On 16 Dec, 15:42, Martin Krieger wrote:
Will it really work that way? As far as I have understood the oyster
system, the fare is calculated between the touch-in and the touch-out
point, and touches in between will be ignored. So in that particular
case, as the touch-in is before 10:00, the higher price will be charged..
The only chance to take advantage of this is to break the journey into
two separate journeys - which is not that easy as Euston is an open
interchange.

I'm a bit confused by where you've got 10:00 from, and what you mean
by Euston being an "open interchange". Nevertheless I'll attempt to
pad out the scenario that Paul was outlining...

Sorry, the 10:00 was a typo, should have been 19:00. And by "open
interchange" I meant an out of station (need to go through barriers)
interchange.



Touch-in at South Kenton at 18:15 for the 18:21 London Overground
train to Euston. Arrive at Euston at 18:50. This part of the journey
will be charged at the 'discount' Oyster fare of £2, not the
'standard' fare of £2.50, because of the special arrangement on the
Watford - Euston line that means the cheaper fare is in force in this
direction (towards Euston) from 0930 onwards on weekdays.

Thus far, the Oyster system considers one to be on a 'discount' fare.
If the passenger then enters the LU network at Euston (or Euston
Square, as it is a valid out-of-station interchange with Euston UIVMM)
for an onward journey to somewhere else - for argument's sake let's
say it is somewhere within zones 1 to 4 - before 1900 then the Oyster
system will revert to charging them a full fare of £2.50 for the
through journey when they exit the system and finish their journey.

If however they wait around in Euston for a few minutes (perhaps
counting how many pigeons are actually inside the building) then enter
the LU network after 1900 the Oyster system will still regard them as
travelling on a 'discount' fare and will only charge them £2 when they
exit the system and finish the journey.

Yes, that's what Paul said. But this would mean that the time of the
interchange would be taken into account when calculating the fare. As
this is against the usual way of calculating PAYG fares I have some
doubts that it really works that way. Maybe Paul could be so kind and
recheck this?

With regards to "the time of the interchange", in a sense one could
say the Oyster system would consider thus hypothetical passenger from
South Kenton to have already been travelling after 1900 (even though
they weren't) - as they were travelling on the 'discount' rate - so as
long as they enter the LU network at Euston/Euston Square after 1900
the system will simply regard it as a continuation of a 'discount'
rate journey.


Anyway, next year we will see how it really works.

Indeed. TfL will certainly take some money off me (indeed they already
have) for totally unnecessary journeys that I make as a result of
testing these theories on the ground!

On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 06:49:59 -0800 (PST),
Mizter T wrote:

Touch-in at South Kenton at 18:15 for the 18:21 London Overground
train to Euston. Arrive at Euston at 18:50. This part of the journey
will be charged at the 'discount' Oyster fare of £2, not the
'standard' fare of £2.50, because of the special arrangement on the
Watford - Euston line that means the cheaper fare is in force in this
direction (towards Euston) from 0930 onwards on weekdays.

Thus far, the Oyster system considers one to be on a 'discount' fare.
If the passenger then enters the LU network at Euston (or Euston
Square, as it is a valid out-of-station interchange with Euston UIVMM)
for an onward journey to somewhere else - for argument's sake let's
say it is somewhere within zones 1 to 4 - before 1900 then the Oyster
system will revert to charging them a full fare of £2.50 for the
through journey when they exit the system and finish their journey.

If however they wait around in Euston for a few minutes (perhaps
counting how many pigeons are actually inside the building) then enter
the LU network after 1900 the Oyster system will still regard them as
travelling on a 'discount' fare and will only charge them £2 when they
exit the system and finish the journey.

Presumably they have to hang around on the platform before touching out
at Euston (Overground). Otherwise they'll get charged a Euston-wherever
single.

This came up in another thread.

Watford Junction - Zone 1 is 6.00
Watford Junction to Euston is 3.00 off peak.

So will someone need two oyster cards to say do WJ-Z1 after 9.30 for
4.50? Or how long will they have to hang around at Euston?

My partner quite often does WJ-KX to catch a 12:30 train. Now she
always walks Euston-KX but if, say, it was pouring with rain and she
decided to take the tube, how much would it cost?.

I suspect there are even more weird cases - consider someone doing
Watford Junction - Zone1 entering WJ at 9:15. Their cheapest fare for
the journey will be 6:00 but, if they do enough journeys towards their
offpeak cap later in the day the cheapest option might actually be
plus .

