"Barry Salter" wrote in message
...
Is it to identify the area the ticket was brought in for gate staff?

Yup...If you bought, for example, a Zone 2 to 6 Travelcard at
Cockfosters at the Northern end of the Piccadilly, and got to Bow Road,
in the Eastern sector, for example, in less than an hour (Piccadilly
Line to Kings Cross St Pancras, then Hammersmith & City Line) it would
raise suspicion that you had travelled via Zone 1...If, however, you
took over 2 hours, and could give a logical route (e.g. Piccadilly Line
to Finsbury Park, Victoria Line to Highbury & Islington, Silverlink to
Stratford, Docklands Light Railway to Bow Church), you'd be let through.

I read that and, whilst I understand that in terms of principle the
staff/company ought to be well within their rights, I'd be shocked if they
actually refused passage on such a basis.

Is there a chart of "minimum possible permissible journey times"? (Surely
not.)

K

In message , Kieran Turner
writes
I read that and, whilst I understand that in terms of principle the
staff/company ought to be well within their rights, I'd be shocked if
they actually refused passage on such a basis.

If you have a valid ticket. Or a ticket which seems to be valid then you
should be allowed to pass through the gate. No matter how long it took
to travel from your destination.
Rather amusing at Harrow this evening. Peak time. Everyone trying to get
home or somewhere. Both main ticket machines out of order. Only one
person selling tickets (as well as selling tickets to people on the
other side of gates without tickets). Of course there were the legally
required (according to L.U. safety handbook) three L.U. Idle staff by
the ticket gate. And a massive queue for the one open ticket office.
Then some bright spark had the idea to open the manual gate and let
everyone travel for nothing and buy a ticket at their destination. Saved
me £3.40 as there is never anyone to check tickets at the station I was
going to. So cheers London Underground for your incompetence, saved me a
few quid.
--
CJG

CJG writes
Saved me £3.40 as there is never anyone to check tickets at the station
I was going to. So cheers London Underground for your incompetence,
saved me a few quid.

If you were honest, you could have purchased your ticket from the
machine at your destination - but you decide not to do so and publicly
admit your guilt as well. How odd.

--
Dave

Dave wrote:
If you were honest, you could have purchased your ticket from the
machine at your destination - but you decide not to do so and publicly
admit your guilt as well. How odd.

Get real. How many people would do that? Just you I think.

Perhaps London Underground have done their sums and *overall*, their
"apparent incompetence" plan of allowing ticket purchase 80% of the time and
not worrying about the 20% that get away gets them more money than paying
people to allow/enfore ticket purchase 100% of the time, so be it. It's
simple economics.

Cal Nihoni writes
If you were honest, you could have purchased your ticket from the
machine at your destination - but you decide not to do so and publicly
admit your guilt as well. How odd.

Get real. How many people would do that?

So you're dishonest. What else would you steal?

--
Dave

In article , Cal Nihoni
writes
If you were honest, you could have purchased your ticket from the
machine at your destination - but you decide not to do so and publicly
admit your guilt as well. How odd.

Get real. How many people would do that? Just you I think.

The fact that others are thieves doesn't mean he should become one.

[And, yes, I have paid in similar circumstances.]

Perhaps London Underground have done their sums and *overall*, their
"apparent incompetence" plan of allowing ticket purchase 80% of the time and
not worrying about the 20% that get away gets them more money than paying
people to allow/enfore ticket purchase 100% of the time, so be it. It's
simple economics.

I was once told that Marks & Spencers, many years ago, changed from
doing detailed daily stocktakes to having a much looser system because
the savings in staff pay (and the staff benefit of reduced need for
unsocial hours) outweighed the losses from additional theft.

It may be both economic and realistic to live with a certain level of
theft rather than try to stop it happening, but the thieves are still
thieving scum.

--
Clive D.W. Feather, writing for himself | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8371 1138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Written on my laptop; please observe the Reply-To address

Clive D. W. Feather wrote:
In article , Cal Nihoni
writes
If you were honest, you could have purchased your ticket from the
machine at your destination - but you decide not to do so and
publicly admit your guilt as well. How odd.

Get real. How many people would do that? Just you I think.

The fact that others are thieves doesn't mean he should become one.

[And, yes, I have paid in similar circumstances.]

