On Jan 25, 11:47 am, Andy wrote:
This Saturday there is engineering work which means the the West
Ruislip - Marylebone services are diverted to Paddington. Currently
Oyster PAYG is valid on the Marylebone route, but not into Paddington
(this being on the list for spring 2008). Does anyone know if
provision has made for people touching in at West Ruislip and then not
being able to touch out at Paddington during the diversion? Will the
be posters saying that PAYG is not available or will people have to
phone up about unresolved journeys.

Last Saturday I took the train from West Hampstead thameslink to St
Pancras. Usually PAYG is valid on this route, but because of
engineering work the train ran into the high level platforms at St P,
where there were no gates and no obvious place to touch out, so I got
charged the max cash fare and had to ring the oyster helpline to get
it refunded. I don't know what else I could/should have done.

On Jan 26, 9:04*am, brixtonite wrote:
On Jan 25, 11:47 am, Andy wrote:

This Saturday there is engineering work which means the the West
Ruislip - Marylebone services are diverted to Paddington. Currently
Oyster PAYG is valid on the Marylebone route, but not into Paddington
(this being on the list for spring 2008). Does anyone know if
provision has made for people touching in at West Ruislip and then not
being able to touch out at Paddington during the diversion? Will the
be posters saying that PAYG is not available or will people have to
phone up about unresolved journeys.

Last Saturday I took the train from West Hampstead thameslink to St
Pancras. *Usually PAYG is valid on this route, but because of
engineering work the train ran into the high level platforms at St P,
where there were no gates and no obvious place to touch out, so I got
charged the max cash fare and had to ring the oyster helpline to get
it refunded. *I don't know what else I could/should have done.

Did you see if the level platform gates still manned? If so, you could
have asked to touch out there. If there are no validators at St.
Pancras high level then you should write to (or email) FCC to ask
about what they are going to do about it.

On 26 Jan, 09:04, brixtonite wrote:
On Jan 25, 11:47 am, Andy wrote:

This Saturday there is engineering work which means the the West
Ruislip - Marylebone services are diverted to Paddington. Currently
Oyster PAYG is valid on the Marylebone route, but not into Paddington
(this being on the list for spring 2008). Does anyone know if
provision has made for people touching in at West Ruislip and then not
being able to touch out at Paddington during the diversion? Will the
be posters saying that PAYG is not available or will people have to
phone up about unresolved journeys.

Last Saturday I took the train from West Hampstead thameslink to St
Pancras. Usually PAYG is valid on this route, but because of
engineering work the train ran into the high level platforms at St P,
where there were no gates and no obvious place to touch out, so I got
charged the max cash fare and had to ring the oyster helpline to get
it refunded. I don't know what else I could/should have done.


Interesting. I was aware of Thameslink engineering work that meant
trains were diverted into St. Pancras high-level, but my cursory
glance at the website suggested that it was only the Bedford
"expresses", which are first stop St Albans, which wouldn't have been
an issue with regards to Oyster Pay-as-you-go. I was evidently wrong.

I understand there are going to be many weekend blockades of the
central Thameslink route through central London for works associated
with the Thameslink Programme (aka Thameslink 2000) - I'm guessing
that this will mean that the situation you encountered, with trains
being diverted into St. Pancras high-level, will happen lots more in
the future. It looks like FCC and TfL need to sort out a solution for
this. One or two Oyster readers on the high-level platforms at St.
Pancras would suffice.

On Jan 25, 11:47*am, Andy wrote:
This Saturday there is engineering work which means the the West
Ruislip - Marylebone services are diverted to Paddington. Currently
Oyster PAYG is valid on the Marylebone route, but not into Paddington
(this being on the list for spring 2008). Does anyone know if
provision has made for people touching in at West Ruislip and then not
being able to touch out at Paddington during the diversion? Will the
be posters saying that PAYG is not available or will people have to
phone up about unresolved journeys.

