Robin Mayes 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.

Hmm. It's taken me the best part of five minutes to make sense of this
post. After scrolling back a few messages, and back down again, I've
finally tumbled to the fact that some chuff-wit has top posted and left
the previous message completely intact.

Sorry Joyce and MizterT for confusing you with my previous post!

What it should have said was:

"Four stations are currently being trialed regarding the £4.00 charge for
failing to touch in / out"


I forgive you!

Now for the obvious question - do you have a list of those four
stations? Presumably if a person starts their journey (and touches in)
or ends their journey (and touches out) at one of these four trial
stations but has failed to touch-in/out at the other end then the £4
charge applies.

I saw the poster at Surrey Quays on the East London Line the other day.

Paul Corfield wrote:

On 18 Oct 2006 12:52:04 -0700, "Mizter T" wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:


Note also that there is going to be a big publicity campaign about this
so more detail will be in the public domain shortly.

As you see elsewhere in this thread some posters displayed at stations
claim that it's already started! I hope that the publicity campaign is
comprehensive and emphasises that one has to touch-in and out at the
start and end of every journey.

There is a trial underway at present at a small number of LU and DLR
stations where the new charging regime is under test. The trial started
on 8th October 2006.

The posters probably refer to this.

The stations are Aldgate, West Ham, New Cross, Westferry, Stepney Green,
Upney and Tower Gateway.


I don't recall the poster stating anything about this being a trial,
nor did it list any stations. I'll try and get a photo of said poster
tomorrow, which was at Surrey Quays station - not on your list above,
but presumably the poster was there as passengers using the station
will be affected if they don't touch-out when they leave the station.

I presume the mechanics of this are the same as those which are used at
London NR terminals on routes where PAYG is accepted - i.e. when you
pass through the gate - at Liverpool Street for example - £5 is
deducted, and is refunded minus the appropriate fare when you touch-out
at the other end - in this example at Walthamstow Central.

On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 19:09:20 +0100, Paul Corfield wrote:

I've had a look at the training material. It is very clear that where
there is a system problem (e.g. reader is not working, card problems or
there was an emergency evacuation or something else in LU's control)
that card resetting at the ticket office will be permitted. Where
someone is simply not validating because they can't be bothered / forgot
/ whatever (i.e. in their direct control) then that will NOT be dealt
with at the ticket office. Only a call to the Oyster helpline will
suffice.

OK, it's good to know that we won't be sent through the helpline
rigmarole through no fault of our own.

The rules relating to charges and card resetting are also changing.

If you think about why the change is being made then there is a logic to
this approach. The whole point is to get people to play by the rules and
to do what they are supposed to do. If you make it too easy to get round
the rules how will people ever learn to play by the rules? If people
keep getting charged £4 and have to go to extra effort to deal with the
helpdesk perhaps they will think twice before doing it again. Where the
problem is LU's fault then the customer is dealt with straight away -
that sounds like a decent deal to me.

I'm still undecided on whether it's a good idea for TfL to treat all
their customers as naughty children who must be punished. Perhaps it
would be better to allow, say, 2 fixes of user errors per card at
ticket offices before they have to start calling the helpline. I can't
help thinking "one bitten, twice shy" will apply, but not in the way
intended - people will just be put off using Oyster and hence public
transport.

If I can summon up the mental stamina I might try to knock together a
summary post of the key points from this change. It is quite involved
and there are differences for Oyster card holders with Travelcards on
their cards and those purely on adult rate PAYG. Would this be
appreciated?

dons flak jacket and hides in corner

Note also that there is going to be a big publicity campaign about this
so more detail will be in the public domain shortly.

I for one would very much appreciate a summary. Whilst it's good that
there will be a publicity campaign, the information may be somewhat
simplified, so having it from the source would be very helpful. I do
hope you don't take any criticism of the new policies personally...

Mizter T wrote:

Rupert Goodwins wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
Rupert Goodwins wrote:

So does this mean that all the old North London Line stations are
Oystered now? Last time I transferred from the Victoria Line to the NLL
(or whatever it's called now) and got off at Camden Road, I couldn't
find one.

