View Single Post
  #4   Report Post  
Old March 29th 05, 06:19 PM posted to uk.transport.london
Dave Arquati Dave Arquati is offline
external usenet poster
 
First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,158
Default Strangeness with PrePay capping and topping up

Graham J wrote:
Whilst taveling around London today, I ended up at Tottenham Court Road
with what I assumed to be a Zone 1-4 PrePay ODTC on my Oyster, as well
as a remaining balance of 1.80GBP. Upon trying to touch in however, I
was confronted with an error. I checked my balance and found that I had
only 50p left. After adding 5GBP to the card I tried again.



Interesting :-) I can imagine you being charged £1.30 if you hadn't in
fact been in zone 4 yet (the cap for 1-3 is the same price as 1-4) and it
was charging you for a single covering zones 4,5 and 6 to be refunded later.
However I don't understand why it would charge you but not let you enter.
Surely it should do one or the other?


Was any of the travelling before 0930? The difference between a Z12 peak
and off-peak travelcard is £1.30... although I have no idea why that
would make a difference, it's just an observation!

Trying again yielded the same error; I asked the guy manning the gate
to let me through, and after showing him that it didn't work, he let me
past.



I can understand why you'd get more errors after the first one if it had
already recorded you entering the system. I guess the question is really
what the error numbers were as someone on here would be able to interpret
them.


When I finally touched out at Richmond, my balance was 6.80GBP!



Well that makes sense at least. You would have had the cost of the last
journey refunded.


G.



--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London