Charles Ellson wrote:
On Sun, 03 Aug 2014 11:17:23 -0500, Recliner
wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:
On Sun, 3 Aug 2014 07:56:16 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 06:17:35 on
Sun, 3 Aug 2014, Charles Ellson remarked:
Can you use your Oyster card for Pay-as-You-Go from London Bridge to
Tundbridge Wells?

Definitely not.

Not according to anything I can see on the NR website (assuming it is
up to date). There doesn't seem to be anything definite announced
since e.g. "A spokesman for Southeastern confirmed: ?We?re in
discussions with Transport for London to extend Oyster into Dartford."
[Kent Online 21 Feb 2014]

Tunbridge Wells being even further away from Greater London and AFAIAA
with a lower thicko count (Dartford seems to have a particular problem
with people unaware that Oyster has geographical limits) might not be
so far up the list for providing Oyster.

The problem with extending Oyster is that it has a very finite number of
price-zones and it's possible these were exhausted when extended to
Shenfield.

I asked TfL's ticketing people, via a Twitter "chat" session, if they
would technically cope with the indicated TSGN franchise plans to
extent Oyster beyond the zones. They said they could. Unfortunately I
can't send you a technical specification to prove this so I imagine my
statement will go on your vapourware list of probably untrue nonsense
;-)

This suggests there is some system capacity left but I imagine there
may also be assumptions about pricing and keeping stations priced on a
consistent basis outside the zones.

If Oyster PAYG is to extend to Dartford that will solve a great many
problems although it might reduce South Eastern's penalty fare income.
It's hardly likely to be a huge problem given Oyster based Freedom
Passes *are* valid to Dartford so there must be some ticketing logic
in the system that allows those cards to be read (I assuming the gates
at Dartford *do* read them - happy to be corrected if actual practice
is different).

I don't think the gates at Dartford do read Freedom passes. After the gate
wouldn't read it, I had to show mine to a person, who let me through.

Roughly comparable to 65+ bus passes used away from their home area ?
I see that 60+ Oyster cards are also valid to/via Dartford.

I think that the 60+ cards have exactly the same benefits as Freedom passes
in the London area, including to places like Dartford just outside the
zones. What they don't get is the buses away from London. And, of course,
you don't (yet) have to be 65 to get a national bus pass.