Presumably this situation already applies for some out of station
interchanges. How is it handled?

I also pointed out in another thread that WJ-Z1 changing at Willesden
Junction can be dramatically cheaper than the direct fare - 9:30 to
19:00 it will cost 3:00 rather than 4:50 (or 6:00?). Of course it will
take about 30 minutes longer to do this journey. Presumably there must
already be on platform oyster readers for people transferring from the
old Silverlink Metro to the Bakerloo line? I've just done a Watford
Junction to Baker Street on the Journey planner and it basically has
this journey except that it suggests the change happens at South Kenton.

Tim.

--
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = - @B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t,"
and there was light.

http://tjw.hn.org/ http://www.locofungus.btinternet.co.uk/

On 16 Dec, 14:05, Mizter T wrote:
I was rather hoping to get online and post here and correct myself
before you did - so I would be the one pointing out I'm an idiot,
rather than anyone else! Unfortunately commitments this morning meant
I couldn't.

Anyway I'm holding my head in shame at having written posts late last
night that I thought were filled with pertinent questions, but were
(as I can see in the cold light of day) in fact filled with a
demonstration my inability to read previous answers and go through th
erelevant information and then put 2 and 2 together!

I perhaps wasn't quite at my sharpest last night!

Paul Corfield wrote:
On Sat, 15 Dec 2007 17:06:18 -0800 (PST), Mizter T
wrote:

However all is not clear - there is something I've been intending to
query with regards to the new 2008 TfL Fares booklet - available here
as a PDF...

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...nd-tickets-08-....

On page 17, underneath the table for the different Oyster daily
capping rates, there is this text - the first bit about peak/off-peak
times is exactly the same as I described above, it's the second bit
about London Overground (LO) that's interesting...

---quote---
On the Tube and DLR: peak times are
0430-0930 Monday to Friday (except
Public Holidays). Off-Peak is at all other times.

For details of peak and off-peak times on
London Overground, please see page 21.
---/quote---

OK, let's turn to page 21. There's a table of Oyster PAYG fares for
London Overground - and at the top of the table is the description for
the two columns - "(Monday to Friday from 0700 and before 1900)*"
and then
"(All other times including public holidays)".

If we follow the asterisk to the text under the column, we'll find
this intriguing footnote:

---quote---
*For local journeys, Watford Junction to Euston
inclusive, these fares apply as follows:
Towards Euston:
Monday to Friday from 0700 and before 0930.
From Euston:
Monday to Friday from 1600 and before 1900.
---/quote---

I'm genuinely confused as to what that means - it could mean that all
journeys on the Watford Jn - Euston line will be treated differently
to the rest of LU and LO in not just simply charging the more
expensive PAYG fare between 7am-7pm - in which case Bakerloo
passengers would also benefit from these cheaper fares on the shared
stretches.

It means exactly this. If you stay on the Euston - Watford line then
you benefit from these lower PAYG charges irrespective of operator.
However as soon as step off the line either by changing to LU at Queens
Park, LOROL at Willesden (NLL / WLL) or LU at Euston you immediately
resume the normal charge rates between 0700 and 1900 M-F.

In effect outside the peaks or peak direction you're on the weekend
charge rates as I understand matters for the Euston - Watford service.

This is the first real application of differential fares by time and
direction. I think it will take some time for people to be accustomed to
it and I can see the potential for confusion when people change
operators and see their overall through fare rise if they re-enter or
exit the system at times when the higher charges apply. This will be
particularly the case if people are travelling near the shoulders of
either the Watford line time bands or the wider time bands applicable to
the main charging rates for PAYG (near to 0700 and near to 1900). For
example travelling from say South Kenton into Zone 1 via Euston you
might wish to linger a little if you arrived at Euston at 18.50 before
heading to the Tube as you'd get the cheaper price all the way through
if you re-entered after 1900. That's certainly how it has been
explained to me by someone who took the time to phone me to point out
these issues.

Thanks, thanks for the confirmation (I think I'd deciphered this by
the time I'd replied to myself!). So Watford - Euston line PAYG fares
will be at the cheaper (in internal TfL lingo "discount") PAYG rate
for much of the day.

I wonder if the text shouldn't say "Towards Watford Junction" rather
than "From Euston" to indicate the evening peak flow - "From Euston"
could be misconstrued to mean just journeys that start from Euston.

