"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...
On 3 Jan 2006 11:43:50 -0800, " wrote:

TKD, sorry, I meant Olympia!

Richard, I am confused. If I had a Zone 1 and 2 annual Travelcard, and
converted it to Oyster, that would be vaild on National Rail within
those zones? But not if I have an Oyster but buy 1-day Travelcards on
it? Not only is that illogical but beyond my comprehension - why are
TOCs willing to accept one form of Oyster but not the other?

Travelcards are legally protected products and existed at the time of
privatisation. Therefore the TOCs have no choice and neither does TfL -
the product exists and is protected. Where the ticket medium changes
then the party proposing the change to the medium has to pay. TfL has
done this to the extent that it is required to do - i.e. at its own
outlets and those which can be reasonably be said to be part of the LU
network e.g. Richmond.

However the introduction of Oyster has not removed the possibility of
using magnetic tickets and this is why the TOCs can continue to issue
these tickets. However they are also required to accept the new Oyster
format for Travelcard and for this function TfL funded hand held readers
for TOC revenue inspection staff.

Or is the answer that they simply haven't (for whatever reason)
installed Oyster readers at all stations? And, if that is the reason,
then why doesn't the munificent Ken pay for them to be installed (at
our expense, no doubt)?

The real problem with the One Day product is that TfL has chosen to
implement this facility using Pre-Pay and Capping. While this is fairly
elegant in theory it is, in my view, fairly awful in its execution. By
opting to use a new product and a new concept it causes One Day (capped)
tickets to be outside the scope of the Travelcard agreement. This gives
the TOCs the perfect opportunity to escape the adoption of Pre Pay.
Worse the use of capping also effectively demands the adoption of a
unified zonal fares scheme in order for the scheme to be equitable. If
you simply applied capping to the current fares scales it would be
almost impossible to administer on NR territory given the much higher
fares at certain times and then the greater complexity of off peak
offers.

TfL have offered to fund the introduction of validators, targets on
gates and ticket machine mods. The TOCs are not convinced that their
revenue base will not be adversely affected and as revenue and some
costs are all they control you can understand why. If zonal fares are
ever adopted by the TOCs you can be sure there will be huge compensation
payments sitting in the background.

It's all a mess as far as I can see and was not what was intended when I
was involved with Prestige. The TOCs were unconvinced then and I don't
see that anything has changed to make them any more enthusiastic now.

TfL's publicity on Oyster is woeful and it is no wonder that so many
people are hopelessly confused as to what product is valid where. Even
the most basic rules of the card and its products are not explained in
any of the published fares documents that I have seen. The constant
references to Day Travelcards in connection with Pre-Pay is also wrong
and is something that TfL have already been clobbered about by the ASA.
Why they continue to use the same terms in official publications I do
not know.

On a different issue, supposing I had Oyster prepay to entitle me to
travel between Tottenham Hale and Seven Sisters, but boarded a NR
instead of Underground train and decided to get off at an intermediate
station, what would happen? What, if any, "penalty" would I have to pay
upon exit? Could I really be penalised for SHORTENING my journey?

You would have an unresolved journey as you would be unable to validate
your ticket on exit at the intermediate station. If a revenue inspector
caught you then you would be travelling with an invalid ticket as prepay
is not valid for that journey via National Rail or at the intermediate
point. As someone else has said it is a simple case of not having a
valid ticket - there is nothing unusual in this as there are plenty of
examples of tickets not being valid at particular places at particular
times.

--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Thanks for a sensible explanation of pre pay Oyster wrt National Rail. Other
potential difficulties must be various Railcards, with their huge variety of
rules, and First Class availability on some routes?

Paul