Well, having gone for a ride today. No sign of any posters about PAYG
being valid or not on the Paddington trains, but the guard just
glanced at my Oyster and said OK (although I do have a Zone 1-5
travelcard on it and so the PAYG couldn't really be checked). Touching
out at West Ruislip bought up an 'Entry' on the validator and I'll
have to see what the records say has been charged in a day or two.

In message
of
Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:29:54 in uk.transport.london, Mizter T
writes


Walter Briscoe wrote:

[snip]

That reminds me, I must chase a charging mistake. On Sunday, I reached
my cap. At Earls Court, I asked a question of a CSA at the Manual Gate
and touched in as I followed him to some information. The system made a
different notation of the event and started a new cap accumulation. By
the time I realised there was a problem, it was too late to get ticket
office staff to resolve the issue. Unfortunately, there is insufficient
detail on the website journey history to explain.
--
Walter Briscoe


That sounds a bit peculiar, however it might be as a result of the
fact that system does not know whether you were coming or going -
touching on an Oyster pad, unlike touching on a gate, doesn't provides
any indication as to whether you were entering or exiting the system.

Where had you been earlier - I'm not looking for an account of all
your movements (!), just some basics - i.e. Had you exited Earls Court
earlier on? If so how much earlier? If not had you exited another
station earlier on?

My experience thus far has indicated that the Oyster system is fairly
robust, and can cope with unusual events, so I'm interested in what
comes of this..

Zone 1 entry; 3 times (Zone 1 or 2 exit + entry); Zone 1 exit (capped) +
entry; twice (Zone 1 exit + entry); Zone 1 exit (uncapped); Bus; Zone 1
entry; St James's Park exit (capped) [ticket office unable to assist],
etc.

It is easy not to note the display. Many don't work and LU seems to have
no procedure for regularly testing them. It ought to be a SMOP (Small
Matter of Programming) to use sound to distinguish charging events. It
seems obsessive to check Oyster history on a POM (Passenger Operated
Machine) after each station. At least unsighted Londoners get free
travel and my admiration for using the system. The 4.00 cash fare shows
tourists are viewed as fair - should that be fare? - game.

I have written to to ask for an
explanation and a refund. I find their phone service takes forever and
it lacks a record. I WAS very happy with Oyster PAYG. I am now less so.
In particular, I HATE the way it QUIETLY charges a maximum fare or two.
Ticket office presentation is good but the 8 journey limit does not meet
my need. I think the Journey history at
https://oyster.tfl.gov.uk/oyster/ppvStatement.do is unfit for purpose:
debits and credits are only distinguished by the affect on the balance;
unfinished and unstarted journeys are not identified; etc.
--
Walter Briscoe

On 26 Jan, 18:22, Andy wrote:
On Jan 25, 11:47 am, Andy wrote:

This Saturday there is engineering work which means the the West
Ruislip - Marylebone services are diverted to Paddington. Currently
Oyster PAYG is valid on the Marylebone route, but not into Paddington
(this being on the list for spring 2008). Does anyone know if
provision has made for people touching in at West Ruislip and then not
being able to touch out at Paddington during the diversion? Will the
be posters saying that PAYG is not available or will people have to
phone up about unresolved journeys.

Well, having gone for a ride today. No sign of any posters about PAYG
being valid or not on the Paddington trains, but the guard just
glanced at my Oyster and said OK (although I do have a Zone 1-5
travelcard on it and so the PAYG couldn't really be checked). Touching
out at West Ruislip bought up an 'Entry' on the validator and I'll
have to see what the records say has been charged in a day or two.


As West Ruislip is in zone 6, outside the validity of your z1-5
Travelcard, I'd think you will have been charged the £4 max fare for
an unresolved PAYG journey.

On Jan 27, 11:45*am, Mizter T wrote:
On 26 Jan, 18:22, Andy wrote:



On Jan 25, 11:47 am, Andy wrote:

This Saturday there is engineering work which means the the West
Ruislip - Marylebone services are diverted to Paddington. Currently
Oyster PAYG is valid on the Marylebone route, but not into Paddington
(this being on the list for spring 2008). Does anyone know if
provision has made for people touching in at West Ruislip and then not
being able to touch out at Paddington during the diversion? Will the
be posters saying that PAYG is not available or will people have to
phone up about unresolved journeys.