This will be interesting. I can imagine it will confuse people - for
example those doing short local journeys in the 'wrong' direction.
Let's say a parent goes to pick their child up from primary school
from Bushey to Hatch End. Their return journey (after 4pm) will be
charged at the higher rate, though I bet the trains that far out
aren't that busy at that time, and perhaps not any busier in one
direction to the other.

Interesting scenario you put forward with regards to arriving in
Euston pre-7pm and then waiting for 7pm before entering the LU network
so as to ensure the whole PAYG fare is at the discount rate. Starting
from Harrow & Wealdstone the PAYG fare difference is more pronounced -
either £3.50 or £2 discounted. For those savvy to this distinction,
they might in fact prefer to travel on the Watford - Euston line
rather than the Bakerloo simply to take advantage of this.

But nonetheless it sounds like a good plan. It's communicating it to
the punters that's the challenge - especially if there going to be as
dense as I was being!

Lastly, if I'm right in understanding this all, PAYG journeys starting
or finishing at Watford Jn will be priced by London Midland - I'm
still a bit unclear as to whether these journeys will be cheaper on
weekdays between 0930 and 1600, as will be the case with all other
journeys on the Watford - Euston line.



Of course, as Watford Junction isn't in a zone ("zone W" being a term
solely intended for internal TfL use) then things get complicated
here. I suppose every journey to/from Watford Jn will be charged, and
there won't be any capping - thus someone who goes between Watford Jn
and Euston several times a day will be capped at the zones 1-8 cap,
plus will have a boundary zone 8 to Watford Jn fare charged on top of
that (which I guess could be the same as a Watford High St - Watford
Jn fare).

Go back and read the prices that I published at your request in an
earlier post. Yes there are caps that apply specifically to Watford
Junction - they were in the post!!!!!!

Sorry, I'm not really sure what I was thinking - I managed to
desperately ask questions that had already clearly been answered - and
answered by your good self, at my request no less. Evidently I just
wasn't thinking!

Without a doubt I win the utl dunce of the month award for that.



I really don't know - I can see all sorts of possibilities, but
without exact information on how things will be working to/from
Watford Junction, including a table of fares and confirmation of
whether there will be a "zone W" cap or not, it's all just
speculation. Paul C - can you help!!!

There isn't space to replicate all the pricing information but there are
prices for Travelcards, PAYG charge rates and caps that apply for all
applicable zone combinations within the zones plus a smaller range of
Zones to "W". If you stop and think about it there have to be or else
none of this works properly.

As Mr Thant has explained the complication undoubtedly arises because
pricing for the line remains with the main TOC - London Midland. As I
have said until I am blue in the face the whole PAYG interface with the
TOCs will be immensely complicated because of their retained rights to
price their traffic flows. There has to be some sort of "logic" between
the various pricing regimes or else it becomes a nonsense. What's
perhaps concerning (IMO) is that this first major application doesn't
seem very logical although to be fair to London Midland none of us know
what the cash fares will be or how cheap day travel will be priced for
cash payers.

That all makes sense, of course.

So, just to be clear, for a simple minded soul like myself, the PAYG
prices for single journeys to/from Watford Jn will be set by London
Midland, and has already been decided, but doesn't feature in the TfL
2008 fares booklet.

The current Watford Jn - Euston PAYG price of £5.50/ £3 was presumably
set by TfL *before* London Midland agreed to accept Oyster PAYG from
Watford Jn. Therefore the control over setting this fare will in fact
be passing from TfL to London Midland, right? If so this would surely
have knock-on implications for the other PAYG fares from Watford Jn,
such as a simple Watford Jn to Watford High St fare, or Watford Jn to
Harrow & Wealdstone - PAYG fares that thus far have been set solely by
TfL.



All existing Overground literature is almost silent about the fact that
cash fares and cheap day tickets are available across the network - it's
being portrayed that the only game in town is PAYG with Travelcards in
second place.

--
Paul C

Indeed. (The following fares info is sourced from the Avantix
Traveller program.)

What those cash fares will be is interesting - as since January 2007,
fares between Harrow & Wealdstone and Queens Park have all followed
the LU principle of charging £3 for a cash fare outside of z1, and £4
for a cash fare for travel to zone 1 (i.e. to Euston). Similarly from
South Hampstead up to H&W all cash single fares are £3.

However whilst SDR are priced at double that - as they would be on LU,
where a return is twice the single fare - CDRs are currently available
at prices closer to the single fare.


Cash fares are listed in http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...s-dec-2007.pdf
. However, CDRs have been abolished.

