(Apols for the lack of brevity in the post that follows!)

I don't live down that way, but my dentist (an old family friend)
practises in Croydon, so every six months or so I take the opportunity
to complement my polish and scale with picking up bits and bobs in the
department stores down that way (which are in the town centre - Ikea is
'out' on the Purley Way, alongside the other warehouse style stores, so
a trip to Ikea is not really a trip to Croydon). Plus I've had other
connections with the area over time.

Croydon is also the tenth largest town in England (if you regard the
whole London Borough of Croydon as the town), and the "sixth largest
commercial office location" - according to
http://www2.newsquest.co.uk/local_london/croydon/today/.

If it sounds like I'm in love with the place, I'm not! Just pointing
out that in transport terms it's an important 'satellite town' of
London. It can have a bit of a provincial feel, though it is still
relatively cosmopolitan. I wouldn't recomment the centre of Croydon as
a location for a night out though, unless you have a particular
penchant for Yates's Wine Bar and the like.


Dave Arquati wrote:
The application of Oyster to the trams seems a bit messed up compared
to other modes. It would be more intuitive to either be touch in on
boarding (like buses) or touch in and touch out at the platform (like

the Tube). I know if the latter were the case, people could go off
and
do their shopping and get back on the tram without officially leaving

the system, but it seems as though they can do that anyway under the
current system. There could be something stopping you touching in and

out at the same station after time interval X.

I don't think I agree that the Oyster implementation is 'messed up' on
Tramlink. The rest of what I say assumes we're talking about Oyster
pre-pay, given that if you have a valid season ticket on your Oyster
card you need not touch in *.

First off I don't see the need to touch-in and touch-out - given that
the system uses a flat fare (the same fares as a bus). If it used a
more complex fare structure (as it did when it opened, in pre-Oyster
days) then touching in and out would be neccessary, but hopefully this
will never be the case as IMO flat fares (at least for buses and trams)
are a 'good thing'. Also, the faffing about having to touch-out would
annoy passngers (it'd certainly annoy me), people would forget and at
busy traqm stops the scramble to get to the platform Oyster reader when
a busy tram emtied out would be silly and perhaps unsafe.

So, if all a passenger needs to do is touch-in the choice is between
having Oyster readers on the platform or on the tram itself. The trams
are similar in a sense to the bendy buses where you touch-in on board
the bus, but there are some differences between these scenarios. All
the tram stops have next-tram indicators (which are always accurate,
unlike London Buses' countdown system which, whilst useful, doesn't
always pick up on all the buses due to arrive shortly, and gives ETA's
that can be a bit out), so tram passengers can make informed decisions
about whether to pay for a journey by touching-in on the platform. Tram
platforms are also, at leats notionally, compulsory ticket areas. The
tram stops are all also well maintained as an integral part of the
system. There are also the drawbacks of a system where the Oyster
readers are on board, such as congestion in the area of the carriage
where the readers are located, the possibility of many people moving
about the tram carriages to touch-in, and the potential for a scramble
to touch-in whenever inspectors board the tram from those who would
otherwise evade the fare.

The counter-question could be asked thus - why bendy bus routes don't
have Oyster readers at the bus stops as opposed to on the bus. At the
moment when using pre-pay passengers have to touch in at the drivers
door, which does mean that the type of opportunistic fare-evasion
described above (touching-in when inspectors board) is less likely, but
it does cause congestion at the front of a busy bendy bus (I ride them
often and am well aware of this). Thankfully bendy buses will have
Oyster readers near all the three doors later this year, a blessed
relief for many pre-pay users (when I'm not a Bus Pass-er I'm an Oyster
pre-payer), which obviously opens up the possibility for such
fare-evasion again - though I guess the driver could perhaps have a
button to hit to disable the readers as soon as the inspectors board.

I have wondered why the roadside ticket machines on bendy bus routes
didn't also incorporate an Oyster reader, to avoid the problems of
on-board Oyster validation - such a system would be the same as
touching-in at a tram stop (plus the roadside ticket machine could also
be used to top-up pre-pay and possibly load period bus passes onto
Oyster cards).

There are good reasons against this implementation - the lack of
countdown displays at all bus stops (or the cost of installing them)
and the innacuracies of countdown would mean people might pay for a bus
journey they never actually make (if the bus took too long), the
possibility of a scamble to validate Oyster cards when a bus did appear
on the horizon, the possibility of vandalism to Oyster readers (tram
stops are all monitored by CCTV, unline all bus stops), and the fact
that newsagents who sold TfL tickets (so called 'Ticket Stops') might
object that they're business was being taken away by a roadside machine
that could top-up Oyster pre-pay.

I think the implementation on the tram system is suited to the way the
system works and is used. The implementation of Oyster on bendy buses
meanwhile, whilst not perfect, is the best that can be done given the
limiting factors.

Finally, just to clarify how the Oyster system works on Tramlink (since
the introduction of capping in February). Your pre-pay is valid for 70
minutes after touching in at a tram stop (ot 'T' prefixed tram-feeder
buses). If you change trams (or from a tram to a 'T' route bus or
vice-versa), the second journey is free within 70 minutes as long as
you touch-in on the platform reader at the interchange point. This
would seem to explain why Chris gets a free journey. I guess the system
designers presume most people can't go to Ikea and get out of it within
an hour or so! In terms of revenue it means they lose out, but until
the Oyster card interfaces with a passengers brain to work out their
intentions, there's not a lot that can be done about it.

You could say that if the system was really smart then it could work
out from the direction of travel (determined by which platform you
touch-in on) whether you were continuing your journey or if you were in
fact making a return journey. However, this is not a realistic
porposal, as some tram stops have island platforms (so the reader
wouldn't know if you were going one way or the other), and the
publicity advises passengers that if a reader is broken they should use
another one, on the other platform if needed.

It seems designing ticketing systems that are workable is not a simple
business.