On Jun 17, 4:42*pm, "John Salmon" wrote:

"Mizter T" wrote:
When Oyster PAYG is eventually rolled out across National Rail in
London, then one should be able to buy Travelcards loaded on Oyster
(or indeed just top-up Oyster PAYG) at station ticket offices (not
sure about any plans for modifying self-service ticket machines). Then
one simply needs to buy the required Travelcard on Oyster, and voila -
problem solved. Except if you don't want your Travelcard to be on
Oyster, in which case whatever.

As a matter of interest, is it known whether the current situation with
respect to One-day (specifically Zones 1-6) Travelcards will remain when
Oyster PAYG is rolled out across National Rail in London, i.e. will it still
not be possible to load a One-day Travelcard on Oyster but will the same
effect (with a small discount) still be achievable by using PAYG? *I often
use a Travelcard on day trips to London, but at the moment I can't sensibly
use Oyster PAYG on these occasions because much of my travel tends to be on
National Rail - or, to be more precise and to anticipate any pedantic
replies, it tends to be on the parts of National Rail on which Oyster PAYG
is not currently accepted.

It's unclear exactly how things will transpire, however I find it hard
to imagine Day Travelcards - that is, stnadalone tickets sold on paper/
card - being totally withdrawn.

A few thoughts - at the moment it seems quite possible that the
farescale used for PAYG on NR in London will simply match the current
pan-London NR farescale, which was introduced across all TOCs in 2007
and prices fares for London rail journeys on a zonal basis (though
tickets are still issued on a point-to-point basis). *If* this is how
things turn out, then it'll be interesting to see if there might be
two capping levels - a slightly cheaper (i.e. 50p less) one for TfL-
only journeys, and one that precisely matches the Day Travelcard price
when there are also NR journeys made.

Other options would be the slightly cheaper daily capping rates being
abandoned, or for there to only be one capping level inclusive of NR
journeys which remained as 50p cheaper than the quasi-equivalent Day
Travelcard.

However, whilst it's certainly not impossible to imagine inboundary
Day Travelcards being withdrawn altogether - logic being that PAYG
with daily capping does the same job - I doubt that will come to pass.
Day Travelcards would remain attractive to visitors and other Oyster-
less folk - if there wasn't an easily accessible day pass for public
transport in London available for all comers then someone would want
to invent one!

Also, being a bit cynical, I suspect that the TOCs won't really
promote Oyster PAYG all that much, quite unlike TfL - the logic being
that the TOCs have to wait for PAYG-derived monies to filter through
the revenue reconciliation system (or whatever one should call it),
whereas with 'normal' rail ticket sales they'd get it quicker through
the RSP system (in effect I think they get the money instantly over
the counter and then have to reconcile things later - with Oyster
PAYG, money handed over for Oyster top-ups would have to go to the
'Bank of TfL' more or less immediately).

The one thing I can perhaps imagine happening is that the many
newsagents and other shops that sell TfL ticketing products (which are
called "Oyster Ticket Stops") might perhaps stop selling Day
Travelcards. In ye olden days, they issued them (plus season
Travelcards and bus passes) by simply stamping a date on the
appropriate pre-printed ticket stock. Then, in the mid/late 90's, they
got turquoise machines that printed tickets - these were also 'Oyster-
ready'. In the last year or so these have been phased out and replaced
by simply Oyster pad arrangements (AIUI internally they are known as
"Pearls") which are I think just connected to an appropriate/
compatible EPOS machine - point being, the printing mechanism has
disappeared. So shopkeepers are back to using a date stamp and ink to
put the date on pre-printed Day Travelcards - though they sell fewer
of them these days now that Oyster PAYG is around. When Oyster PAYG
eventually goes live on NR in London, I can see why TfL might want to
ditch offering this.


How, if at all, will Outboundary One-day Travelcards fit into this scenario?

They'd be unaffected.

In article
,
(Capt. Deltic) wrote:

Under a £56.7 million deal funded by Df,T Prestige, the system which
runs Oyster cards, is being made ITSO compliant. This is known as
ITSO on Prestige (IoP)

So gates and readers on London Overground, Underground and buses, LRT
etc will be able to process ITSO compliant smart cards.

BUT, the functionality of the smart card will be limited to that of a
mag-stripe ticket..

This is a blatant plug for the next Column.

Hmm. thinks I must look more carefully for subtle plugs!

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 17 June, 12:08, "Paul Scott"
wrote:
In a GoVia press release on the new SN franchise there is a small section
(that I've edited) about ticketing:

http://www.govia.info/press/goviaSCpn.doc

"Fares and ticketing
*Introduction of an ITSO-certified Smartcard ticketing system across the
network by January 2012
Introduction of Oyster Pay As You Go
Multi-modal Pay As You Go ITSO Smartcard for Crawley/Gatwick and Brighton,
working in partnership withMetrobusand Brighton and Hove Buses
respectively"


Another issue is likely to be whether to charge flat fares on buses,
or graduated fares. The latter will require either touching out on
alighting, or stating the destination to the driver before
validating.

"MatthewD" wrote in message
...
Multi-modal Pay As You Go ITSO Smartcard for Crawley/Gatwick and
Brighton,
working in partnership withMetrobusand Brighton and Hove Buses
respectively"


Another issue is likely to be whether to charge flat fares on buses,
or graduated fares. The latter will require either touching out on
alighting, or stating the destination to the driver before
validating.


