Adrian wrote:

Are the gates able to be flexible and match the distance between
barriers with the time between swiping in?

Who for? Somebody fit and mobile, or somebody elderly and slow who needs a
pee and wants to buy a Standard on his wander?

Good point but equally if someone does makea trip from Chigwell to Chesham
are they going to be charged excess for not touching out within two hours?

The other one that I find chaotic is the extension to travelcard service. A
lot of travelcard holders seem to think that if the gates are open for
whatever reason within their zone validity, or if they're entering the
system through national rail, then they don't need to touch in. Normally
this is true but when going out of zone it appears you need to touch in at
"journey start" and return as well as at the gates on your extension,
otherwise you get charged the full incomplete journey whack. I've known a
number of people get fines on this without realising it, not least because
their starting point was a national rail station with no fare gates or card
reader and the limited literature they've seen from TfL doesn't explicitly
tell them they have to find and use an onplatform reader at the interchange,
or because they've got back to a station where the gates are open.