As I typed all this up for another group I thought I would relent and
provide it here. I know a proportion of readers are hostile to the
whole thing but I'm not taking any flak for that.

This is offered in good faith and has been read by someone more closely
involved than I who has said it's a decent explanation. It starts with
the basics in order that people can get their round the relationship
between the ticket products held on a card. It does NOT explain
concessionary, staff or privilege cards.

Right now that's out of the way I shall attempt to explain what is
quite complex.

Firstly every normal Oyster card (i.e. not staff or concessionary)
can hold both a season ticket (Travelcard or Bus Pass) plus Pre-Pay
in the from of cash in an electronic purse. It is very important to
understand this distinction as the rules differ.

For bus and tram travel the fare is deducted on entry to the
vehicle / system. Therefore there is no penalty associated with not
validating on exit. (There are some special issues at Wimbledon for
Tramlink but let's not dwell on those here).

If you have a Travelcard and you enter and exit within the zonal,
time and date validity of your ticket there is no charge against
your pre-pay purse. If you have a travelcard and you have not
validated on entry but arrive at any exit (or vice versa) you are
assumed to have travelled within the validity of your card. This is
where the announcements and publicity are not strictly correct -
however see below re extension tickets.

If you are a Travelcard holder and validate on entry and exit and
travel beyond the zones on your ticket then there will be a charge
against your pre-pay purse (even if it is zero it will go negative).
On exit the gate will calculate the pre-pay fare due for the
extension journey and will deduct that from your card. If you enter
the system outside the zonal validity of your travelcard then you
will have £1 deducted from your pre-pay (for stations in Z2-6D) or
£1.50 at Zone 1 stations. At final exit the system will deduct any
further balance due from pre-pay for the extension journey. There is
no double charge against the travelcard validity. Note also that if
there is sufficient travel outside the travelcard validity then a
daily cap based on the Z2-6 one day travelcard may be activated (see
below for capping).

Thus for Travelcard Holders there is no £4 or £5 charge on entry. If
a holder of a bus pass was to use Pre-Pay for LU travel they would
be treated as a normal Pre-Pay customer of which more below.

Under the old rules Pre-Pay holders had to have a minimum of £1 or
£1.50 on their card to cover initial entry to the system (as for
Travelcard holders making extension journeys and starting outside of
their zonal availability). Any further fare due was deducted on
exit. As most fares were higher than these minimum charges then
there was a loophole which incentivised some people to not validate
on exit. AIUI it was always the intention to levy a maximum fare on
entry for Pre-Pay users but this was not adopted at the launch of
Pre-Pay and we now end up here where it is now having to be adopted
because bad behaviours have been learnt.

Under the new regime £4 will be deducted on entry and then at exit
the balance due to charge the correct fare will be added back on (in
most cases) or further deducted (long journeys to Chesham etc at
peak times). If you do not validate on entry but do validate on exit
then the entry / exit charge of £4 is applied. A further element to
the rules applied at entry is that there is still a minimum
threshold of £1 (non Z1) / £1.50 (Z1) value required to allow entry.
Although £4 will be deducted the card will go into a negative
balance of £3 / £2.50 respectively until the exit transaction is
completed. Passengers cannot (re-)enter the system with a negative
pre-pay balance on their cards.

The £5 charge is applied at National Rail stations where pre-pay is
valid on services but where there is a clear risk that people may
override well beyond the pre-pay validity. In effect this is no
different to today.

If you exceed 2 hours between validating on entry and then
validating on exit the system will treat each validation as separate
journeys and will impose the £4 charge for each. I personally
think this is a little extreme as some trips could exceed this journey
time if there is only a slight delay on one leg (Amersham -
Upminster anyone?).

The final complication is the concept of capping with Pre-Pay. As
you travel using Pre-Pay the system keeps a running total and when
particular caps are reached then further charges are zero provided
you remain within the zonal, time and modal validity of the ticket
cap that has been applied. All caps are 50p less than the
equivalent "paper" ticket - one day bus pass or peak / off one day
travelcards. Caps are only daily - there is no concept (yet) of a
weekly or monthly cap.

If you make more than £3 worth of bus trips in a day at pre-pay
charge rates (e.g. 4 off peak journeys at 80p) then your daily
charge is capped.

If you make tube and bus journeys using pre-pay that involve AM peak
travel then the cap will be set at the equivalent peak one day
travelcard less 50p for the zones travelled through. If all travel
is off peak then the appropriate off peak cap is applied. In
addition the system will check to see if it is cheaper overall to
cap all off peak travel and separately charge the peak journeys
where the combined total would be less than the equivalent peak day
travelcard cap.

With capping incomplete journeys do not count towards the
calculation of the cap. Under the old regime the excess charges
(against what should have been paid) over and above the cap were
quite low. Under the new regime then each incomplete trip is valued
at £4 and do not count towards the cap. If a complete trip is made
after incomplete one then the value of the complete one does count
towards any running total for the daily cap.

Here is an example (from the training info)

Zone 12 off peak cap = £4.40

Trip Zones Time Pre Pay Charge Cumulative Charge Notes
1 Z2-1 0945 £2.00 £2.00
2 Z1-1 1500 £1.50 £3.50
3 Z1-? 1830 £4.00 £7.50
4 Z?-2 2100 £4.00 £11.50
5 Z2-1 2130 £0.90 £12.40 [1]

[1] £4.40 cap applied for trips 1,2 and 5 (£4.40 in total).
Passenger has paid £8 more than necessary due to not touching in and
out.

Where a passenger has an incomplete journey then they will no longer
be able to get it corrected at ticket offices. They will have to
ring the Oyster Helpdesk. If the failure to touch in and out is due
to equipment failure then a ticket office can complete the journey
to the correct fare but cannot re-activate the cap against that
journey. That has to be done via the Oyster Helpdesk.

--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!