Well, having gone for a ride today. No sign of any posters about PAYG
being valid or not on the Paddington trains, but the guard just
glanced at my Oyster and said OK (although I do have a Zone 1-5
travelcard on it and so the PAYG couldn't really be checked). Touching
out at West Ruislip bought up an 'Entry' on the validator and I'll
have to see what the records say has been charged in a day or two.

As West Ruislip is in zone 6, outside the validity of your z1-5
Travelcard, I'd think you will have been charged the £4 max fare for
an unresolved PAYG journey.

I don't think so, as the system (in other locations) assumes that I've
entered in Zones 1-5 and charges the correct fare. I've checked on my
records (updated overnight) and I think that the correct fare was
deducted (£1.00). I've got £1.00 (Entry) deducted at West Ruislip and
then £1.00 (Entry) deducted at Ickenham where I took the Met line back
to Harrow. These look like the correct fares, although I've got to
check capping levels!!

I've had the problem with validators saying the opposite to what I've
done before, but the correct fare being applied. It is down to an
entry within the zones not actually being recorded on the card, only
the exit outside the zones and at West Ruislip I used the validators
on the exit from the Chiltern platforms, not the ticket barriers in
the Central line bit of the station. Unresolved PAYG penalties seem to
be different if you have a season on the ticket as well, I think that
they are £1 regardless of the route (not sure about National Rail)

Andy wrote:

On Jan 27, 11:45�am, Mizter T wrote:
On 26 Jan, 18:22, Andy wrote:


On Jan 25, 11:47 am, Andy wrote:

This Saturday there is engineering work which means the the West
Ruislip - Marylebone services are diverted to Paddington. Currently
Oyster PAYG is valid on the Marylebone route, but not into Paddington
(this being on the list for spring 2008). Does anyone know if
provision has made for people touching in at West Ruislip and then not
being able to touch out at Paddington during the diversion? Will the
be posters saying that PAYG is not available or will people have to
phone up about unresolved journeys.

Well, having gone for a ride today. No sign of any posters about PAYG
being valid or not on the Paddington trains, but the guard just
glanced at my Oyster and said OK (although I do have a Zone 1-5
travelcard on it and so the PAYG couldn't really be checked). Touching
out at West Ruislip bought up an 'Entry' on the validator and I'll
have to see what the records say has been charged in a day or two.

As West Ruislip is in zone 6, outside the validity of your z1-5
Travelcard, I'd think you will have been charged the £4 max fare for
an unresolved PAYG journey.

I don't think so, as the system (in other locations) assumes that I've
entered in Zones 1-5 and charges the correct fare. I've checked on my
records (updated overnight) and I think that the correct fare was
deducted (£1.00). I've got £1.00 (Entry) deducted at West Ruislip and
then £1.00 (Entry) deducted at Ickenham where I took the Met line back
to Harrow. These look like the correct fares, although I've got to
check capping levels!!


That is interesting. I would have thought that the always touch-in/out
or be charged a max cash fare for an unresolved journey rule would
always apply when you are using PAYG - and you were indeed using PAYG,
in combination with your Travelcard, for that journey.

However I have two possible explanations for this. The first is that,
as I postulate elsewhere, the validators at West Ruislip were
specifically reprogrammed so as to give passengers the benefit of the
doubt yesterday - i.e. the max cash fare was not charged for
unresolved journeys that started or ended at West Ruislip - and this
change was made specifically to make an allowance for the fact that
Chiltern's services were running in and out of Paddington instead of
Marylebone.

(If this was the case then any PAYG journey ending at West Ruislip
yesterday where the Oyster card had not been touched-in would have
been charged the £1 'minimum fare'. Perhaps if Chiltern do this again
soon before the Paddington gates get installed I'll try this using
Oyster PAYG - note that if I did this I would of course have another,
valid ticket such as a Day Travelcard.)

