'd heard those reports and kind of dismissed them as
rubbish journalism stirred up by the Lib Dem candidate for Mayor, Simon
Hughes, who never missed a chance for a dig at the Mayor Ken and didn't
let such trivial things as facts get in the way!

That's fascinating to hear the real reason behind the 'Oyster bugs' was
the system working properly (and catching people out) rather than a
system problem. It's not called a smartcard for no reason at all! Is
your information from an authoritative source?

On the day prepay launched enough people with season tickets accrued
negative balances for the media to report it as a bug.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3422051.stm

There was of course no bug. All of those people did not have zone 1 on their
travelcards and for the first time the system was able to catch them out.

How interesting. I'd heard those reports and kind of dismissed them as
rubbish journalism stirred up by the Lib Dem candidate for Mayor, Simon
Hughes, who never missed a chance for a dig at the Mayor Ken and didn't
let such trivial things as facts get in the way!

That's fascinating to hear the real reason behind the 'Oyster bugs' was
the system working properly (and catching people out) rather than a
system problem. It's not called a smartcard for no reason at all! Is
your information from an authoritative source?

I think it was on the TfL/GLAwebsite but I can't be sure and can't find from
a quick Google. Prepay was launched Jan '04 so it was around that time.

It seems Simon Hughes can only get his name about by claiming that anything
he doesn't understand is "scandal".

"TKD" wrote in message
...

I think the main reason is that some people live in zone 2 north - say
Kentish Town - but work in zone 2 on the other side of zone 1 - say
Canary
Wharf. By buying a zone 2 paper weekly they hope to avoid the fare for
zone
1 every day, which with Oyster they can't do;

They can't do it with paper tickets, eitherm when the Revinue Protection
crowd get ahold of them.

(Unless they - say - use the NLL to avoid zone 1 properly, but then
the oyster card won't charge them)

On the day prepay launched enough people with season tickets accrued
negative balances for the media to report it as a bug.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3422051.stm

There was of course no bug. All of those people did not have zone 1 on
their
travelcards and for the first time the system was able to catch them out.

That is why many people went back to paper tickets.

Mike Bristow wrote:
In article ,
Alan OBrien wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...
I wonder how many people who refuse Oyster cards are working in the
black economy and don't want their regular 5-day a week journies from
A-to-B recorded?

I think the main reason is that some people live in zone 2 north - say
Kentish Town - but work in zone 2 on the other side of zone 1 - say Canary
Wharf. By buying a zone 2 paper weekly they hope to avoid the fare for zone
1 every day, which with Oyster they can't do;

They can't do it with paper tickets, eitherm when the Revinue Protection
crowd get ahold of them.

They shouldn't do it, as it is fare evasion, but just because you
shouldn't do it doesn't mean you can't do it! I know someone who has
done this, I don't approve of it but I know it can be done. I've
overheard someone else being caught doing it by RP staff when changing
Tube lines at Zone 1 interchange stations ("I though my ticket included
Zone 1" - "No sir it doesn't" etc etc).

As RP staff rarely/never board trains, then there are perhaps some
whose regular journey on the same Tube train (e.g. from Shepherds Bush
to Mile End on the Cental Line) are not likely to be caught either.

The concentric zones in London are broadly a very good idea, but it has
an inherent assumption that many people will travel on radial routes to
the main attraction - Zone 1.

Because of this and other notions about 'Big Brother watching over us'
some people may wish to avoid Oyster. I supsect that some NR stations
that are near Tube stations may see a slight rise in the number of
7DTC's sold, but no subsequent increase in passenger traffic.

On 25 Aug 2005 08:15:43 -0700, "Mizter T" wrote:

Mike Bristow wrote:
In article ,
Alan OBrien wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...
I wonder how many people who refuse Oyster cards are working in the
black economy and don't want their regular 5-day a week journies from
A-to-B recorded?

I think the main reason is that some people live in zone 2 north - say
Kentish Town - but work in zone 2 on the other side of zone 1 - say Canary
Wharf. By buying a zone 2 paper weekly they hope to avoid the fare for zone
1 every day, which with Oyster they can't do;

They can't do it with paper tickets, eitherm when the Revinue Protection
crowd get ahold of them.

They shouldn't do it, as it is fare evasion, but just because you
shouldn't do it doesn't mean you can't do it! I know someone who has
done this, I don't approve of it but I know it can be done. I've
overheard someone else being caught doing it by RP staff when changing
Tube lines at Zone 1 interchange stations ("I though my ticket included
Zone 1" - "No sir it doesn't" etc etc).

Some years ago, I used to travel from the northern end of the Victoria
line to West London, changing to the Piccadilly at Green Park.

There were numerous times when ticket checks were done in the
interchange tunnels, precisely for this reason.

Because of this and other notions about 'Big Brother watching over us'
some people may wish to avoid Oyster. I supsect that some NR stations
that are near Tube stations may see a slight rise in the number of
7DTC's sold, but no subsequent increase in passenger traffic.

Additionally, people with paper travelcards can't have journey start
and end times verified for LU "Customer Charter" claims - another
reason for some to avoid Oyster.
--

Cheers,

Jason.

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?

Jason wrote:
On 25 Aug 2005 08:15:43 -0700, "Mizter T" wrote:
I've overheard someone else being caught doing it by RP staff when changing
Tube lines at Zone 1 interchange stations ("I though my ticket included
Zone 1" - "No sir it doesn't" etc etc).

Some years ago, I used to travel from the northern end of the Victoria
line to West London, changing to the Piccadilly at Green Park.

There were numerous times when ticket checks were done in the
interchange tunnels, precisely for this reason.

Those aren't the type of journeys that I regularly make during rush
hour (when I guess the RPIs are more likely to be at such locations),
so it's interesting to hear you're experience that such interchanges
are regularly targetted.

Something I'm not sure I've ever seen is a ticket inspection on board a
Tube train though. This leaves open the option for people to travel
though zones on a single Tube train using a paper Travelcard which
doesn't have the correct zonal validity. Examples could include Bethnal
Green to White City with no changes on the Central Line, or Kennington
to Camden Town on the Northern Line.

Because of this and other notions about 'Big Brother watching over us'
some people may wish to avoid Oyster. I supsect that some NR stations
that are near Tube stations may see a slight rise in the number of
7DTC's sold, but no subsequent increase in passenger traffic.

Additionally, people with paper travelcards can't have journey start
and end times verified for LU "Customer Charter" claims - another
reason for some to avoid Oyster.

How very true. That's not something I'd considered.

Years ago, I had a friend who funded all his Tube travelling by
claiming for non-existant delays. His justification, which we all took
issue with at the time, was some vague youthful notion of 'subverting
the system' or some such. His 'subversion' obviously had the convenient
effect of saving him cash! Some years later, after he'd matured
somewhat, when confronted with his past actions he acknowledged he'd
been very much in the wrong.

It still occasionally leads me to wonder how many others out there
might have the brass balls required to be pulling the same stunt at the
moment.

"Mizter T" wrote:
Something I'm not sure I've ever seen is a ticket inspection on board a Tube
train though.

About 3 or 4 years ago I had my ticket inspected on a Jubilee line
train between Green Park and Waterloo. There was a small group of
people in plain clothes standing by the doors when I got on and as soon
as the doors closed and the train departed they whipped out little
police-style leather-bound ID cards and LT badges and fanned through
the car asking to see people's tickets.

Roy