I've got an Oyster monthly pass, so no problem there.
My gf has an Oyster pre-pay, since she doesn't live in London.

On Saturday, we were going from Central London back to Walthamstow and
since the Victoria Line has the (almost permanent!) hiatus in the middle
at the moment, I suggested getting the One from Liverpool Street to
Walthamstow.

When we got to St James's Street, I suddenly hit upon the bright idea of
getting off there, so I could walk to Sainsbury's on the way home.

As soon as we got on the platform and off the train, I remembered that
although PrePay is valid Walthamstow to Liverpool Street, it's NOT
actually valid to or from any intermediate stations so her Prepay would
almost certainly have some problem.

In the end, she walked all the way up to Walthamstow herself and touched
out to resolve the journey.

What would have been taken off her prepay if she hadn't taken the 15
minute walk to Walthamstow to do this?

There are no readers at St James's Street and the lack of any ticket
machines that offer Oyster meant that there was no way of checking
(since the ticket office is ALWAYS either closed or has a huge queue).

Dave Newt wrote:

I've got an Oyster monthly pass, so no problem there.
My gf has an Oyster pre-pay, since she doesn't live in London.

On Saturday, we were going from Central London back to Walthamstow and
since the Victoria Line has the (almost permanent!) hiatus in the middle
at the moment, I suggested getting the One from Liverpool Street to
Walthamstow.

When we got to St James's Street, I suddenly hit upon the bright idea of
getting off there, so I could walk to Sainsbury's on the way home.

As soon as we got on the platform and off the train, I remembered that
although PrePay is valid Walthamstow to Liverpool Street, it's NOT
actually valid to or from any intermediate stations so her Prepay would
almost certainly have some problem.

In the end, she walked all the way up to Walthamstow herself and touched
out to resolve the journey.

What would have been taken off her prepay if she hadn't taken the 15
minute walk to Walthamstow to do this?

There are no readers at St James's Street and the lack of any ticket
machines that offer Oyster meant that there was no way of checking
(since the ticket office is ALWAYS either closed or has a huge queue).

As she'd travelled from a terminal (i.e. Liverpool St) she'd be charged
£5 if she hadn't touched out and 'completed' her journey, so the walk
was worth it!

See the bottom of page 23 of the TfL fares guide [1] for this
explaination...

-----
Using your pay as you go on some of these services:

When you touch your Oyster card on the reader at the start of your
journey, a charge of £5.00 - the average National Rail fare paid for
a journey in Greater London from that station - will be deducted from
your balance. When you touch your Oyster card on the reader at the end
of your journey, the charge will be adjusted so that you only pay the
advertised fare for your journey.
-----

The text says "some of these services" - so far this policy only
appears to have been implemented on journey to/from mainline terminals
- there are posters at these terminals to this effect. This policy
presumably also applies when someone hasn't touched-in and only touches
out.

The reason for the policy is pretty obvious - it is intended to prevent
abuse of the Oyster system and stop fare-evaders from using Oyster
Pre-Pay to 'just get pass the gates'. Normally when someone doesn't
touch-in or out on the Tube network they only get charged the lowest
fare from that station, though of course TfL may change this in the
future to stop abuse similar to the scenario described above.

I don't dissaprove of this policy whatsoever, but I do wonder if
there's a solid legal basis for it happening. I suspect that the laws
regarding transport ticketing contain a good few holes with regards to
smartcard tickets (such as Oyster), as obviously they weren't written
with them in mind. It would take an accused person to challenge a
prosecution in court to further explore and possibly resolve any such
legal issues of course, and I don't think there's been anything of the
sort since Oyster has been introduced.


[1] TfL Fares guide - direct link to page 23 (PDF document)
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tick...06.pdf#page=12

Mizter T wrote:
Dave Newt wrote:

I've got an Oyster monthly pass, so no problem there.
My gf has an Oyster pre-pay, since she doesn't live in London.

On Saturday, we were going from Central London back to Walthamstow and
since the Victoria Line has the (almost permanent!) hiatus in the middle
at the moment, I suggested getting the One from Liverpool Street to
Walthamstow.