The second explanation is this - you had used London Underground
earlier that day and had exited the network, say at Paddington. When
you got to West Ruislip the system simply extended your journey from
the last location where you had validated your Oyster card, and made
the presumption that you were extending your journey out to West
Ruislip. I understand that in this might not make a lot of logical
sense, in that when one exits the LU network through some gates AIUI
this is clearly recorded as an exit - but perhaps there is a level of
tolerance built in to the system.


I've had the problem with validators saying the opposite to what I've
done before, but the correct fare being applied. It is down to an
entry within the zones not actually being recorded on the card, [...]


That's not right. When using a Travelcard on Oyster, entry and exit
points are not shown on the online Oyster journey history (I suppose
this is regarded as clutter, as users of the online journey history
want to see details of chargeable journeys) - however they are
recorded on the card, and this can be seen if you look at your journey
history on a Tube ticket machine.

Entry and exit points are always recorded on an Oyster card when it is
used to pass through PAYG enabled gates (i.e. the whole LU network,
plus some other gates at stations served by mainline trains where PAYG
is valid, e.g. Liverpool Street, Euston or stations on the London
Overground network such as Dalston Kingsland).

However entry and exit points are not recorded when an Oyster card
with valid Travelcard is used to pass through gates that are *not*
PAYG enabled - for example, at Victoria, London Bridge, Earlsfield or
East Croydon. In these cases the gates simply check for a valid
Travelcard loaded on the Oyster card, and do not electronically 'mark'
the card with an entry/exit point.

[...] only
the exit outside the zones and at West Ruislip I used the validators
on the exit from the Chiltern platforms, not the ticket barriers in
the Central line bit of the station. Unresolved PAYG penalties seem to
be different if you have a season on the ticket as well, I think that
they are £1 regardless of the route (not sure about National Rail)


As I explain above I'm not sure about whether those with Travelcard
seasons really are normally treated any differently to those using
'pure' PAYG when it comes to extending their journey through the use
of PAYG, but I certainly take full note of your experience. I will
have to investigate.

I think that using the standalone validators or Oyster readers as
opposed to entering or exiting from the gates could potentially lead
to different results, as unlike gates standalone Oyster readers cannot
determine for certain whether someone is starting or finishing a
journey, or indeed merely touching-in midway through one (when, say,
they change lines or trains). This perhaps would explain why the
Oyster reader you used displayed "Entry".

On Jan 27, 2:51Â*pm, Mizter T wrote:
Andy wrote:
On Jan 27, 11:45�am, Mizter T wrote:
On 26 Jan, 18:22, Andy wrote:

On Jan 25, 11:47 am, Andy wrote:

This Saturday there is engineering work which means the the West
Ruislip - Marylebone services are diverted to Paddington. Currently
Oyster PAYG is valid on the Marylebone route, but not into Paddington
(this being on the list for spring 2008). Does anyone know if
provision has made for people touching in at West Ruislip and then not
being able to touch out at Paddington during the diversion? Will the
be posters saying that PAYG is not available or will people have to
phone up about unresolved journeys.

Well, having gone for a ride today. No sign of any posters about PAYG
being valid or not on the Paddington trains, but the guard just
glanced at my Oyster and said OK (although I do have a Zone 1-5
travelcard on it and so the PAYG couldn't really be checked). Touching
out at West Ruislip bought up an 'Entry' on the validator and I'll
have to see what the records say has been charged in a day or two.

As West Ruislip is in zone 6, outside the validity of your z1-5
Travelcard, I'd think you will have been charged the £4 max fare for
an unresolved PAYG journey.

I don't think so, as the system (in other locations) assumes that I've
entered in Zones 1-5 and charges the correct fare. I've checked on my
records (updated overnight) and I think that the correct fare was
deducted (£1.00). I've got £1.00 (Entry) deducted at West Ruislip and
then £1.00 (Entry) deducted at Ickenham where I took the Met line back
to Harrow. These look like the correct fares, although I've got to
check capping levels!!

