On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 17:40:28 +0100, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:

wrote:

A bit of advance warning for those who haven't heard - from November,
if you use pre-pay Oyster, and you fail to touch in or out at any point
of your travels where you're supposed to do so, you will find yourself
being charged £4.00 for the incomplete journey.

All the signs up say this came in on October 10th.

consults briefing material

The date of introduction is Sunday 19th November 2006.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Paul Corfield wrote:

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 17:40:28 +0100, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:

wrote:

A bit of advance warning for those who haven't heard - from November,
if you use pre-pay Oyster, and you fail to touch in or out at any point
of your travels where you're supposed to do so, you will find yourself
being charged £4.00 for the incomplete journey.

All the signs up say this came in on October 10th.

consults briefing material

The date of introduction is Sunday 19th November 2006.


Is it going to be a _requirement_ for holders of Travelcard seasons
loaded on Oyster who are only travelling within their zones (i.e. the
zonal validity of their Travelcard)? Logic would suggest they don't
need to, but ticket office staff have in the past advised me to always
touch-in and out whether using PAYG or a Travelcard , so I wonder if it
will be made a rule just for the sake of clarity (though for the
inconvenience of knowledgeable passengers).

Sorry if I haven't been paying attention at the back if this has been
discussed before!

For stations are currently being "trialed"

"Mizter T" wrote in message
ups.com...
Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:

wrote:

A bit of advance warning for those who haven't heard - from November,
if you use pre-pay Oyster, and you fail to touch in or out at any point
of your travels where you're supposed to do so, you will find yourself
being charged £4.00 for the incomplete journey.

All the signs up say this came in on October 10th.

I also saw one of these posters today - I took particular note of it
given the previous discussions here on utl had suggested this change
wasn't coming until November. I'll try and take a snap of one of the
posters tomorrow and post a link here.

On 17 Oct 2006 13:32:00 -0700, "Mizter T" wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 17:40:28 +0100, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:

wrote:

A bit of advance warning for those who haven't heard - from November,
if you use pre-pay Oyster, and you fail to touch in or out at any point
of your travels where you're supposed to do so, you will find yourself
being charged £4.00 for the incomplete journey.

All the signs up say this came in on October 10th.

consults briefing material

The date of introduction is Sunday 19th November 2006.


Is it going to be a _requirement_ for holders of Travelcard seasons
loaded on Oyster who are only travelling within their zones (i.e. the
zonal validity of their Travelcard)? Logic would suggest they don't
need to, but ticket office staff have in the past advised me to always
touch-in and out whether using PAYG or a Travelcard , so I wonder if it
will be made a rule just for the sake of clarity (though for the
inconvenience of knowledgeable passengers).

There is nothing I have read that says that travelcard holders
travelling within their zonal validity must touch in and out. The
obvious reason for this is that there is no requirement on such journeys
to activate a claim against the pre-pay purse on the card.

However I think you are correct in saying that the message is being kept
as simple as possible - all Oyster card holders touch in and out on
every trip. If everyone does this then there should be no issues with
respect to Pre-Pay or Capping or auto extension using a combination of
zonal validity on the Oyster card and the pre-pay value.

If people tried to construct a poster message, a sign or a PA script
that dealt with all the ins and outs I imagine we would have passengers
throwing themselves lemming like off platforms as they struggled to
unravel the complexity of what works and what does not.

I imagine this change is going to be controversial. Given recent issues
about collection of tickets via gates when people don't wish to actually
travel on the tube I think that issue is going to become even more
heated. In principle the idea is great and seamless *if* you travel on
the tube. Where people have different travel patterns then a different,
more flexible solution is required.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

In article om,
(Mizter T) wrote:

wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
I also saw one of these posters today - I took particular note
of it given the previous discussions here on utl had suggested this
change wasn't coming until November. I'll try and take a snap of
one of the posters tomorrow and post a link here.

Ah well, whatever the date people, start using your Oysters right


My sympathies go out to LU ticket office staff who'll be on the
receiving end of many angry words from irate passengers.

