Paul Corfield wrote:
On Tue, 09 Oct 2012 12:05:36 +0100, Recliner
wrote:

On Mon, 08 Oct 2012 21:24:25 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:

On Mon, 08 Oct 2012 09:52:17 -0500, Recliner
wrote:

I notice that the Picc has been much disrupted today and it's announced
that tickets are valid on local buses and FCC. But what does this mean to
Oyster card users? Do they have to pay on the day and then claim Oyster
refunds from The Oyster helpline? At best, that's tedious, and I wonder
now many people will bother.

If you are booted out of the tube and ticket acceptance on buses has
been introduced then Centrecomm will radio bus drivers and provide a
code which is entered into the bus ticket machine. This will allow
what I think is called auto completion of the journey where you do not
get charged the bus fare.

Do you have to tell the driver and possibly have a discussion while
boarding, with a queue of other people behind you? What happens if the
bus you take is not from just outside the problem station?

Short answer - don't know. I have certainly seen people explaining to
the driver that they've been kicked off the tube - my local bus
parallels part of the Vic line so it gets hammered if the line is
suspended. Whether the driver did anything special I don't know in
these particular cases. Centrecomm are usually pretty good at getting
radio messages to buses in areas where the tube is disrupted. The
best drivers then use I-Bus to put up a pre-recorded message on the
bus advising of the problem but I digress.

For example, my most recent example was when I worked out that I could
take a different Tube route on other lines to get within one bus ride
of home on a route I know (instead of navigating two or more
unfamiliar bus routes). I boarded the bus several miles from where the
problem was announced, outside a station on a different line. I didn't
bother mentioning this to the driver, who probably would know nothing
of the Tube problem.

Obviously you can end up away from an obvious route depending on how
you design your diversionary route. There's no harm in asking the
driver if a tube ticket / fare is acceptable on their bus. I'm not
sure if radio messages for tube problems are network wide on bus radio
or restricted to certain routes only. I've certainly heard bus
disruption messages for central London being broadcast on buses
running on suburban routes well away from the disruption.

I suppose I was silly not to ask, but it just didn't occur to me. I did at
least reclaim the Tube fare online, due to the extended journey time.