That is interesting. I would have thought that the always touch-in/out
or be charged a max cash fare for an unresolved journey rule would
always apply when you are using PAYG - and you were indeed using PAYG,
in combination with your Travelcard, for that journey.

However I have two possible explanations for this. The first is that,
as I postulate elsewhere, the validators at West Ruislip were
specifically reprogrammed so as to give passengers the benefit of the
doubt yesterday - i.e. the max cash fare was not charged for
unresolved journeys that started or ended at West Ruislip - and this
change was made specifically to make an allowance for the fact that
Chiltern's services were running in and out of Paddington instead of
Marylebone.


My experience at West Ruislip is no different to when I touch in if
going travelling from Watford Met (or Watford Junction). I always get
£1 deducted upon entry and an exit when I leave the system outside the
zones of my travelcard (during the week I might get an extra deduction
on exit depending on the journey). This has always appears to be the
case when travelling into the zones of a travelcard. Travelling out, I
have never seen the entry point on the journey history, just £1 (or
whatever) deducted on exit.

(If this was the case then any PAYG journey ending at West Ruislip
yesterday where the Oyster card had not been touched-in would have
been charged the £1 'minimum fare'. Perhaps if Chiltern do this again
soon before the Paddington gates get installed I'll try this using
Oyster PAYG - note that if I did this I would of course have another,
valid ticket such as a Day Travelcard.)

The second explanation is this - you had used London Underground
earlier that day and had exited the network, say at Paddington. When
you got to West Ruislip the system simply extended your journey from
the last location where you had validated your Oyster card, and made
the presumption that you were extending your journey out to West
Ruislip. I understand that in this might not make a lot of logical
sense, in that when one exits the LU network through some gates AIUI
this is clearly recorded as an exit - but perhaps there is a level of
tolerance built in to the system.


I too wondered if this was the case, but in that case I would have
expect the gates to flash up 'exit'

I've had the problem with validators saying the opposite to what I've
done before, but the correct fare being applied. It is down to an
entry within the zones not actually being recorded on the card, [...]

That's not right. When using a Travelcard on Oyster, entry and exit
points are not shown on the online Oyster journey history (I suppose
this is regarded as clutter, as users of the online journey history
want to see details of chargeable journeys) - however they are
recorded on the card, and this can be seen if you look at your journey
history on a Tube ticket machine.

Entry and exit points are always recorded on an Oyster card when it is
used to pass through PAYG enabled gates (i.e. the whole LU network,
plus some other gates at stations served by mainline trains where PAYG
is valid, e.g. Liverpool Street, Euston or stations on the London
Overground network such as Dalston Kingsland).


I've never used the journey history at a ticket office, but it is a
shame that the detailed information isn't available online as well
(maybe as an option). It also doesn't appear to be visible to the
Oyster helpline as I've been questioned about why I havn't touched in
before when I have done so. The explanation that I have a travelcard
on the Oyster has always been accepted.

However entry and exit points are not recorded when an Oyster card
with valid Travelcard is used to pass through gates that are *not*
PAYG enabled - for example, at Victoria, London Bridge, Earlsfield or
East Croydon. In these cases the gates simply check for a valid
Travelcard loaded on the Oyster card, and do not electronically 'mark'
the card with an entry/exit point.

[...] only
the exit outside the zones and at West Ruislip I used the validators
on the exit from the Chiltern platforms, not the ticket barriers in
the Central line bit of the station. Unresolved PAYG penalties seem to
be different if you have a season on the ticket as well, I think that
they are £1 regardless of the route (not sure about National Rail)

As I explain above I'm not sure about whether those with Travelcard
seasons really are normally treated any differently to those using
'pure' PAYG when it comes to extending their journey through the use
of PAYG, but I certainly take full note of your experience. I will
have to investigate.

See above


I think that using the standalone validators or Oyster readers as
opposed to entering or exiting from the gates could potentially lead
to different results, as unlike gates standalone Oyster readers cannot
determine for certain whether someone is starting or finishing a
journey, or indeed merely touching-in midway through one (when, say,
they change lines or trains). This perhaps would explain why the
Oyster reader you used displayed "Entry".