When we got to St James's Street, I suddenly hit upon the bright idea of
getting off there, so I could walk to Sainsbury's on the way home.

As soon as we got on the platform and off the train, I remembered that
although PrePay is valid Walthamstow to Liverpool Street, it's NOT
actually valid to or from any intermediate stations so her Prepay would
almost certainly have some problem.

In the end, she walked all the way up to Walthamstow herself and touched
out to resolve the journey.

What would have been taken off her prepay if she hadn't taken the 15
minute walk to Walthamstow to do this?

There are no readers at St James's Street and the lack of any ticket
machines that offer Oyster meant that there was no way of checking
(since the ticket office is ALWAYS either closed or has a huge queue).

As she'd travelled from a terminal (i.e. Liverpool St) she'd be charged
£5 if she hadn't touched out and 'completed' her journey, so the walk
was worth it!

Thanks - that is what I guessed from memory. Bloody stupid restriction
though - having it valid on a short line, but just random bits thereof.

Dave Newt wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

As she'd travelled from a terminal (i.e. Liverpool St) she'd be charged
£5 if she hadn't touched out and 'completed' her journey, so the walk
was worth it!

Thanks - that is what I guessed from memory. Bloody stupid restriction
though - having it valid on a short line, but just random bits thereof.


V annoying, yes. Thankfully pre-pay will be valid on National Rail (NR)
all over London - but not until 2008 at the earliest [1].

It's all down to transport politicking - if TfL had waited for NR to
agree to participate in Oyster Pre-Pay, it would never have been
launched. By going ahead with Pre-Pay and making a success of it on the
Tube, TfL has forced the hand of the wary DfT into agreeing to it's
introduction.

I remember reading something on here where Paul Corfield - who famously
admits to working for LU and was involved in Oysters early days [2] -
saying that London Transport couldn't get the NR TOCs to take this
future smartcard ticket system seriously in the 90's. Though I doubt
there would've been a utopia of co-operation if LT had to have dealt
with a pre-privatisation Network Southeast given the traditional BR/LT
animosity! Perhaps I'm being too harsh.


[1]
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/press-cent...t.asp?prID=776

[2] To be honest I'm not sure of what Paul does (and in the past did)
for LU, but he was involved in the Prestige project at some point. AIUI
Prestige is the name of the whole ticketing system run by TranSys for
TfL which includes Oyster smartcards.

On 31 Jul 2006 17:33:40 -0700, "Mizter T" wrote:

I remember reading something on here where Paul Corfield - who famously
admits to working for LU

Not sure that's worthy of fame!

and was involved in Oysters early days [2] -
saying that London Transport couldn't get the NR TOCs to take this
future smartcard ticket system seriously in the 90's. Though I doubt
there would've been a utopia of co-operation if LT had to have dealt
with a pre-privatisation Network Southeast given the traditional BR/LT
animosity! Perhaps I'm being too harsh.

I was the LU Business Client for what became the Prestige Project. Both
the LU specification and NR specification were my responsibility.
Network wide gating and the outline spec for the central system were
also my areas.

[1]
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/press-cent...t.asp?prID=776

[2] To be honest I'm not sure of what Paul does (and in the past did)
for LU, but he was involved in the Prestige project at some point. AIUI
Prestige is the name of the whole ticketing system run by TranSys for
TfL which includes Oyster smartcards.

I was involving in LU ticketing for about 12 years - about 5 of those on
Prestige and its earlier incarnations. Prestige is the project name and
also the contract name for the deal with Transys. Oyster is the brand
name for the card.

I have quite deliberately not said what I do for LU today. I'd probably
get death threats if it was publicised :-)
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Paul Corfield wrote:
On 31 Jul 2006 17:33:40 -0700, "Mizter T" wrote:

I remember reading something on here where Paul Corfield - who famously
admits to working for LU

Not sure that's worthy of fame!

and was involved in Oysters early days [2] -
saying that London Transport couldn't get the NR TOCs to take this
future smartcard ticket system seriously in the 90's. Though I doubt
there would've been a utopia of co-operation if LT had to have dealt
with a pre-privatisation Network Southeast given the traditional BR/LT
animosity! Perhaps I'm being too harsh.

