On 25 Oct, 12:38, "Graham J" wrote:
And what would happen if I touched in at Brockley, then did nothing
else before touching out at Brockley an hour later?

My understanding of how that situation works with same station entry and
exit may be completely wrong or out of date. *I thought that if you touch in
and back out very quickly *at the same station - something like up to two
minutes - you'll be charged the maximum cash fare (or whatever the correct
term is) but if you then made another entry at the same or another station
within a certain period of time another maximum fare would not be deducted.
So basically it would be assumed you had a genuine reason for coming back
through the gateline quickly (forgotten or dropped something, come in wrong
entrance or something) and were still going to make a journey.

I then thought that if there was a longer period between entry and exit
you'd be charged a single zone fare from that station. Not sure of the
period, something like up to half an hour. *I'm not really sure what the
reasoning behind that one is.

Then I thought for even longer periods, which I would have thought would
include your hour long journey, you'd be considered to have make one journey
without an exit, and then another one without an entry and so be debited
another maximum fare in addition to the one on entry. *Or if your station
has entry/exit validators instead of a gateline you would be considered to
have made one journey without an exit and were now starting another one.

Correct:

Entry then exit at the same station (using one or more gates locked to
either entry or exit):

- 0 to 2.5 minutes between touches: on exit, a "same station exit"
token is written to the card, the balance remains unaffected. So the
initial maximum entry fare is what has been paid at this point. If
the card is used to reenter any rail station within 45 minutes, the
first entry fare is refunded and a new journey is started.

- 2.5 minutes - 30 minutes: on exit, the balance is adjusted according
to the highest station zone, the "journey" is completed:
e.g.
Earls Court entry 7:00 on a Tuesday £6 deducted on entry
Earls Court exit 7:15 same day £4.70 given back on exit (Z2
charge applied)

- more than 30 minutes between entry and exit: another maximum fare
is deducted. If the balance is too low prior to the exit touch, a red
light and "seek assistance" message is presented. If the exit touch
is made at a bidrectional validator (manual side gate for example) in
this scenario, an entry is written to the card (or if the balance is
too low, the entry is rejected).

Entry then exit at the same station: ungated station:

- 0 to 2.5 minutes between touches. Subsequent touches within approx
2.5 minutes of the original entry being written to the card will
simply confirm the entry - the display will read "Enter" but no
balance displayed

- after 2.5 minutes, before 30 minutes. A subsequent touch on a
validator will complete the "journey", an exit written to the card,
and the balance adjusted using the highest station zone.

- after 30 minutes, the validator will write another entry to the card
and deduct another maximum fare. As before, if the balance is too
low, the entry will be rejected, the user sees a red light and "seek
assistance"