On May 14, 5:08*pm, "Dr. Sunil" wrote:
On 14 May, 16:40, Matthew Dickinson
wrote:

TfL plan to extend Oyster Pay As You Go acceptance to Shenfield &
Cheshunt when the Greater Anglia franchise is renewed.

See page 7 ofhttp://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/corporate/Item08-LR-MD-Report-...

Shenfield fits in well with Crossrail, but the Hertford East branch
would be an annoying omission if FCC acceptance eventually extends to
its inner suburban boundary at Hertford North.

It would be nice if Oyster were extended to all stations within the
perimeter bounded by Amersham and the "London" Airports in the sticks
- Gatwick, Luton and Stansted. But I'm probably thinking decades into
the future!

I've always thought that reinstating/building a line from Broxbourne
to Rickmansworth would be worthwhile.

Heading west, first improve the Hertford East branch, then reinstate
Hertford East to Cole Green. Next, swing south to be able to run
through Hatfield Station. Reinstate Hatfield to St Albans, with a bit
of realignment south of St. Albans Abbey to enable a through route,
then improve the Abbey line to Watford. Add an underpass to the DC
lines, then run/take over the Croxley Link and Watford branch of the
Met to Rickmansworth.

All of that would be viable for operation using Oyster (as it would
run between the outer boundaries of its validity), perhaps with
Rickmansworth(CML), Watford(WCML), St. Albans(MML), Hatfield(ECML),
Hertford North(ECML) and Cheshunt(WAML) in zone 9, and the lines
between them in a zone 10. Perhaps these major stations could be in
zone 9+10, but having them separate is a practical way of extracting
more (multi-zone) revenue from those using the lines for longer
journeys, whilst having the local fares low enough to encourage use.
More likely, I suspect, more zones would be required to hike the fares
for distance travellers though. I'd be interested what other could
come up with that worked in a fairer way.

I also looked into the timings, and I think you could happily travel
between each of the major stations in about 16 minutes, so end to end
would be about 16+16+16+16+16 = ~80 minutes. To do said trip currently
would take, (according to NRE), 113 minutes, go through zone 1, and
cost £15.70, which I'm certain could be beaten by Oyster-ised prices.