In message , Paul Corfield
writes
I have not seen any rules that advise on what to do if the Oyster card
or equipment is defective. It wasn't in the last Oyster or Fares booklet
that I've seen. Something has to be sorted out to explain how the whole
set up works because it is becoming overly complicated. Drivers and
passengers cannot be expected to comprehend all of the complexity and it
gets a whole pile worse come the January fares changes.
Following a job I did in London recently there was a short exchange here
about explaining the complexities of using London's bus network to
visitors, which included contributions from myself and Paul.

Further to this, I've just done another weekend where the passengers had
about four and a half hours free, having been dropped in Park Lane. So
I decided - as an experiment - to try explaining how Oyster worked to
people. As I feared, it put a lot of people off even using buses. I
could see people's faces just glazing over and I also dread next year
when people will be faced with very high cash fares.

Because I had so much free time, I took myself out to the open weekend
at Acton Depot. (Which I thoroughly enjoyed by the way.)

I set up Auto Top up and - when I returned later to Bond Street - I
checked at a machine that everything was in order. To my surprise,
although Auto Top Up had worked, I found that I had an unresolved
journey. The Bond Street ticket office put that right (and charged me
£1.70 instead of what I think should have been £2.00). However, the
ticket clerk said that it had occurred because I hadn't swiped in at
Acton. Now I *had* (the barriers were in use and obviously opened), so
I wonder what could have gone wrong? This is my first "hiccup" with
Oyster, though.

Goodness knows how on earth London is going to go completely cash*less*
when it cannot cope with cash in the first place. Does anyone think
this is going to work based solely on Oyster cards and a limited
scattering of roadside machines?
Yes, despite what I wrote above, I find that the need to buy tickets
from roadside machines concerns and confuses my people much more than
Oyster.
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

I set up Auto Top up and - when I returned later to Bond Street - I
checked at a machine that everything was in order. To my surprise, although Auto Top Up had
worked, I found that I had an unresolved journey. The Bond Street ticket office put that right
(and charged me £1.70 instead of what I think should have been £2.00). However, the ticket clerk
said that it had occurred because I hadn't swiped in at Acton. Now I *had* (the barriers were in
use and obviously opened), so I wonder what could have gone wrong? This is my first "hiccup"
with Oyster, though.

Sometimes if you miss touching in or out on one journey and make another
journey soon after (say within 2 hours) it gets confused because it can't tell
which entries belong together and that might give the result you experienced.

On Sat, 22 Oct 2005, Clive wrote, as seen in uk.railway, quoting me:

a compulsory ticket area

What would this be then?

If I had wanted to know the answer to that, I think I'd have tried a
search engine. So I couldn't help worrying that you were posting the
question as some kind of rhetorical device.

Of course, it's one of the areas referred to in Byelaw 17.

Shall we do the TfL version of them today? Oh yes, we're crossposted
to u.t.l, so that's just the ticket (oops, no pun intended, but now
it's there I'm not taking it out).

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube/company/bylaws.asp

But they're all based on the same model byelaws (or "bylaws" as it
seems the TfL webmaster calls them...).

I've never seen signs to say, "You must be in
possession of a ticket to pass this spot.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/group...030143-06.hcsp

is listed under "Consultation papers", but it says it came into force
in 1994. They've been around for a while already.


More interesting, though, I thought, was this hit from abroad:

http://www.metrolisboa.pt/normas_uk.htm

It looks as if *their* penalty fare is equivalent currently to EUR120,
and (just to rub it in) you still have to pay the 0.70 single fare on
top of that. Furthermore, it seems there are situations where you
could be prosecuted /and/ have to pay the penalty fare, whereas our
scheme says (AIUI) that if you are prosecuted (whatever the outcome)
then you don't have to pay the penalty fare.

ttfn

In message c.uk, at
23:43:34 on Sun, 23 Oct 2005, Alan J. Flavell
remarked:
More interesting, though, I thought, was this hit from abroad:

http://www.metrolisboa.pt/normas_uk.htm

It looks as if *their* penalty fare is equivalent currently to EUR120,

Another case where if you are mugged on the train and your ticket is
stolen you get fined (there's no get-out clause for that situation).
--
Roland Perry

Whereas mine sits nicely in my wallet, and has no problem being accepted by
machines - Would suggest that your oyster card is faulty!

Andy


"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 22 Oct 2005 14:20:11 +0100, Dave Arquati wrote:

TKD wrote:
So, what happens if the Bus card-reader is broken, and the driver
waves you on - happens a couple of times per month on the routes that
I use (308, 678). Take it I should insist on paying cash?

You can add the 8, 277 & 15 to that list and countless more probably.

The official TfL position is that you should pay the cash fare and
request
a refund of the price difference from them...

Unless you were capped that day in which case you would be entitled to
a full refund.

Or if that journey was the last one that day and took you past a cap
then
you would get a refund of any extra you paid in total beyond the cap.

Not a very elegant solution.

Surely since they advertise that Oyster Prepay is an accepted form of
payment, and given that you have enough credit to pay, it's totally
their problem...?

