On 2 Nov 2005 02:21:43 GMT, "Michael R N Dolbear"
wrote:

When is 7DTC capping coming in on Oyster?

Probably never, the complexities, such as ODTC capping day by day, were
glanced at in a post on this NG.

I'm not impressed by the "the computers aren't up to it" argument.
But I agree, it probably won't happen.

On Wed, 2 Nov 2005 23:26:46 +0100, "tim \(moved to sweden\)"
wrote:

Ask someone (nicely) at any open Tube Ticket Office.

What do you get?

A printout with just A-B for a specific journey, or a full time/station
listing for every journey?

The latter.

Self printed from the web site or by an employee at a station
(where-ever)?

We've told you. See the top quote in this message.

In message ,
Colin Rosenstiel writes
Or people arriving at airports who can't buy through tickets to NSE
destinations. I can buy a ticket from Cambridge to Heathrow but not from
Heathrow to Cambridge.

That's odd. I *can* buy a ticket from Heathrow to Luton, but cannot get
a discount with my NSE Network Card on it, so do so only if travelling
at a time when the discount wouldn't apply. I assumed this was possible
to all NSE stations, but obviously not.

--
Clive Page

In message , Clive
writes

I don't understand the problem. I live 350 miles from London yet my
five or six trips a year there make oyster a good proposition, no
queuing, lower fares and capping. Then again I don't mind that
someone in TfL takes an interest in my London based movements to
improve services, it can only benefit me. I've nothing to hide
either, my card is registered to me at my home address, so if I am
robbed of it or lose it whilst in London I can get a refund. So I am
happy to keep up to £90 on it in pre-pay, then I'm never caught out.

I live only 30 miles from London and make a trip every week or two, but
have not so far been tempted by Oyster. I see two main problems

(1) I don't like the idea of having to register my details, so that
every journey I take is known to TFL. That smacks just a bit to much
like big brother for my liking. If I use an unregistered card and lose
it then I lose all the stored value (as I understand it).

(2) I've seen far too many stories of people finding unresolved journeys
for a whole variety of reasons, and then it takes them a huge amount of
time to get the excess charge refunded. I often transfer from mainline
rail (which doesn't use Oyster) to tube at places like Kings Cross
Thameslink, Farringdon, Moorgate, or Blackfriars where it is hard (or
impossible) to find an Oyster machine to touch in to, so I expect that
using one will be a frequent waste of time and maybe money.

All the same, now that Carnet tickets are to disappear, as soon as our
current stocks are exhausted (maybe late next year) I may be forced to
indulge in an Oyster of some sort.

Any comments?

--
Clive Page

In message , Helen Deborah
Vecht writes
I think there *is* a potential problem for ill-informed visitors,
especially if they don't read English.

I think there's a problem for all visitors, because they won't easily be
able to use all the stored value (or get their deposit back). My wife
and I between us have at least half-a-dozen strippenkarts or metro cards
or similar for Washington DC and various European cities, each with a
bit of residual value. When next we visit it isn't at all clear whether
they are still valid, or whether we can top-up or not.

In one city I visited recently I was told that my old strip card was
still valid but only at the rate of two old strips to one new strip.
Inadvertently I had underpaid for a journey before I realised that -
fortunately no metro inspector caught me. I understand enough of
French and German to just about get the hang of their metro ticketing
rules, but all the same it's a real problem. In places, like Poland or
Hungary, where I don't understand the language at all, it's a serious
problem. No doubt for some visitors to London the same is true.

- the rules vary so much from one town to another, and are almost as
byzantine in their complexity as those of London, that it's vary hard to
remember them.

- I keep getting stored value left which I can't use after my trip is
over.

The Oyster card brings London into line with these other
tourist-unfriendly transport systems. This doesn't seem to me to be
much of an advance.


--
Clive Page

"Clive Page" wrote in message
...
In message , Helen Deborah Vecht
writes
I think there *is* a potential problem for ill-informed visitors,
especially if they don't read English.

I think there's a problem for all visitors, because they won't easily be
able to use all the stored value (or get their deposit back). My wife and
I between us have at least half-a-dozen strippenkarts or metro cards or
similar for Washington DC and various European cities, each with a bit of
residual value. When next we visit it isn't at all clear whether they are
still valid, or whether we can top-up or not.

Can I just suggest that it is silly to buy strip cards in the
first place if you are unceratin that you are going to use them.

In many European towns the strip card discount is no more
than 10%. Risking wasting 50% of a strip ticket to save
10% just doesn't seem very sensible.