The poster does say something like "98% of Londerners use their
Oyster properly. Are you part of the 2% that don't?" - which is a good
way of putting the point across.

This de-facto 'penalty' for incomplete journeys does plug a hole in
the Oyster system. But there will inevitably be much frustration and
frothing to come.

Those of us outside London who have no option but to use a confusing
combination of Oyster and paper tickets will be even more angry if we
make a mistake and find it can't be sorted out without a laborious trawl
through the call centre to sort out a £4 charge. If one opens a gate
with the wrong ticket, as happened to me once, there is no way of
correcting it there and then.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article . com,
(Mizter T) wrote:

Nor (again AFAIA) will it cause any problems if you touch-in a
second time, say if you weren't sure if you're first attempt was
successful.

The problem is when you touch in when you should have been using a paper
ticket for the particular journey. There appears to be no way to undo
that mistake at the time. It's easily done if you have to use a
combination of tickets.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 21:44:24 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:

On 17 Oct 2006 13:32:00 -0700, "Mizter T" wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 17:40:28 +0100, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:

wrote:

A bit of advance warning for those who haven't heard - from November,
if you use pre-pay Oyster, and you fail to touch in or out at any point

There is nothing I have read that says that travelcard holders
travelling within their zonal validity must touch in and out. The
obvious reason for this is that there is no requirement on such journeys
to activate a claim against the pre-pay purse on the card.

Until all National Rail stations within the TfL area have gates or
validators, it will always be necessary to allow incomplete journeys
within the validity of a travelcard.

However I think you are correct in saying that the message is being kept
as simple as possible - all Oyster card holders touch in and out on
every trip. If everyone does this then there should be no issues with
respect to Pre-Pay or Capping or auto extension using a combination of
zonal validity on the Oyster card and the pre-pay value.

If people tried to construct a poster message, a sign or a PA script
that dealt with all the ins and outs I imagine we would have passengers
throwing themselves lemming like off platforms as they struggled to
unravel the complexity of what works and what does not.

The simplest would be:

"If you are using PAYG for any part of your journey, you must touch in
and touch out.

If you are using PAYG for any part of your journey and a paper ticket
from National Rail, you must touch any validators at the interchange
point."
I imagine this change is going to be controversial. Given recent issues
about collection of tickets via gates when people don't wish to actually
travel on the tube I think that issue is going to become even more
heated. In principle the idea is great and seamless *if* you travel on
the tube. Where people have different travel patterns then a different,
more flexible solution is required.

Paul Corfield wrote:

On 17 Oct 2006 13:32:00 -0700, "Mizter T" wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 17:40:28 +0100, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:

wrote:

A bit of advance warning for those who haven't heard - from November,
if you use pre-pay Oyster, and you fail to touch in or out at any point
of your travels where you're supposed to do so, you will find yourself
being charged £4.00 for the incomplete journey.

All the signs up say this came in on October 10th.

consults briefing material

The date of introduction is Sunday 19th November 2006.


Is it going to be a _requirement_ for holders of Travelcard seasons
loaded on Oyster who are only travelling within their zones (i.e. the
zonal validity of their Travelcard)? Logic would suggest they don't
need to, but ticket office staff have in the past advised me to always
touch-in and out whether using PAYG or a Travelcard , so I wonder if it
will be made a rule just for the sake of clarity (though for the
inconvenience of knowledgeable passengers).

There is nothing I have read that says that travelcard holders
travelling within their zonal validity must touch in and out. The
obvious reason for this is that there is no requirement on such journeys
to activate a claim against the pre-pay purse on the card.

However I think you are correct in saying that the message is being kept
as simple as possible - all Oyster card holders touch in and out on
every trip. If everyone does this then there should be no issues with
respect to Pre-Pay or Capping or auto extension using a combination of
zonal validity on the Oyster card and the pre-pay value.

If people tried to construct a poster message, a sign or a PA script
that dealt with all the ins and outs I imagine we would have passengers
throwing themselves lemming like off platforms as they struggled to
unravel the complexity of what works and what does not.


