On 17 Sep, 04:05, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:47:53 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T

wrote:

On 16 Sep, 21:25, MIG wrote:

On Sep 16, 8:05*pm, Mizter T wrote:

On 16 Sep, 18:13, MIG wrote:

(snip)

But can you still get travelcards from shops that aren't dated till
they've been through a barrier? *Presumably one could buy them any
time, but you'd need to come to an understanding about the date
stamped on it.

The point you're making isn't exactly clear to me.

Well, if you wanted a travelcard to use the next day, it might work
barriers from when you first used it tomorrow (if that is how they
work) but if the shopkeeper stamped today's date on it, it wouldn't
pass a visual inspection on a bus tomorrow.

I thought that was the point you were making, but I wasn't entirely
clear of that.

To ask for it to be stamped with tomorrow's date would provide no
additional cheaty opportunities to what's always possible.

You could use it on the Underground and on buses today in the hope
no-one looks at the date and then use it tomorrow only on buses (where
the magnetic stripe isn't going to be read?).


Or variations thereof. Yes, I have thought this through and reached
similar conclusions - see my post upthread, though it may not be
immediately obvious as I was purposefully using somewhat opaque
language (though reading between the lines it quickly becomes
transparent).

As ever it's difficult to discuss the potential holes in ticketing
without also flagging them up to those who might wish to take
advantage.

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:47:26 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:


On 17 Sep, 04:05, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:47:53 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T

wrote:

On 16 Sep, 21:25, MIG wrote:

On Sep 16, 8:05*pm, Mizter T wrote:

On 16 Sep, 18:13, MIG wrote:

(snip)

But can you still get travelcards from shops that aren't dated till
they've been through a barrier? *Presumably one could buy them any
time, but you'd need to come to an understanding about the date
stamped on it.

The point you're making isn't exactly clear to me.

Well, if you wanted a travelcard to use the next day, it might work
barriers from when you first used it tomorrow (if that is how they
work) but if the shopkeeper stamped today's date on it, it wouldn't
pass a visual inspection on a bus tomorrow.

I thought that was the point you were making, but I wasn't entirely
clear of that.

To ask for it to be stamped with tomorrow's date would provide no
additional cheaty opportunities to what's always possible.

You could use it on the Underground and on buses today in the hope
no-one looks at the date and then use it tomorrow only on buses (where
the magnetic stripe isn't going to be read?).


Or variations thereof. Yes, I have thought this through and reached
similar conclusions - see my post upthread, though it may not be
immediately obvious as I was purposefully using somewhat opaque
language (though reading between the lines it quickly becomes
transparent).

As ever it's difficult to discuss the potential holes in ticketing
without also flagging them up to those who might wish to take
advantage.

I doubt if that particular fiddle is any secret.

On 17 Sep, 16:08, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:47:26 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T

(snip)

As ever it's difficult to discuss the potential holes in ticketing
without also flagging them up to those who might wish to take
advantage.

I doubt if that particular fiddle is any secret.


By its very nature it can't be a secret - as I said in a post
upthread, working this through is "hardly beyond the realm of most
peoples capacity for logical thought" - however I've never seen or
heard or read about it anywhere, and despite my earlier comment most
people don't spend a lot of time thinking about such things.

That said, any fiddle that relies upon this is fairly limited in its
scope, and what's more it is unknown whether there are any
countermeasures and if so what they are, e.g. if a ticket is pre-
encoded for use on a particular day of the week, or on an odd or an
even date etc etc.

On 16 Sep, 20:05, Mizter T wrote:
On 16 Sep, 18:13, MIG wrote:





On Sep 16, 6:06 pm, Mizter T wrote:

On 16 Sep, 17:23, "Michael R N Dolbear" wrote:

(snip)

Would a NR automatic ticket barrier reject an attempt to use a
post-dated ticket ?

Yes, as would an LU one.

