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[email protected] · July 6th 11, 07:28 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In article , (Mizter T)
wrote:

wrote:

In article ,
(Paul Scott) wrote:

"Mizter T" wrote:

The most direct route from H&I to Putney is undoubtedly via the
Vic line and Vauxhall, but a non-zone 1 H&I to Putney fare
wouldn't be a completely ludicrous addition to the system.

Indeed if Colin was determined to cut his costs on the journey he
could travel to East Putney on the District Line, and use the pink
validator at West Brompton to 'prove' his route. Confirming your
point that pink validators only work for a subset of possible
journeys, and also suggesting (perhaps) that only the West Brompton
pink validator is relevant to this journey, not those at Willesden
Jn.

It also shows how mad it all is, because it is perfectly feasible
to get to West Brompton via zone 1...

I wanted to grice the whole of the bits of the NLL and ELL I've not
been on before so I wanted to go all the way to Clapham Junction.

Just talked to the Oyster Helpline who ended up ringing me back too.
They say the £1.90 was correct, because of the Clapham Junction to
Putney leg being charged at NR rates.

However, they decided I shouldn't have been charged £1.25 for the
King's Cross to Highbury leg so have refunded that money. As
collecting at an Oyster gate requires an overnight transaction and I
won't be using Oyster tomorrow they have made the refund direct to my
bank account. Is that a new option? Jolly useful if so.

I see *absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever* with the £1.25 charge
for your KXSP to H&I leg - that's how much an off-peak single for a
Railcard holder costs for this journey - look it up if you don't
believe me, it's on this page:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14416.aspx#tkt-tab-panel-8

I agree that the table shows that. But with a railcard I would expect a
Zones 1 & 2 journey to be £1.25, as a King's Cross to Putney fare would be.

Also there's no reason whatsoever why the KXSP to H&I journey
should be conjoined together with the H&I to Putney journey (given
that you exited and then re-entered at H&I)- and indeed no such
conjoining of these two separate journeys occurred.

I rather thought so but I did touch out and immediately in again.

Therefore there's *no need* to refund you - so I will draw a
further conclusion from this (which you won't like at all) which is
that just because the Oyster helpline proffers a punter a refund,
that doesn't actually mean that anything actually went wrong with
how the system charged you. I'll state this clearly now lest you or
others point to this incident as proof that the system gets it
wrong - rather I'm saying that you were charged correctly and the
Oyster Helpline got it wrong by offering you a refund.

You could be right there but they didn't just refund me. They took my
number and rang me back some minutes later. So someone checked it much
more carefully than could be done during a call. Maybe they just thought
that the fact that there is no fare avoiding zone 1 was unfair and this
was a refund they could make as compensation.

Lastly (as you seem to acknowledge) there's nowt wrong with the H&I
to Putney fare being £1.90 - that's the cost of a
Railcard-discounted, off-peak zones 1&2 TfL+NR through fare, as can
be seen here (see the second table for "through fares"):
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14414.aspx#tkt-tab-panel-9

That is where I disagree with you. If there are not-via-zone 1 fares this
seems a reasonable one which should exist. If there is a higher fare for a
zone 2 - zone 1 - zone 2 journey then there really should be a not via
zone 1 fare option.

As an aside, it does feel like you're being a bit petty about what
are really rather small sums of money - now if the system had
charged you incorrectly, that would be a different matter as I'd
agree it'd be about the principle of the matter, but as the system
has charged you correctly I can't see what the problem is, apart
from your apparent desire to do a bit of 'gricing' for the absolute
bare minimum outlay - my take on it is simply that if someone wants
to take a completely roundabout route (and KX to Putney via
Whitechapel, the ELL, NLL and WLL is just that), then really they
shouldn't be too miffed about it setting them back two single fares
instead of one.

However, I guess it's been one way of demonstrating that the Oyster
system does charge people correctly, even if the charging system is
so complex that some of the Oyster Helpline cs bods aren't quite on
top of it all. (A slightly alternative take on that is that the
Oyster Helpline is pretty free and easy when it comes to giving out
refunds, and perhaps it's sometimes more a case of getting a
customer off their back than working through the charges with them
- the point however would remain the same, that just because a
refund is given, it doesn't inherently prove that the original
charges were wrong.)

One thing that would of course help in making it all that bit more
comprehensible would be if there was a single Oyster PAYG tariff
rather than the current arrangement of there being separate TfL
(i.e. Tube & DLR), NR and TfL+NR 'through' journey tariffs. However
getting to that point isn't likely to be remotely easy (see how
long it took for the TOCs to adopt Oyster PAYG universally in
London).

I thought there was. There are tables showing fares for pretty well all
zone combinations so I reasonably thought it applied to my journey and
that making the non-trivial effort to touch the pink validator at
Willesden Junction (try it some time if changing there from a Richmond to
a Clapham Junction train) I decided to pursue the charge.

--
Colin Rosenstiel