On 16 Dec, 00:13, (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:
In article ,

(Paul Corfield) wrote:
Adult PAYG fares will be charged but there is a discounted daily off
peak cap. Note that it is only off peak travel that gains a
discount under this system.

Off-peak being defined how for this purpose, pray?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

There's the additional problem (in addition to everything else that's
been discussed) of the railcard's off-peak definition. I'm pretty sure
I can't get a discount with my railcard before 10am (rather than
9:30). I assume that 9:30 will be the cut-off time with the PAYG
system with the railcard discount?

Sam

On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 15:23:54 +0100, Martin Krieger
wrote:

For
example travelling from say South Kenton into Zone 1 via Euston you
might wish to linger a little if you arrived at Euston at 18.50 before
heading to the Tube as you'd get the cheaper price all the way through
if you re-entered after 1900.

Will it really work that way? As far as I have understood the oyster
system, the fare is calculated between the touch-in and the touch-out
point, and touches in between will be ignored. So in that particular
case, as the touch-in is before 10:00, the higher price will be charged.
The only chance to take advantage of this is to break the journey into
two separate journeys - which is not that easy as Euston is an open
interchange.

I see that you meant 1900 from another post. Well I'd make three points
by way of reply.

a) Euston is not an open interchange. There are gates to leave the
suburban platforms and then there are the LU gates. Both of these will
record a transaction on the card including time of exit and entry. Note
also that as it will in effect be a valid out of station interchange
that the Oyster check at ultimate exit will go back to the original
entry point anyway. If it is to add back the correct amount for the
final leg of travel on LU re-entry to LU at the cheaper time of day
*may* well be relevant.

b) You're quite right that entry time is what *currently*
determines pricing. However we don't currently have contra flow based
pricing and if you think about the "Oyster lowest fare promise" then in
the case of Euston in particular and the proposed pricing structure then
the effect of re-entry to the system on either NR or LU will be of
relevance. I have no idea how the ticket logic is going to deal with
this but deal with it it must.

c) As I have already stated someone took the time to point out this
development to me as it had certainly not registered in my brain even
though I had read some words somewhere about the pricing regime.

Sorry that I don't have the full explanation but I haven't worked on
Prestige for 8 years and am remote from a lot of the detail these days.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On Sat, 15 Dec 2007 17:39:43 -0800 (PST), Mr Thant
wrote:

On 16 Dec, 01:06, Mizter T wrote:
I'm genuinely confused as to what that means - it could mean that all
journeys on the Watford Jn - Euston line will be treated differently
to the rest of LU and LO in not just simply charging the more
expensive PAYG fare between 7am-7pm - in which case Bakerloo
passengers would also benefit from these cheaper fares on the shared
stretches.

This document has the formal list of new fares (7MB PDF):
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...s-dec-2007.pdf

Everything between Watford Junction and Zone is set by London Midland
rather LO. I'd assume far more customers use the former for this
journey. It does mention (paraphrasing) "The standard fare is charged
7am-7pm; discount fares at other times; Discount fares will _also_
apply at other times for certain journeys to or from Euston". Though
as in the booklet, the actual fares aren't mentioned.

I have had a look at the detailed pricing lists in the Board papers.

One item that amused me very much were the prices for the North London
Railway and assumed routes.

Walthamstow Queens Road - Harrow and Wealdstone is £3.00
Blackhorse Road - Harrow and Wealdstone is £4.00
South Tottenham - Harrow and Wealdstone is £3.00

Similar nonsenses apply for Barking. In other words if you have a tube
service at the Overground Station you go via tube and Zone 1. Even
where it might be logical to change from Overground to Tube (e.g. Queens
Road changing at BHR) you are assumed not to go via Zone 1.

Ironically if I go Harrow and Wealdstone I make the point of going by
Goblin and NLL and then the DC service. Just as well I don't pay as I'd
be a bit cross to be charged an extra quid just for going to the most
logical station to catch my Overground train.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

There's the additional problem (in addition to everything else that's
been discussed) of the railcard's off-peak definition. I'm pretty sure
I can't get a discount with my railcard before 10am (rather than
9:30). I assume that 9:30 will be the cut-off time with the PAYG
system with the railcard discount?

I am fairly sure that the railcard doesn't have a seperate peak definition,
but some ticket *sellers* do. My YPR discount applies as soon as the "peak"
period ends (9:37 at my station) but the self service ticket machine won't
offer a ticket with the YPR discount until gone 10am. I have never been able
to ascertain exactly when it begins to allow it! The ticket office will
though.

