I think I have an unresolved journey on my Oyster card.

I was travelling from work to Waterloo and missed my stop, getting off
at Southwark. I decided to walk back to the mainline platforms via
Waterloo East. However, I don't think there is an "out" barrier
between the Tube platforms at Southwark and the entrance to Waterloo
East. At Waterloo East, as it is a mainline station, I automatically
used my London Stations season ticket to get through the barrier (the
barrier wouldn't accept the ticket but the ticket inspector let me
through). In retrospect maybe I should have used my Oyster to
register an "out", but I didn't want to register an "in" when I wasn't
going to be travelling from Waterloo East.

Anyway, will this be an unresolved journey and what do I do about it?
Unaccountably, I don't seem to be able to check my Oyster card usage
online. Can I do so at a Tube station, or is phone or email the best?

Apologies if there have been lots of similar queries, but there's not
really a lot of information on the LUL website.

Cheers.

Phil

Phil Clark wrote:
I think I have an unresolved journey on my Oyster card.

I was travelling from work to Waterloo and missed my stop, getting off
at Southwark. I decided to walk back to the mainline platforms via
Waterloo East. However, I don't think there is an "out" barrier
between the Tube platforms at Southwark and the entrance to Waterloo
East. At Waterloo East, as it is a mainline station, I automatically
used my London Stations season ticket to get through the barrier (the
barrier wouldn't accept the ticket but the ticket inspector let me
through). In retrospect maybe I should have used my Oyster to
register an "out", but I didn't want to register an "in" when I wasn't
going to be travelling from Waterloo East.

Anyway, will this be an unresolved journey and what do I do about it?
Unaccountably, I don't seem to be able to check my Oyster card usage
online. Can I do so at a Tube station, or is phone or email the best?

Apologies if there have been lots of similar queries, but there's not
really a lot of information on the LUL website.



There is definitely a barrier when exiting the Jubilee at Southwark in
the direction of Waterloo East.

But there is no barrier anywhere at Waterloo or Waterloo East mainline
stations.

Therefore, the barrier that you were trying to get through with your
season was the LU exit barrier.

I realise this isn't answering your question, but it's background
information.

On 11 Apr 2006 12:59:41 -0700, "MIG"
wrote:

Therefore, the barrier that you were trying to get through with your
season was the LU exit barrier.

I realise this isn't answering your question, but it's background
information.

Well in retrospect that make some sort of sense I suppose... in which
case, why was I allowed through with a London Stations only ST? I
suppose it's a case of flash a Gold Card and they just let you
through... but the guy had a reasonably good look at the ticket. If
he'd told me that it was a Tube barrier and my ST wasn't valid, I'd
have realised I needed to use the Oyster.

Phil Clark wrote:
On 11 Apr 2006 12:59:41 -0700, "MIG"
wrote:

Therefore, the barrier that you were trying to get through with your
season was the LU exit barrier.

I realise this isn't answering your question, but it's background
information.

Well in retrospect that make some sort of sense I suppose... in which
case, why was I allowed through with a London Stations only ST? I
suppose it's a case of flash a Gold Card and they just let you
through... but the guy had a reasonably good look at the ticket. If
he'd told me that it was a Tube barrier and my ST wasn't valid, I'd
have realised I needed to use the Oyster.


I think that's the answer. The machine wouldn't let you through, but
your determination that that ticket ought to get you through obviously
convinced the LU person.

In answer to the other point, it's actually an LU ticket office. I
don't think there is a ticket office for Waterloo East any more, and
when there was it was on the bridge to Waterloo Main, where there are
still machines and an almost permanent squad of checkers (far more than
it would take to staff a ticket office).

I can't quite remember, but I think that there may now be a lift where
the old ticket office was.

MIG wrote:
the bridge to Waterloo Main, where there are still machines and an almost permanent
squad of checkers

In peak hours perhaps, I rarely see any checkers.

Paul Weaver wrote:
MIG wrote:
the bridge to Waterloo Main, where there are still machines and an almost permanent
squad of checkers

In peak hours perhaps, I rarely see any checkers.

Which really chimes in with what others have said about the train
companies only checking tickets of people who are likely to pay, rather
than actually doing the difficult stuff of checking tickets in the
evenings and at weekends, when you're more likely to get irregular
travellers who are more likely not to have a ticket and more likely to
be violent/aggressive.