R

No - the North London Line *doesn't* yet accept Oyster *Pay-as-you-go
(PAYG)* - except between Richmond and Gunnersbury, and Stratford and
Canning Town [1].

If you have a season Travelcard loaded on your Oyster card then you can
use it on the North London Line just use it as if it was a paper
Travelcard, as long as it has the right zonal validity. If you don't
have all the required zones to cover you for your journey then you need
to buy an excess fare (also called a ticket extension) from the ticket
office before you start your journey (if the ticket office isn't open
you're supposed to do this at the earliest opportunity). The Silverlink
ticket machines, in common with all other National Rail (NR) ticket
machines, unfortunately don't sell excess fares

OK. Thanks very much for that.

Let's see if I've got this straight. If I get on the Tube system
outside my travelcard zones (1 and 2),even though I've got PAYG credit
on the same Oyster, I have to remember to buy a paper ticket for the
extra zones if I'm going to get off at one of the NLL stations - even
though my extra-zonal activity is entirely on the Underground, for
which my Oyster PAYG is valid - otherwise when I next touch in the
system will spot that I have an unterminated journey from outside my
travelcard zones and assume it was four quid's worth?


No - afraid to say you've got it all wrong!

Let's use a real world example so we can be clear on this. You have a
zones 1&2 Travelcard loaded on your Oyster card. You get on the
Victoria Line at Tottenham Hale in zone using your Oyster card. Your
Oyster's PAYG facility will automatically cover the ticket extension
you need.

You get off at Highbury and Islington (zone 2) to transfer to the NLL -
and when you do you should touch your Oyster card on the Oyster reader
that is somewhere between the Victoria Line platform and the NLL
platform - you do _not_ need to go out the gates and back in again.

You get off the NLL at Camden Road (zone 2) and exit the station,
passing through the automatic gates if they are active. If the gates at
Camden Road are open, you don't need to touch-out on them as you have
not used Oyster PAYG for your NLL journey (as it ain't valid on the
NLL) - however no harm will be done if you do touch-out there.

Does that make things clear?

I've thought about this a bit more and my above explanation (with the
Tottenham Hale via Highbury & Islington to Camden Road example)
could've been a bit clearer.

The critical point is that if you're using PAYG for any portion of your
Tube journey you must touch in and out at the place where you move from
PAYG territory to non-PAYG territory.

In the case of the example I gave, this is at Highbury & Islington -
you move from the PAYG territory of the Tube to the non-PAYG territory
of the NLL. Thus at Highbury & Islington you need to touch-out from the
Tube network to tell the system you've finished your Tube journey. The
Oyster system doesn't care what you do on the NLL, as it's not PAYG
territory. Of course an NLL ticket inspector cares about this - but as
you have a zones 1&2 Travelcard which covers your High & I to Camden
Road journey he'd be happy too.

When PAYG is adopted on the NLL (in late 2007/early 2008) then you
won't need to touch-out at High & I, you'll just be able to continue
onto the NLL as your whole journey (both the Victoria line and the NLL)
will be within PAYG territory. When this happens, touching out at
Camden Road will suffice - **but please note this is _not_yet_ the
case, so don't try it tomorrow!**

For a map of where PAYG is and is not accepted click here (PDF file):
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tick...r-PAYG-Map.pdf

asdf wrote:
Surely that is what the £3 deposit is supposed to cover?

If there's a £5 credit minimum, that effectively increases the deposit
from £3 to £8. I can't see any possible justification for this. I bet
someone at TfL has calculated £5 x (number of PAYG cards issued) and
started rubbing their hands.

Hey there's a little cynic in all of us

It was always my understanding that the £3 deposit was to discourage
people from throwing away their Oysters when they ran out, because a
lot of people at least initially assumed it was a (disposable)
replacement for paper tickets, rather than "refillable" as it is.
Consider though that the Oyster card system has always said it will
charge the maximum possible fare for incomplete journeys, and up to now
it hasn't, this has been a long time coming.