But can you still get travelcards from shops that aren't dated till
they've been through a barrier? *Presumably one could buy them any
time, but you'd need to come to an understanding about the date
stamped on it.

The point you're making isn't exactly clear to me.

Note that as ever I don't wish to provide a fare evaders guide, but
this stuff is hardly beyond the realm of most peoples capacity for
logical thought so I'm certainly not offering up anything that's
remotely secret here.

Several shops do sell Day Travelcards using the old fashioned method -
which involves the shopkeeper stamping the ticket themselves using a
manual date stamp. This obviously doesn't encode the magnetic strip,
so presumably that happens on first use when the ticket gets passed
through an LU gate (or indeed an NR gate, if they are so equipped). I
guess there may be some system by which the shopkeeper has several
different stocks of Day Travelcards, and picks one in particular that
will be valid that day - e.g. there is a ticket stock for Thirsday
which will only work on a Thursday - however I think the opportunity
for things to get muddled up would be too great for that.

This is how local shops (Pass Agents, Ticket Stops, call them what you
will) always used to sell one-day *Travelcards in the days of yore -
however the majority of shops were upgraded to having ticket vending
machines that printed and (presumably) encoded the tickets. I *think*
this was all part of the Prestige ticketing project (which also
brought you Oyster), as these started appearing in the mid to late
90's (the PFI contract being signed in 1995) - these new machines were
certainly capable of being upgraded so as to handle Oyster (and thus
have Oyster pads fitted).

Interestingly I've noticed that a number of shops that previously had
this equipment have now had it replaced with simpler Oyster-only kit -
i.e. there's no printer, it only does Oyster (pay-as-you-go topups and
weekly, monthly or annual Travelcards and bus passes). I have also
seen some shops that are new to selling tickets get this kit. However
they continue to sell Day Travelcards, but they have reverted to using
the manual date stamp method to date the ticket stock. I think that
some of these shops only stock some of the Day Travelcard range - from
the off-peak range, one near me sells z1&2, z1-4 and z1-6 but not z2-6
- I don't know about what Anytime Day Travelcards they stock are (N.B.
the Peak Day Travelcard has now been renamed the Anytime Day
Travelcard to fit in with the NR fares 'simplification').

I can see why this may have happened - the logic being that Oyster is
now the predominant medium for selling 'ticketing products' (most
shops now only sell weekly or longer Travelcards and bus passes on
Oyster), so why maintain a far more complex machine that has moving
parts in it (i.e. the printer) when on the whole it goes unused.
Still, it's a bit annoying as (a) it takes far longer and is more of a
faff for the shopkeeper to issue a Day Travelcard, and (b) it would
seem that at least some shops don't stock the whole range - and
there's always the possibility that they'll be out of stock of the
relevant ticket.

One thing that certainly is annoying is that the new Oyster-only kit

Ticket Stops seem to be on the verge of extinction. There are very few
left on the list at
http://ticketlocator.tfl.gov.uk/geographical-map.asp . Their range of
products is set to reduce with the abolition of bus Saver tickets, and
I believe Bus Passes are to be abolished as a Ticket Stop product.

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 09:09:28 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:


On 17 Sep, 16:08, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:47:26 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T

(snip)

As ever it's difficult to discuss the potential holes in ticketing
without also flagging them up to those who might wish to take
advantage.

I doubt if that particular fiddle is any secret.


By its very nature it can't be a secret - as I said in a post
upthread, working this through is "hardly beyond the realm of most
peoples capacity for logical thought" - however I've never seen or
heard or read about it anywhere, and despite my earlier comment most
people don't spend a lot of time thinking about such things.

That said, any fiddle that relies upon this is fairly limited in its
scope, and what's more it is unknown whether there are any
countermeasures and if so what they are, e.g. if a ticket is pre-
encoded for use on a particular day of the week, or on an odd or an
even date etc etc.