Best Wishes,
LEWIS

On Sat, 15 Dec 2007 15:57:07 +0000, Michael Hoffman wrote:

"Another new thing in the fares leaflet is the availability of Railcard
discounted fares caps on Oyster PAYG. You'll be able to have your Young
Persons, Disabled Persons, HM Forces or Senior Railcard loaded onto your
Oyster card (no details how) and from then on the off-peak fares cap for
you will be around a third lower than normal (e.g. £3.10 vs £4.80 for
Zones 1-2). There doesn't appear to be a discount on peak caps or single
journeys."

This is an interesting development which closes up a few of the gaps in
Oyster versus paper ticketing, but for my and my wife's purposes, not
enough of the gaps to make a switch viable, even when Southeastern
finally starts accepting Pay As You Go (whenever that is!).

My wife has a Zones 3-6 annual travelcard (on Oyster), so when we want
to go to central London she can get us both cheap all zones travelcards
(£4.70 I think they are). Am I right to think that the new Oyster
capabilities don't go any way towards replicating this situation?

By far the easier part of this, to my mind, should be to make sure that
her travel is capped at whatever the Oyster 2008 equivalent of the £4.70
is. Her Oyster card clearly already 'knows' that she has a Gold Card,
since it is loaded onto it. So it seems it should be an even easier task
to set this up than to set up the facilities described by the original
poster. Have they really overlooked this in the new system?

My side of our trips to London, however, I can see is rather a difficult
one to replicate. I could only suggest that we could be able to register
our relationship - as in, the fact that we often travel together, rather
than that we are married! - via the Oyster web site or similar; then if
the system noticed us making the same set of journeys at about the same
time on the same day, it could cap mine at the £4.70-equivalent cost as
well.

(Of course if on that day I took any journey that she did not also take,
my daily cap would revert to the standard daily Oyster PAYG cap, since
that journey would not be covered by her Gold Card's effect on
travelling companions. She, on the other hand, could travel as much as
she liked without me, since she holds the Gold Card.)

I realise my side of this is all quite complicated, but it does sound
like it should be logically achievable. And the first wish - for her
Oyster-stored Gold Card to provide a discount to her Oyster PAYG use -
doesn't even seem complicated.

What do you think - are they ever likely to get either of these ideas up
and running, in addition to these other laudable new features?

Paul

By far the easier part of this, to my mind, should be to make sure that
her travel is capped at whatever the Oyster 2008 equivalent of the £4.70
is. Her Oyster card clearly already 'knows' that she has a Gold Card,
since it is loaded onto it. So it seems it should be an even easier task
to set this up than to set up the facilities described by the original
poster. Have they really overlooked this in the new system?

My side of our trips to London, however, I can see is rather a difficult
one to replicate. I could only suggest that we could be able to register
our relationship - as in, the fact that we often travel together, rather
than that we are married! - via the Oyster web site or similar; then if
the system noticed us making the same set of journeys at about the same
time on the same day, it could cap mine at the £4.70-equivalent cost as
well.


What do you think - are they ever likely to get either of these ideas up
and running, in addition to these other laudable new features?


Annual Gold card discounts would be trivial to implement, but I guess
that they think they are all Zones 1-6 anyway.

Network card discount would only matter at the weekend.

Family railcard, partner and groupsave discounts couldn't be
intrdouced within the existing products.

I would think they could only be implemented either as

i) pre-loaded "stored journey rights" (i think only possible with ITSO
not oyster)

or

ii) end of day rebating (mooted previously on Usenet for the probably
apocryphal weekly "best value" capping.)

On Dec 15 2007, 3:57 pm, Michael Hoffman
wrote:
U Thant reports on his blog that:

"Another new thing in the fares leaflet is the availability of Railcard
discounted fares caps on Oyster PAYG. You'll be able to have your Young
Persons, Disabled Persons, HM Forces or Senior Railcard loaded onto your
Oyster card (no details how) and from then on the off-peak fares cap for
you will be around a third lower than normal (e.g. £3.10 vs £4.80 for
Zones 1-2). There doesn't appear to be a discount on peak caps or single
journeys."

http://londonconnections.blogspot.co...discounts-on-o...

Does anyone know how this loading process will be done? Will you be able
to waltz into any LU ticket office and do it? When does this start,
beginning of 2008?
--
Michael Hoffman

I was hoping it would be possible to do it online but alas not..

" * Tube station ticket offices
* London Overground station ticket offices
* Some National Rail station ticket offices "

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/faresa...ares/6769.aspx