You mean you have voluntarily donated[1] the price of your journey to LU by
buying a ticket for another journey of the same price? How very generous of
you. However, I think many people would regard not paying in these
circumstances not as theft but as LU allowing them to travel free by not
providing the opportunity for payment *for that journey*[1].

([1] The point here is that in the absence of staff at the destination, the
only way to pay is to purchase a ticket from the machine for the reverse
journey, which would not have been valid for the actual journey undertaken,
and is therefore technically a donation.)

To take another example, if you inadvertently overrun by 5 minutes the
paid-for time at a parking meter, do you regard that as the theft of the
extra 20p or whatever? If so, how do you proceed? Or like most people, do
you just drive away relieved that you've got away with it? I'm just trying
to explore how absolute your view of theft is.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Richard J. wrote:
([1] The point here is that in the absence of staff at the
destination, the only way to pay is to purchase a ticket from the
machine for the reverse journey, which would not have been valid for
the actual journey undertaken, and is therefore technically a
donation.)

And indeed that reverse-journey purchase simply serves to skew London
Transport's statistics, since they will think an artificially high number of
people are making the B to A journey when they're not; presumably they will
then concentrate on providing extra staff at B since this is - to them -
where all the tickets seem to be being bought, and ultimately removing even
more staff hours from station A, which was the short staffed one in the
first place.

OK I accept that the above is tenuous and taking things to extreme, but just
demonstrating that the "everyone who doesn't pay even when LU can't be
bothered to let them pay" brigade are technically making the issue worse.

To take another example, if you inadvertently overrun by 5 minutes the
paid-for time at a parking meter, do you regard that as the theft of
the extra 20p or whatever? If so, how do you proceed? Or like most
people, do you just drive away relieved that you've got away with it?
I'm just trying to explore how absolute your view of theft is.

Precisely. Sometimes life gives you these breaks and it's only natural to
take them.

In article , Richard J.
writes
If you were honest, you could have purchased your ticket from the
machine at your destination - but you decide not to do so and
publicly admit your guilt as well. How odd.

Get real. How many people would do that? Just you I think.

The fact that others are thieves doesn't mean he should become one.

[And, yes, I have paid in similar circumstances.]

You mean you have voluntarily donated[1] the price of your journey to LU by
buying a ticket for another journey of the same price?

Actually, no.

Firstly, the actual circumstances were WAGN, not LUL. Secondly, I went
and bought a ticket for the journey I had just completed from the ticket
office.

How very generous of
you.

No, how very honest of me.

To take another example, if you inadvertently overrun by 5 minutes the
paid-for time at a parking meter, do you regard that as the theft of the
extra 20p or whatever? If so, how do you proceed?

I don't. It's an offence to put extra money in the meter. It's not an
offence to overstay a few minutes, but there is an excess charge *if
demanded*. So I'm legal.

Or like most people, do
you just drive away relieved that you've got away with it?

I'm relieved. But it's not the same situation.

I also sometimes overpay the meter compared with the time I'm expecting
to stay, so it balances.

--
Clive D.W. Feather, writing for himself | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8371 1138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Written on my laptop; please observe the Reply-To address

"CJG" wrote in message
...
Rather amusing at Harrow this evening. Peak time. Everyone trying to get
home or somewhere. Both main ticket machines out of order. Only one
person selling tickets (as well as selling tickets to people on the
other side of gates without tickets). Of course there were the legally
required (according to L.U. safety handbook) three L.U. Idle staff by
the ticket gate. And a massive queue for the one open ticket office.
Then some bright spark had the idea to open the manual gate and let
everyone travel for nothing and buy a ticket at their destination. Saved
me £3.40 as there is never anyone to check tickets at the station I was
going to. So cheers London Underground for your incompetence, saved me a
few quid.

Hopefully this is something the new management will change. It is
ridiculous that some staff are not trained to work in the ticket office, or
refill the change in the ticket machines.

At my local station the guy manning the ticket barriers sits in his
'assistance' box with his back to the barriers, completely oblivious to
people with luggage or prams trying to get through the side gate. I once
asked him why the ticket office was shut in the middle of the day. He
replied that the ticket seller 'was busy'. I asked him how he could be busy
with the ticket office shut and the guy shouted at me 'look, i'm doing the
best I can here, we're short staffed' ... at which point he went back to
his box to read his Metro ...