I have not seen any rules that advise on what to do if the Oyster card
or equipment is defective. It wasn't in the last Oyster or Fares booklet
that I've seen. Something has to be sorted out to explain how the whole
set up works because it is becoming overly complicated. Drivers and
passengers cannot be expected to comprehend all of the complexity and it
gets a whole pile worse come the January fares changes.

In Hong Kong it is easy - if the reader is defective they place a
special "bag" over it explaining the situation and requiring the
passenger to pay cash. The reader is a fully separate unit and is not
stuck on the side of a ticket machine (as they don't have such things in
HK just cash boxes). However it is extremely rare to ever encounter this
problem unlike in London where reliability seems to be hopeless and
there is no clear way of dealing with the problem.

I also think something has to be done about the signal strength of the
readers. Again in HK there is a degree of latitude and you do not have
to place the card flat and flush with the reader. Passengers regularly
place wallets or handbags on readers and their card is read correctly.
You couldn't do that in London because the card would not be read - I
get a misread if my card is not completely flat on some bus readers
which is an utter nonsense.

I was having a discussion along these lines with a friend yesterday, who
said that he was on a bus recently where someone got on and tried to pay
for a cash fare - with a £50 note. Unsurprisingly the driver wouldn't
accept it. Apparently the whole bus had to wait for a few minutes whilst
they wrangled about it (and I think the driver just gave up after a
while).

Someone put £10 down for a £1.20 fare on a bus this morning. The driver
did not have change. I simply gave the passenger £1 to add a 20p he had
so I could get home rather than wait for 10 minutes while a debate
ensued.

Goodness knows how on earth London is going to go completely cash*less*
when it cannot cope with cash in the first place. Does anyone think
this is going to work based solely on Oyster cards and a limited
scattering of roadside machines?

Do TfL advertise appropriate means to pay? (e.g. not £50?)

They do advertise the limits on legal tender re coinage in the tickets
booklet but I have never seen a statement limiting the proffering of
bank notes for payment.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

"Raoul" wrote in message
...
Mike Humphrey wrote:
That's not a compulsory ticket area, though, as it's quite possible to
legitimately be inside the barrier without a ticket. There's even a
ticket
window inside the barrier.

No, there's an excess fare window inside the barrier.

Which sells normal tickets, not penalty fares. I've bought tickets at the
barrier at Leeds a couple of times (guards on the Bradford Forster
Square-Leeds trains never seemed to be able to find Cuddington in their
fares manual...), and on one occasion been let through the barrier to buy a
ticket as the window was closed.

Mike

"Ian Jelf" wrote in message
...
In message , Dave Arquati
writes
Surely since they advertise that Oyster Prepay is an accepted form of
payment, and given that you have enough credit to pay, it's totally their
problem...?

I'd agree entirely with that. It's not yet occurred to me that I might
be expected to pay cash if climbing on a bus which turns out to have a
broken Oyster reader.

I was having a discussion along these lines with a friend yesterday, who
said that he was on a bus recently where someone got on and tried to pay
for a cash fare - with a £50 note. Unsurprisingly the driver wouldn't
accept it. Apparently the whole bus had to wait for a few minutes whilst
they wrangled about it (and I think the driver just gave up after a
while).

Do TfL advertise appropriate means to pay? (e.g. not £50?)

The latest Fares guide is as far as I'm aware, the first to mention limits
on what is tendered but I think it concerns itself with coins, quoting the
Coinage Act 1971 or something similar.

Yes, page 40 of
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tick...fares-2005.pdf
--
David Biddulph

In message , at
07:22:49 on Tue, 25 Oct 2005, David Biddulph
remarked:
The latest Fares guide is as far as I'm aware, the first to mention limits
on what is tendered but I think it concerns itself with coins, quoting the
Coinage Act 1971 or something similar.

Yes, page 40 of
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tick...fares-2005.pdf

£5 worth of 5p's doesn't seem too restrictive to me.
--
Roland Perry

"Nick Cooper" wrote in
message ...

This was in the 'Standard' on Monday. It said: "neither the machine
nor the driver warned her the payment had apparently failed." Reading
between the lines, that suggested she _didn't_ get a green light, but
she still boarded, without querying it with the driver.

Surely if something is not right, it is the driver's responsibility to
inform the passenger? Where in anything available to public when one
purchases a ticket on Oyster does it actually tell them what the different
noises when passing the card over a reader on a bus actually mean?

I know they bleep once for 'ok' and twice for comms failure/passback etc.,
but why on earth is the error noise not completely different? It's
illogical for the machine to make a noise when there is an error - silence
would be better, as the user would realise the machine has not bleeped at
them. In a world of bleeps, who can blame the passenger..

The ability to alter the noises exists - heard the bleep from users of child
passes - very different!

Saying, "the machine didn't warn me," is lame.

I disagree. Nonetheless, if it were me, I'd not have made reference to the
machine, and simply blamed the operator of said machine: the driver.

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...

And if you are colour blind it is utterly useless. I have to rely on the
bleep because I cannot use the light.

And why oh why oh why does it make such a similar bleep when there is an
error? Surely a bleep for 'ok' and a bell or buzzer for comms
error/passback/no credit etc., would be far more logical!