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[email protected] · April 12th 12, 05:24 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:01:17 -0500,
wrote:

[snip]

Thoughts?

Kings Cross is an OSI. Did the other half use the Oyster Card to get
through the FCC gates for the train to Cambridge on the way home?

I very much doubt that. She would only expect to use Oyster on the
Underground and not all the station was even gated then. I suppose it
could have come too close to the gate when using her paper ticket but she
doesn't keep them in the same wallets so that seems a bit unlikely.

Hmm I'd be a bit surprised as the targets don't have a long range and
if the Oyster activated the gate before the mag ticket I guess your
wife would have noticed.

Therefore the system will have expected a subsequent exit and not
seeing one the max fare will have remained deducted rather than having
value added back on. That's the most plausible explanation I can come
up with.

Yes, I understand that possibility but there is the other charge.

It wouldn't be an issue the other way as I assume a paper ticket was
used to exit FCC and then the Oyster card used to start at the tube.

That wouldn't explain the £4.40 charge in the other direction where there
can be no question of any OSI confusion.

Fair comment Colin - I'd missed that. The only "logical" explanation
is that for some crazy reason you've ended up with two incomplete
journeys - one off peak and the other peak time. You've said the card
has only recorded the entries but no exits and as I'm sure you know
the system has levied the entry charges but not added value back to
get to the right fare deduction.

Sounds like it charged the maximum fares on entry but never checked them
out. I must get more detail by the sound of it.

It is obviously possible that gates are left open if there are very
large crowds and both Westminster and KXSP can have such large crowds.
Clearly the targets on the gates should remain live in such
circumstances to allow entries and exits to be recorded properly.
There is no obvious answer within the system that I can think of that
would have caused the problem you encountered.

I doubt that at Westminster. It has gates beyond the dreams of avarice! I've
never seen them open at any time.

It will be interesting to see how TfL deal with your query given the
elapsed time and lack of central records. Only the card will hold the
data unless there have been further journeys that may cause them to be
removed from the card's 10 journey memory.

Sounds like it would be a good idea to get a print out of the Journey
history. We'll be in London at various times next week. I could scan it and
send it in.

--
Colin Rosenstiel