Buy single tickets, or if you want to make multiple journeys
a day pass, and if it costs you 10% more, so what?

tim

On Sat, 05 Nov 2005 12:32:20 +0000, Laurence Payne
wrote:

On 2 Nov 2005 02:21:43 GMT, "Michael R N Dolbear"
wrote:

When is 7DTC capping coming in on Oyster?

Probably never, the complexities, such as ODTC capping day by day, were
glanced at in a post on this NG.

I'm not impressed by the "the computers aren't up to it" argument.
But I agree, it probably won't happen.

It would make more sense to have an equivalent that works better with
Pre-Pay. For example, a discount could be offered to those loading
their card with a specific amount of money, perhaps in several
"bands".

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

On Sun, 6 Nov 2005 10:53:41 +0000, Clive Page
wrote:

In message , Clive
writes

I don't understand the problem. I live 350 miles from London yet my
five or six trips a year there make oyster a good proposition, no
queuing, lower fares and capping. Then again I don't mind that
someone in TfL takes an interest in my London based movements to
improve services, it can only benefit me. I've nothing to hide
either, my card is registered to me at my home address, so if I am
robbed of it or lose it whilst in London I can get a refund. So I am
happy to keep up to £90 on it in pre-pay, then I'm never caught out.

I live only 30 miles from London and make a trip every week or two, but
have not so far been tempted by Oyster. I see two main problems

(1) I don't like the idea of having to register my details, so that
every journey I take is known to TFL. That smacks just a bit to much
like big brother for my liking. If I use an unregistered card and lose
it then I lose all the stored value (as I understand it).

(2) I've seen far too many stories of people finding unresolved journeys
for a whole variety of reasons, and then it takes them a huge amount of
time to get the excess charge refunded. I often transfer from mainline
rail (which doesn't use Oyster) to tube at places like Kings Cross
Thameslink, Farringdon, Moorgate, or Blackfriars where it is hard (or
impossible) to find an Oyster machine to touch in to, so I expect that
using one will be a frequent waste of time and maybe money.

All the same, now that Carnet tickets are to disappear, as soon as our
current stocks are exhausted (maybe late next year) I may be forced to
indulge in an Oyster of some sort.

Any comments?

Yes.

(1) You're paranoid.

(2) I've never found a problem finding an Oyster target at any of
those stations.

--
James Farrar
. @gmail.com

In article ,
(Clive Page) wrote:

In message ,
Colin Rosenstiel writes
Or people arriving at airports who can't buy through tickets to NSE
destinations. I can buy a ticket from Cambridge to Heathrow but not
from Heathrow to Cambridge.

That's odd. I *can* buy a ticket from Heathrow to Luton, but cannot
get a discount with my NSE Network Card on it, so do so only if
travelling at a time when the discount wouldn't apply. I assumed
this was possible to all NSE stations, but obviously not.

From which terminal at Heathrow? Also, didn't someone say here recently
that the tube ticket office now offers a wider range of tickets?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Sun, 6 Nov 2005 10:53:41 +0000, Clive Page
wrote:

(1) I don't like the idea of having to register my details, so that
every journey I take is known to TFL. That smacks just a bit to much
like big brother for my liking. If I use an unregistered card and lose
it then I lose all the stored value (as I understand it).

So don't lose it. Just keep it in your wallet (it's credit card sized)
along with your banknotes - they are also unregistered and if you lose
them you lose all their value, but I'm sure you manage to cope.
There's no real need to keep more than £10 or so of value on the card
(despite some posters managing to reach the £90 limit!).

(2) I've seen far too many stories of people finding unresolved journeys
for a whole variety of reasons, and then it takes them a huge amount of
time to get the excess charge refunded. I often transfer from mainline
rail (which doesn't use Oyster) to tube at places like Kings Cross
Thameslink, Farringdon, Moorgate, or Blackfriars where it is hard (or
impossible) to find an Oyster machine to touch in to, so I expect that
using one will be a frequent waste of time and maybe money.

This, IMHO, is one of the main problems with the Oyster system -
although, like you say, it's easy to end up with unresolved journeys
for all sorts of reasons, they deliberately go out of their way to
make it difficult to get the problem resolved. Ticket office staff
(while extremely helpful IME) do not have permission to sort out
unresolved journeys in many situations. And if your card is
unregistered, the Oyster helpline flatly refuse to help you at all.

The only mitigating factor is that the charge for an unresolved
journey is (currently) the minimum fare, so some of the time at least
you don't lose out financially. However, it's been reported in this
group that at some point the charge will increase to the maximum (i.e.
zones 1-6) fare.