IMU it would have become encoded (in terms of applying a date) the
first time it passed through a ticket barrier at an Underground
station. AFAIAA bus inspectors only have Oyster card readers and Mk1
eyeballs so presumably a 1-day Travelcard would have to be taken to a
station unless someone has been specially armed with a magnetic card
reader.

On 17 Sep, 23:31, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 09:09:28 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T

wrote:

On 17 Sep, 16:08, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:47:26 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T

(snip)

As ever it's difficult to discuss the potential holes in ticketing
without also flagging them up to those who might wish to take
advantage.

I doubt if that particular fiddle is any secret.

By its very nature it can't be a secret - as I said in a post
upthread, working this through is "hardly beyond the realm of most
peoples capacity for logical thought" - however I've never seen or
heard or read about it anywhere, and despite my earlier comment most
people don't spend a lot of time thinking about such things.

That said, any fiddle that relies upon this is fairly limited in its
scope, and what's more it is unknown whether there are any
countermeasures and if so what they are, e.g. if a ticket is pre-
encoded for use on a particular day of the week, or on an odd or an
even date etc etc.

IMU it would have become encoded (in terms of applying a date) the
first time it passed through a ticket barrier at an Underground
station. AFAIAA bus inspectors only have Oyster card readers and Mk1
eyeballs so presumably a 1-day Travelcard would have to be taken to a
station unless someone has been specially armed with a magnetic card
reader.


Yes, I understand all that - I was pondering the notion that whilst
these tickets will not be encoded with a specific date, shopkeepers
might be issued with several batches of tickets - each batch being pre-
encoded so as only to be valid according to some criteria, for example
only on Mondays or only on even or odd dates - therefore the
shopkeeper would have to ensure that whatever ticket they sold to the
customer came from the appropriate batch.

Such a 'countermeasure' would mean that there would at least be an
element of uncertainty introduced over whether a ticket gate would
accept a particular ticket (unless of course the fiddler had worked
out how this scheme worked). Of course the advantages of any such
scheme must be offset against the (hardly unlikely) possibility that a
shopkeeper might get muddled up and issue the wrong ticket stock for a
particular day to a customer, which would mean that quite legitimate
passengers could get caught up in the web of suspicion.

Paul Scott wrote in

Mizter T wrote:
On 16 Sep, 17:23, "Michael R N Dolbear" wrote:

Which brings me to another question on FastTicket machines: SWT
(in

tomorrow. But only Anytime (peak) tickets for tomorrow.

Is this restriction in force in other areas ?

I suppose the fact that Offpeak (and Super Offpeak) tickets and e.g.
Network
Card discounts don't appear on the machines until they become valid
makes it
unlikely they'd appear the night before. Although pre-paid ticket
collection (which I haven't used becasue SWT haven't provided it yet)

presumably provides a way round this??

Yes.

Can anyone report on what tickets machines offer for tomorrow
elsewhere, eg in Southern, SouthEastern and FGW areas ?

--
Mike D

"Michael R N Dolbear" wrote in message
news:01c9198b$b331be60$LocalHost@default...

Paul Scott wrote in

Mizter T wrote:
On 16 Sep, 17:23, "Michael R N Dolbear" wrote:

Which brings me to another question on FastTicket machines: SWT
(in

tomorrow. But only Anytime (peak) tickets for tomorrow.

Is this restriction in force in other areas ?

I suppose the fact that Offpeak (and Super Offpeak) tickets and e.g.
Network
Card discounts don't appear on the machines until they become valid
makes it
unlikely they'd appear the night before. Although pre-paid ticket
collection (which I haven't used becasue SWT haven't provided it yet)

presumably provides a way round this??

Yes.

Can anyone report on what tickets machines offer for tomorrow
elsewhere, eg in Southern, SouthEastern and FGW areas ?

The FGW machine I used the other day wont sell tickets for tomorrow before
3pm. Also, they still don't have Super Off-Peak ODTC's (either on the
machines or on board) so you would be overcharged anyway.