Thanks for the prompt reply Paul and for clearing that up - it's what I
had guessed, but not what the Oyster _always_ touch-in/touch-out
publicity states. However, as you rightly say, the message should be
kept as simple as possible. Explaining that Travelcard holders don't
need to touch-in unless they're going out of their zonal validity when
in fact they should touch-in is not a simple message to convey - always
touch in/out however is crystal clear.

Nonetheless there is one new poster I've seen that must confuse the
hell out of people - I took a note of what it said on my mobile to
share with fellow utl-ers:

~~~~~
To pay the correct fare, touch your Oyster card flat on the yellow
reader. You must do this at the start and end of your Tube, DLR and
some NR journeys. And at the start of your bus or tram journey.
Failure to do so may result in a penalty fare or prosecution.

[Small print at bottom of poster] NR only allow Oyster customers to use
PAYG on some journeys. Ask your train operator for details.
~~~~~

It's the "must" touch-in/out at the start/end of "some NR journeys" bit
that caught my eye - obviously the NR journeys in question are on
routes where PAYG is accepted (and no harm will arise for those who
have Travelcards on Oyster if they touch-in on any reader - even if
they don't have to - as long as they're "in zone"), but I'm sure it's
clear as mud to most people.
Being told you "must" do something "sometimes" without specifying the
conditions of that "sometimes" is less than ideal.

This relates to a thread of about a week ago where I argued the case
_against_ a TOC-by-TOC acceptance of Oyster PAYG because IMO most
people would find it very confusing - I think there's a strong argument
_for_ the whole NR network in London to go live at the same time
(obviously apart from the bits that already accept PAYG, which is
mostly in order to honour interavailability) as it would provide
clarity.


I imagine this change is going to be controversial. Given recent issues
about collection of tickets via gates when people don't wish to actually
travel on the tube I think that issue is going to become even more
heated. In principle the idea is great and seamless *if* you travel on
the tube. Where people have different travel patterns then a different,
more flexible solution is required.


If I was front-line LU staff member I wouldn't be looking forward to
the next few months. I can already see the frustrated faces of
passengers who think that TfL has stolen money from their Oyster, and
the frustrated faces of LU staff trying to explain why this has
happened to them.

And I suspect this ng will be piled high with complaints too :-(

Colin Rosenstiel wrote:

In article . com,
(Mizter T) wrote:

Nor (again AFAIA) will it cause any problems if you touch-in a
second time, say if you weren't sure if you're first attempt was
successful.

The problem is when you touch in when you should have been using a paper
ticket for the particular journey. There appears to be no way to undo
that mistake at the time. It's easily done if you have to use a
combination of tickets.


I'm not quite sure what you've done but I've certainly touched-in with
an Oyster when I should've used the paper Day Travelcard I'd bought for
that days travels. Probably did that a couple of times but I've learnt
my lesson now - I put my Oyster out of harms way deep in my wallet,
which counter-acts my absent mindedness when I come across an automatic
barrier that wants a ticket - the only ticket to hand is the right
ticket!.

By the by, I didn't 'undo' those mistakes, they just continued to be
displayed as unresolved journeys for x number of months afterwards. Of
course such a mistake will cost one a lot more now - which is exactly
your point. My point, I guess, is just don't make those kind of
mistakes.

wrote:

Tell me about it, the thing is that inevitably someone with an
incomplete journey cannot understand what they did wrong. The basic
thing people need to learn is there's more to successfully touching in
or out than waving your Oyster in the air in the approximate vicinity
of the reader. It must beep at you once, and will show you on the
screen that it has been successful.

There's a screen? Where?

I can see a reader. I can hear some beeps. But the only way I can tell
if my journey has been costed correctly is by finding one of the few
Underground ticket machines (without a queue in front of them) that will
tell me what journeys I've made.
--
Joyce Whitchurch, Stalybridge, UK
=================================
Seriously wondering if the hassle
of Oyster is worth the threepence
three-farthing saved on the cost
of a day Travelcard