Waterloo East is a classic example; there are always squads of
inspectors in the morning peak, and never at any other time. Ditto
Feltham, where I complete my journey - inspectors in the morning and
evening peaks, but travel at any other time and the gates are wide
open.

Patrick

Well, to answer my own question I do seem to have an unresolved
journey but it isn't yet recorded as that on my Oyster - I took my
Oyster to the Tube ticket office and obtained a printout. For Tuesday
it records "Pre Pay Entry Green Park" and has charged me £1.50.
However, the bloke didn't seem to be able to do anything about it - he
suggested I try in a few days and see if the journey description
and/or cost had changed.

I did have an unresolved journey on my ticket for 15 October last year
- it recorded "Unstarted - Oxford Circus" but again only charged me a
single Tube fare, £1.70. I got this resolved, I have a sneaking
suspicion that this should be a day when all my tube journeys were
capped at an ODTC but of course this long ago, nothing other than my
£20 top-ups and the unresolved journey are shown on the Oyster Usage
Statement. It's only £1.70 so what the hell - but if you could read
your Oyster statement online, it would help keep on top of thee
things.

So presumably, at some time the description for Tuesday's journey will
change to "Green Park - Unfinished" and I can ask to have it resolved
- but I'm slightly surprised that it doesn't seem to charge you a
default ODTC price on an unresolved journey.

On Thu, 13 Apr 2006 08:18:26 GMT, Phil Clark
wrote:

So presumably, at some time the description for Tuesday's journey will
change to "Green Park - Unfinished" and I can ask to have it resolved
- but I'm slightly surprised that it doesn't seem to charge you a
default ODTC price on an unresolved journey.

I can see why they still only charge the minimum fare - pre-pay is
still in a fairly introductory phase, and it's very easy to pick up an
unresolved journey (or even two unresolved journeys per one real
journey) until you learn from your mistakes and get a better idea of
how the system works. Plus there's the fact that they refuse point
blank to fix unresolved journeys on unregistered cards[1], so if
people were stuck with large penalties they couldn't have refunded, it
would create negative publicity that they could do without.

[1] Except at Tube ticket offices, but they can only resolve the most
recent journey on the card.

On 11 Apr 2006 12:59:41 -0700, "MIG"
wrote:

There is definitely a barrier when exiting the Jubilee at Southwark in
the direction of Waterloo East.

In that case it's a long way from the Tube platforms and immediately
adjacent to the NR ticket hall and platforms... hence my confusion.

Phil Clark wrote:
I think I have an unresolved journey on my Oyster card.

I was travelling from work to Waterloo and missed my stop, getting off
at Southwark. I decided to walk back to the mainline platforms via
Waterloo East. However, I don't think there is an "out" barrier
between the Tube platforms at Southwark and the entrance to Waterloo
East. At Waterloo East, as it is a mainline station, I automatically
used my London Stations season ticket to get through the barrier (the
barrier wouldn't accept the ticket but the ticket inspector let me
through). In retrospect maybe I should have used my Oyster to
register an "out", but I didn't want to register an "in" when I wasn't
going to be travelling from Waterloo East.

Anyway, will this be an unresolved journey and what do I do about it?
Unaccountably, I don't seem to be able to check my Oyster card usage
online. Can I do so at a Tube station, or is phone or email the best?

The short answer is a) yes and b) nothing, probably.

The longer answer is that if your Oyster is a Travelcard, then you
certainly don't need to do anything. You will in no way be penalised
for unresolved journeys where any touching in or out has been in the
zones where your Travel card is valid.

If your Oyster is a PAYG, you probably don't need to do anything
either. There are certain London Terminals where you'll be charged a
fiver for unresolved PAYG journeys on the National Rail side (IIRC
Liverpool Street, Euston and Fenchurch Street) to deter fare-dodgers
from using PAYG Oyster as a cheap way to get through the barriers.

If you have an unresolved PAYG journey from anywhere else, TfL reserve
the right to charge you the maximum fare, but in practice they charge
you the minimum - ie the fare from the zone you touched in to another
station in that zone. The only incentive to avoid unresolved PAYG
journeys on LUL is that they do not count towards daily capping.

Apologies if there have been lots of similar queries, but there's not
really a lot of information on the LUL website.

They don't want scallies to know that the system will only charge them
the minimum if they can get away with dodging the barriers. Hopefully
the scallies aren't reading u.t.l...

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org