Dave Newt wrote:

I've got an Oyster monthly pass, so no problem there.
My gf has an Oyster pre-pay, since she doesn't live in London.

On Saturday, we were going from Central London back to Walthamstow and
since the Victoria Line has the (almost permanent!) hiatus in the middle
at the moment, I suggested getting the One from Liverpool Street to
Walthamstow.

When we got to St James's Street, I suddenly hit upon the bright idea of
getting off there, so I could walk to Sainsbury's on the way home.

As soon as we got on the platform and off the train, I remembered that
although PrePay is valid Walthamstow to Liverpool Street, it's NOT
actually valid to or from any intermediate stations so her Prepay would
almost certainly have some problem.

In the end, she walked all the way up to Walthamstow herself and touched
out to resolve the journey.

What would have been taken off her prepay if she hadn't taken the 15
minute walk to Walthamstow to do this?

There are no readers at St James's Street and the lack of any ticket
machines that offer Oyster meant that there was no way of checking
(since the ticket office is ALWAYS either closed or has a huge queue).

As she'd travelled from a terminal (i.e. Liverpool St) she'd be charged
£5 if she hadn't touched out and 'completed' her journey, so the walk
was worth it!

See the bottom of page 23 of the TfL fares guide [1] for this
explaination...

-----
Using your pay as you go on some of these services:

When you touch your Oyster card on the reader at the start of your
journey, a charge of £5.00 - the average National Rail fare paid for
a journey in Greater London from that station - will be deducted from
your balance. When you touch your Oyster card on the reader at the end
of your journey, the charge will be adjusted so that you only pay the
advertised fare for your journey.
-----

The text says "some of these services" - so far this policy only
appears to have been implemented on journey to/from mainline terminals
- there are posters at these terminals to this effect. This policy
presumably also applies when someone hasn't touched-in and only touches
out.

The reason for the policy is pretty obvious - it is intended to prevent
abuse of the Oyster system and stop fare-evaders from using Oyster
Pre-Pay to 'just get pass the gates'. Normally when someone doesn't
touch-in or out on the Tube network they only get charged the lowest
fare from that station, though of course TfL may change this in the
future to stop abuse similar to the scenario described above.

I don't dissaprove of this policy whatsoever, but I do wonder if
there's a solid legal basis for it happening. I suspect that the laws
regarding transport ticketing contain a good few holes with regards to
smartcard tickets (such as Oyster), as obviously they weren't written
with them in mind. It would take an accused person to challenge a
prosecution in court to further explore and possibly resolve any such
legal issues of course, and I don't think there's been anything of the
sort since Oyster has been introduced.


[1] TfL Fares guide - direct link to page 23 (PDF document)
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tick...06.pdf#page=12