"Tim Roll-Pickering" wrote in message
...
Adrian wrote:

Are the gates able to be flexible and match the distance between
barriers with the time between swiping in?

Who for? Somebody fit and mobile, or somebody elderly and slow who needs a
pee and wants to buy a Standard on his wander?

Good point but equally if someone does makea trip from Chigwell to Chesham are they going to be
charged excess for not touching out within two hours?

The other one that I find chaotic is the extension to travelcard service. A lot of travelcard
holders seem to think that if the gates are open for whatever reason within their zone validity,
or if they're entering the system through national rail, then they don't need to touch in.
Normally this is true but when going out of zone it appears you need to touch in at "journey
start" and return as well as at the gates on your extension, otherwise you get charged the full
incomplete journey whack. I've known a number of people get fines on this without realising it,
not least because their starting point was a national rail station with no fare gates or card
reader and the limited literature they've seen from TfL doesn't explicitly tell them they have to
find and use an onplatform reader at the interchange, or because they've got back to a station
where the gates are open.

This is because season ticket holders using prepay as extensions do not see
themselves as "prepay users". The signage tends to say "prepay users must
touch here" but you have to realise you are a prepay user despite having a
season ticket if you are going beyond the zones on your travelcard.