Mizter T wrote:
Andy wrote:


Actually, I don't think that the system works like this. I have a Zone
1-2 Annual Oyster Travelcard and on occasion I travel to Moor Park. If
I look at the pre-pay journeys, on the website, my 'touching in' in
Zone 2 doesn't appear and I just see the correct amount (GBP1.00 on a
Saturday) deducted upon exiting at Moor Park. Going the other way, GBP
1.00 is deducted on entry at Moor Park and the Exit (in Zone 1) is
marked up as GBP 0.00. The systems seems to be assuming that I have
started the journey within my Travelcard zones and the pre-pay only
comes into play when I touch in/out outside the Travelcard validity.

Bear in mind that this is what is presented to you as a passenger, not
neccessarily what is actually recorded on your Oyster card.

Let's say your journey to Moor Park starts at Finchley Road (zone 2
Underground station) and you have a Z1&2 Travelcard loaded on your
Oyster.

When you touch-in at Finchley Road your card is electronically marked
with zone 2 as your start point - this would be the case whether you
were going out of town to Moor Park or into town to Kings Cross.

Thus when you get to Moor Park and touch-out the system knows how much
extra to charge you - as you already had zone 2 covered which is a
single Z3-6 journey.

If, however, you walked through an open gate at Finchley Road and
didn't touch-in your card would not have an electronic mark recording
your start point.

Thus when you go to Moor Park the system would not know where you've
started your journey, so would not know how to calculate the fare
charged. At the moment, when this occurs the minimum fare from that
station is charged. From 19 November 2006 you will be charged £4.00
(which is a kind of maximum fare). I think it's important to note that
the system will _not_ presume you've come from zone 2 just because you
have a Travelcard loaded on your Oyster.

Yes, but I don't think that the system currently works like that. I
think that, when I touch in at Stockwell (in the journey mentioned) the
card sees that I have a Travelcard and just lets me in, no marking of
info on the card. Then when I touch out, it checks for Travelcard
validity first and then deducts the Zone 3-6 single fare from the card.
I have, in the early days of oysters, done a similar journey where I
couldn't touch in (gates switched off) and only been charged the
'correct' single extension fare. I believe that the current system
makes any Travelcard validity override the need to touch in, this may
change with the GBP4.00 charge being introduced.

The reason that I think that this is the case is that on the southbound
trip, the pre-pay has GBP 1.00 deducted, so obviously knows that I have
a travelcard on the Oyster. I was under the impression that the PAYG
system deducts some money when you touch in and then adds or subtracts
the balance when you touch out. It can't do when touching in within
travelcard validity, so the only touching actually necessary is at the
end.

We'd really need to know what the internal workings of the system are
to see what actually happens though as it is all conjecture until we
do. Maybe I'll try and see what happens if I access the Met line via
Thameslink (Loughborogh Junction is accessible) next time I have to go
out of Zone, so that I don't have to touch in with my Travelcard .


Another thing to note is that if you're just travelling within the
zonal validity of your Travelcard it appears there won't be a
requirement to touch-in and out - so you'll be able to walk through the
open gate at Finchley Road without touching-in and exit through the
gates at Kings Cross without being penalised (this has not yet been
confiemed though).


This I have done in the early days, when gate lines were still getting
turned off due to staff being unfamiliar and more recently when the
police were scanning customers at Stockwell and we got let out of a
side door without passing any oyster readers.


So, for the Ilford - Liverpool Street journey, if it is all on Oyster,
the extension to Liverpool Street should be charged upon exiting, using
the travelcard validity as 'start' point. The Oystercard helpline have
confirmed that this is how the prepay works for extensions out of Zones
1-2, I'd assume that it works the same going in as well.

No - because Oyster PAYG is *not* valid from Ilford (just as it's not
valid from most National Rail stations). Even if you pass through the
gates at Ilford, they will *not* mark your Oyster card - they thus
_do_not_ serve as an entry point onto the PAYG system. If you're making
a journey that has a PAYG element you _need_ to touch-in at the
beginning of the leg of your journey where PAYG is accepted.


Yes, but do you KNOW that the oyster is marked. The evidence doesn't
say that it definately is (at the moment anyway) otherwise I'd would
have a 'touch in' and a 'touch out' which ever way I did my Stockwell -
Moor Park trip. However this only occurs heading into Zone 2, not out
of zone 2.

The gates at Ilford are "dumb" - the only thing they do with an Oyster
card is check whether or not it has a valid Travelcard on it for the
zone the station is in. They have no PAYG intelligence whatsoever. _If_
Ilford was an Underground station the situation would be different - in
that case they would provide an entry point to the PAYG system, and
would electronically mark your card as such. But Ilford is a National
Rail station and PAYG is a definitely not valid from there.


Yes, but, as I've said above, I think that the PAYG logic takes
travelcards into account, otherwise, I'd expect all the details of
Zone1/2 journeys to be listed in my journey history.

Annoying, maybe, but that's the way it is for the moment. (Also
annoyingly) I'm 99.9% certain that everything I've said above is
correct.

I think we need the comments of someone who has the knowledge of how
travelcards combined with PAYG are actually dealt with. My view is that
travelcard holders are currently given the benefit of the doubt as to
where they have entered the system.