On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 23:22:44 +0100, Martin Krieger
wrote:

Say I do some bus rides in the morning and lot of tube journeys at off
peak time. Is Oyster intelligent enough to handle this?

I'm not sure that I am following your logic as there is not a separate
peak cap for one day bus travel. Regardless of when you travel you will
cap bus travel at £3 - you simply get to the cap a bit faster by using
buses at peak times at £1 per journey.

The increments on from £3 to the respective off peak (ODTC less 50p)
caps are as follows for off peak tube travel (i.e. after 09.30)

£1.40 Z12
£1.90 Z14
£2.80 Z16

As far as I know an off-peak paper day travelcard is not valid before
9:30. Not on the tube and not on the bus. So if one wishes to travel by
bus in the morning this has to be payed separately. Right?

No, because there is a separate bus only ticket that applies for a whole
day (cash fare £3.50) and this is the first cap (£3) that would be
triggered in your example of peak time bus travel. From all of the staff
training material I have read on capping the following applies.

If you use buses at any time the cap would be set to £3. There is no
difference in the price for a one day ticket on the buses for peak and
off peak times (and therefore the cap value of 50p less than the one day
bus pass). The fact that the bus fare deducted from your PAYG value
varies between peak and off peak (bus times) is irrelevant. If all of
your bus travel is in the peak the cap is £3. If all of it was off peak
it'd still be £3.

The *time* of your tube / DLR travel and *the zones* in which you travel
are the next variables that move the value of any further cap value.

If *all* of your tube travel is after 09.30 (disregard the fact that
higher Oyster fares apply 07.00 - 19.00) then the next series of cap
values would be

£4.40 Z12
£4.90 Z14
£5.80 Z16

If you had tube travel prior to 09.30 then the cap values would
typically move to the peak one day travelcard values less 50p as below.

£5.70 Z12
£7.90 Z14
£11.90 Z16

However the system is clever enough to look at what the off peak cap
would be plus any tube / dlr travel prior to 09.30. If the total of
these two amounts is less than the equivalent peak cap for the zones
travelled through you will be charged the lower value.

So my logic was that it is the same with Oyster. If the Oyster off-peak
cap allows peak bus rides -as you say- this would be a reason more to
use it.

Which is what it does do. See my explanation above.

--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!