Brighton & Hove buses are very close to being flat single fares already, and
the other fares available from the drivers lend themselves to a capping
model similar to Oyster PAYG. I suspect they would either abolish the few
exceptions, or make it flat rate smartcard + paper tickets for the
exceptions.

D A Stocks

On Sat, 4 Jul 2009 08:30:27 -0700 (PDT), MatthewD
wrote:

Another issue is likely to be whether to charge flat fares on buses,
or graduated fares. The latter will require either touching out on
alighting, or stating the destination to the driver before
validating.

Singapore use touch out on alighting. It seems to work OK - the way
it works is that when you board the maximum fare is deducted from the
card, then when touching out there is a refund if required.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

Paul Corfield wrote

Singapore use touch out on alighting. It seems to work OK - the way
it works is that when you board the maximum fare is deducted from
the
card, then when touching out there is a refund if required.

True but the system is very clever in that it is linked to GPS and
switches off the exit validators until you are very close to the
stop.
This almost removes the possibility of people validating an exit and
not
actually getting off. The fact that interchange discounts are also
given
[...]
While I think the Singapore set up is neat I struggle to see how on
earth it could apply to the UK and particularly to London. We (LT)
did
spend a lot of time looking to see if we could reliably operate multi
fare pay as you go on buses with only entry validation or whether
exit
validation (passively or actively) was viable. The conclusion was
that
it couldn't work with the technology on offer at that time. It's
possible things have advanced but I remain skeptical about the odds
of
success.

As I have previously noted, putting the touch out devices outside at
bus stops rather than inside the bus doesn't require more advanced
anything. Thus in Tfl terms a surcharge would be added on entry, say on
all routes that go outside the zones. Boxes would be installed at all
bus stops on line of route which would refund the surcharge on touching
out if the stop is within the zones.


--
Mike D

On Jul 4, 8:29*pm, (Neil Williams)
wrote:
On Sat, 4 Jul 2009 08:30:27 -0700 (PDT), MatthewD

wrote:
Another issue is likely to be whether to charge flat fares on buses,
or graduated fares. The latter will require either touching out on
alighting, or stating the destination to the driver before
validating.

Singapore use touch out on alighting. *It seems to work OK - the way
it works is that when you board the maximum fare is deducted from the
card, then when touching out there is a refund if required.


Singapore is a small, tightly managed state. The way they do things
largely doesn't translate to here, in particular touch out.

Capt Deltic is right when he writes "the functionality of the [ITSO]
smart card will be limited to that of a
mag-stripe ticket" in the context of his article in MR July issue,
namely the initial method for using the ITSO method for a ticket into
London followed by one or more journeys onwards by TfL services from
the heavy rail terminus, and in reverse when leaving London. It is the
80/20 rule: it is often relatively easy to satisfy 80% of the
travellers in a simple and effective manner with a ticketing system,
but the rest...

On 4 Jul 2009 23:13:36 GMT, "Michael R N Dolbear"
wrote:

As I have previously noted, putting the touch out devices outside at
bus stops rather than inside the bus doesn't require more advanced
anything. Thus in Tfl terms a surcharge would be added on entry, say on
all routes that go outside the zones. Boxes would be installed at all
bus stops on line of route which would refund the surcharge on touching
out if the stop is within the zones.

Though it might create an issue where people for whatever reason (e.g.
traffic conditions) end up leaving not at the stop.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On Sat, 4 Jul 2009 23:32:05 -0700 (PDT), ticketyboo
wrote:

Singapore is a small, tightly managed state. The way they do things
largely doesn't translate to here, in particular touch out.

I'm not sure that is true. Making sure people touch out can be
enforced by charging a maximum fare on boarding and refunding back on
alighting, so there is a pecuniary disadvantage to not touching out

There is, as Paul states, the potential issue of people touching out
and not alighting, but that applies equally to a paper ticket system
where you can buy the cheapest ticket and ride further, and can't be
that much of a problem or bus companies would use more inspectors to
catch people out doing it or move en-masse to flat fare, both of which
Stagecoach and First appear to show no interest in.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On Jul 5, 4:00*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:19:16 GMT, (Neil

Williams) wrote:
On Sat, 4 Jul 2009 23:32:05 -0700 (PDT), ticketyboo
wrote:

Singapore is a small, tightly managed state. The way they do things
largely doesn't translate to here, in particular touch out.

I'm not sure that is true. *Making sure people touch out can be
enforced by charging a maximum fare on boarding and refunding back on
alighting, so there is a pecuniary disadvantage to not touching out

Well we have that in London and it seems to cause no end of difficulty
in terms of people understanding it, accepting it and generally
recognising that something had to be done to stop the situation that
existed in the beginning where only the minimum fare was deducted on
entry.

There is, as Paul states, the potential issue of people touching out
and not alighting, but that applies equally to a paper ticket system
where you can buy the cheapest ticket and ride further, and can't be
that much of a problem or bus companies would use more inspectors to
catch people out doing it or move en-masse to flat fare, both of which
Stagecoach and First appear to show no interest in.

I suspect it is much more to do with the basic cost structure in these
companies - they simply don't employ revenue inspectors because they
cost too much. If some of the punters are ripping them off they simply
shove the fares up for everyone else. *I also doubt that Stagecoach and
First are alone in taking the axe to things like revenue staff and
inspectors who manage the service. I've read that there are now "lead
drivers" who are saddled with driving and supervising their colleagues
as well as other ancillary management tasks. *Part of the reason for
some of TfL's extra costs for the bus network is that they have people
managing bus stations and pay for the operators to have people out and
about actually managing the bus service.
--
Paul C

Paul, you put it very well.