As of Jan 07, the paper fare for any journey including zone 1 (yes this
means zone 1 only right up to zones 1-6 single) will be £4, and I
would imagine this is where the figure has been decided. There's a big
move currently on Oyster fraud, and unfortunately its impossible to
discriminate against those that deliberately defraud the system, and
those who innocently don't touch their card for whatever reason.

Same old thing we see everywhere - the minority spoiling it for the
majority.

Tim Woodall wrote:
What screen? All I've ever seen is a green and red light.

p.s. Does anyone know what happens if you try to badge two oyster cards
at once? I've thought about getting a second card so when one runs out
of cash I can then use the other one to get me to somewhere where I can
top up. What about if I wrap the "backup" card in aluminium foil?

As far as I am aware, some form of screen exists on all gates and
validators, whatever their design. Certainly on the old pneumatic
gates the information pops up on the glass panel toward the top of the
gate, where the green entry arrow is illuminated, and tells you either
your current balance or "ticket 1 near expiry" if you have a season
ticket. This is the same place where it tells you "seek assistance" if
its giving you grief. Other designs have this in a different place -
If I remember right, I believe the newer gates like those in Kings
Cross (coming off the Picc) have it on a small LCD display by the
Oyster reader.

In answer to your second question, two Oysters together will be
rejected by the gates. The same applies with some smart passes people
carry for work, or even some credit or other personal cards can
interfere with the Oyster, which essentially contains a small chip and
a thin wire wrapped round its inside as an aerial. As for foil... I
can't see it making a difference. Do what some people I know do - have
two wallets, clearly marked as "work" and "personal" or something like
that.

On 18 Oct 2006 07:56:27 -0700, Mizter T wrote:

Oh great, so the several times when the gates have cocked up (3 for me),
instead of paying an extra 50p, I'll pay £4.

I've never had the gates "cock up" when I've been using them, in fact
I've found them very reliable and robust. What problems have you had?

In the early months of pre-pay, I once touched out on the validator
while the gates were still open from the person in front passing
through. My card was accepted with a beep and the journey on it was
resolved, but the gates closed on me as I went through. I backtracked
and went to the side gate, where the staff member told me to touch my
card on the reader, which then counted it as an entry (which landed me
with a couple of unresolved journeys, but that's a moan for another
day). Perhaps the person who went through the gate before me had their
ticket rejected, and went through on "my" touch-out, but afterwards I
didn't think I'd been close enough behind them for this.

Since then, I've always waited for the gates to close before touching
my card on the reader, and I haven't had a problem since.

On 18 Oct 2006 15:21:33 -0700, Mizter T wrote:

I've thought about this a bit more and my above explanation (with the
Tottenham Hale via Highbury & Islington to Camden Road example)
could've been a bit clearer.

The critical point is that if you're using PAYG for any portion of your
Tube journey you must touch in and out at the place where you move from
PAYG territory to non-PAYG territory.

Are you sure about this? This is a long-standing question on this
group (at least for those who care about such things, of whom I'm
perhaps the only one), and is still mentally filed in my "unanswered"
category. IIRC it was originally raised by someone who wanted to
travel from Ilford to Liverpool Street (both have barriers with
validators) on a Z34 Travelcard on Oyster, and wanted to know if the
extension would be deducted correctly or if they'd have to leave the
train at Stratford and use a platform validator there, but no one
seemed to know the answer.

"Mizter T" wrote in message
oups.com...
Robin Mayes wrote:


"Four stations are currently being trialed regarding the £4.00 charge for
failing to touch in / out"


Now for the obvious question - do you have a list of those four
stations?

I saw the poster at Surrey Quays on the East London Line the other day.

Aldgate is another of the four, don't have the list handy I'm afraid.

"Mizter T" wrote in message
oups.com...

Now for the obvious question - do you have a list of those four
stations? Presumably if a person starts their journey (and touches in)
or ends their journey (and touches out) at one of these four trial
stations but has failed to touch-in/out at the other end then the £4
charge applies.

I saw the poster at Surrey Quays on the East London Line the other day.

According to Paul C in another part of this thread:

Aldgate, West Ham, New Cross, Stepney Green, Upney are the LUL trial
stations.

Westferry and Tower Gateway are the DLR trial stations.