I was the LU Business Client for what became the Prestige Project. Both
the LU specification and NR specification were my responsibility.
Network wide gating and the outline spec for the central system were
also my areas.

[1]
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/press-cent...t.asp?prID=776

[2] To be honest I'm not sure of what Paul does (and in the past did)
for LU, but he was involved in the Prestige project at some point. AIUI
Prestige is the name of the whole ticketing system run by TranSys for
TfL which includes Oyster smartcards.

I was involving in LU ticketing for about 12 years - about 5 of those on
Prestige and its earlier incarnations. Prestige is the project name and
also the contract name for the deal with Transys. Oyster is the brand
name for the card.

I have quite deliberately not said what I do for LU today. I'd probably
get death threats if it was publicised :-)

This has the makings of a fun game... my three guesses would be:
- Closures manager; deciding what bits of the network to lop off next
(Mill Hill East, here we come)
- Northern line catastrophe planner
- Earl's Court signalling computer (we all know that the actual computer
itself died about 20 years ago and now LU employ someone to flick
switches to light up the destination arrows manually...)

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

Well it probably would not have been legal (although it should be legal,
and it will be legal soon) but what you could have done, would be for you
both to exit at St James Street (there's no barrier is there?) and then
after you do your Sainsburys shopping together, walk to your house and you
go in Walthamstow with your season ticket, and exit with her oyster (oyster
pre-pay are transferable after all). Journey resolved. OK it took 20
minutes longer than it should have done, but I bet the machines wouldn't
think that's particularly odd.

Probably unethical, but you're only doing what LUL would like you to be
able to do but don't have the technological ability to do it yet.

(queue the sound of angry UTL people saying I should be strung up and shot
for suggesting fraud).

Disclaimer: it's not what I would do - I have a season ticket. But it makes
logical sense, doesn't it?

On Tue, 01 Aug 2006 19:56:55 +0100, Dave Arquati wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:
On 31 Jul 2006 17:33:40 -0700, "Mizter T" wrote:

I have quite deliberately not said what I do for LU today. I'd probably
get death threats if it was publicised :-)

This has the makings of a fun game... my three guesses would be:
- Closures manager; deciding what bits of the network to lop off next
(Mill Hill East, here we come)

Nope.

- Northern line catastrophe planner

I really don't think the Northern Line needs my help on that topic.

- Earl's Court signalling computer (we all know that the actual computer
itself died about 20 years ago and now LU employ someone to flick
switches to light up the destination arrows manually...)

No, not that either.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

In message , Dave Arquati
writes

This has the makings of a fun game... my three guesses would be:
- Closures manager; deciding what bits of the network to lop off next
(Mill Hill East, here we come)
- Northern line catastrophe planner
- Earl's Court signalling computer (we all know that the actual
computer itself died about 20 years ago and now LU employ someone to
flick switches to light up the destination arrows manually...)

^^^^^^^^
I think you misspelt 'randomly'
--
Steve Fitzgerald has now left the building.
You will find him in London's Docklands, E16, UK
(please use the reply to address for email)

Paul Corfield wrote:
On Tue, 01 Aug 2006 19:56:55 +0100, Dave Arquati wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:
On 31 Jul 2006 17:33:40 -0700, "Mizter T" wrote:

I have quite deliberately not said what I do for LU today. I'd probably
get death threats if it was publicised :-)
This has the makings of a fun game... my three guesses would be:
- Closures manager; deciding what bits of the network to lop off next
(Mill Hill East, here we come)

Nope.

- Northern line catastrophe planner

I really don't think the Northern Line needs my help on that topic.

- Earl's Court signalling computer (we all know that the actual computer
itself died about 20 years ago and now LU employ someone to flick
switches to light up the destination arrows manually...)

No, not that either.

I'd guess something that begins with an "R" and has "evenue" in there
somewhere :-)