On Thu, 03 May 2007 13:15:19 -0400, David of Broadway wrote:

you started at - I imagine either the gates would reject your card on
exit (this happens if you enter and then try to leave immediately), or
you'd be charged £8 for two unresolved journeys (one starting at the
station, the other finishing there).

Really? What if you enter the station and then realize that you forgot
something important at home or in the office?

BART (in the San Francisco area) explicitly penalizes this sort of usage
with a so-called excursion fare for exiting from the same station you
entered at, which is IIRC higher than the highest normal fare in the
system. Of course, flat-fare systems neither know nor care -- if I had
lots of money to throw away, I could spend all day in New York entering
and exiting and reentering and reexiting the same station.

Further to my previous reply, there is an article in today's London
Lite (page 17) about this issue. Apparently, the way it works now is
that if you touch in, change your mind about travelling (due to delays
or for any other reason), and touch back out again within 15 minutes,
you are not charged. More than 15 minutes, and you get an £8 charge.
The article goes on to say that an average of 140 people per day are
charged £8 in this way.