London Banter - View Single Post

Mizter T · **London Overground from 11 Nov 2007**

wrote:

On Nov 15, 1:16 am, Mizter T wrote:
MIG wrote:

(big snip)

Refusing to put one-day travelcards on Oyster in general, not
necessarily by the means suggested above, seems to be pure
obstructiveness. If the argument works for period travelcards, it
works for one-day travelcards.

But the day ticketing product on an Oyster card is daily price
capping, whilst there is no weekly or monthly price capping product -
and as has been discussed before on here that would be practically
impossible to implement.

Please tell me what on earth would be gained by being able to load a
Day Travelcard onto an Oyster card?

OK, so you could pass through ticket gates a bit easier - not a good
enough reason.

So you don't have to arrive at Watford Junction at least half an hour
early for your train so you can buy a ticket. If you absolutely must
catch a particular train (e.g. you're catching a mainline train from
KX) then you need to allow 45 minutes. (Most of the time you get
served within about 15 mins but every now and again there is somebody
at the only window that is open planning their "lets visit every
mainline station in the UK" journey.

Sounds distinctly like a ticket selling problem at Watford Junction.
It really sounds as though London Midland need to pull their finder
out and provide better facilities here, like more staff and more
ticket machines.

I'd be happy if I could buy the ODTC online on my oyster ahead of
arriving at WJ. I wouldn't even mind if I couldn't use my PAYG balance
to pay for it. And if I do want to go out of the travelcard zones I
wouldn't mind getting charged the PAYG journey I've just made (i.e.
from start to finish, not boundary Z6 to finish). After all, at the
moment if I've got a paper travelcard and want to do that I'll have to
remember to use PAYG to enter otherwise I'll get the 4GBP unresolved
journey and no cap. With everything on oyster I can't forget to do
that.

I can see the problem for a Watfordite who might wish to travel out
from Watford Jn and return to Watford Met or indeed another Met line
station. As of January all the stations on the stopping line up to
Watford High Street will join the Met line extremities will in being
part of the zonal system (I'll post a new thread about this shortly) -
but Watford Jn will stay outside, presumably at the insistence of
London Midland who wish to protect their revenues (which might be a
bit better if they could manage to sell people tickets quickly!).

Infact, what I'd really like is to be able to put ANY ticket onto my
oyster. I'm going to Durham, I get my tickets sent through the post.
Why not just have them put on my oyster instead. Of course, this isn't
practical at the moment because neither the trains or the stations are
set up to handle oyster but that excuse doesn't hold for WJ.

Well, this will seemingly become possible in the new and exciting
world of smartcard ticketing. Many of the TOCs now have to provide for
ITSO based smartcard ticketing as part of their franchise agreement.

The only other thing I can think of is if you wanted to leave open the
possibility for making out-of-zone journeys and use AYG to pay for
them - i.e. someone buys a Z1&2 Day Travelcard on Oyster, and suddenly
later in the day decides they want to go out to Heathrow, so they can
and the excess is paid for via PAYG.

So someone decides to go around Z1&2 on their oyster and then suddenly
decides they want to go out to WJ. They can't buy a boundary Z2 to WJ
extension to use with a PAYG oyster.

In that scenario the person could go to H&W on a fast train, then
onwards from H&W to WJ on either a stopping London Overground service
or on a fast Southern train.

This all basically comes down to London Midland choosing not to accept
Oyster PAYG on their services between H&W and Watford Jn. But are lots
of TOCs who don't accept Oyster PAYG at all on their routes and so
passengers would encounter similar situations if they wanted to make a
spontaneous journey.

For example if someone who'd reached a Z1&2 PAYG daily cap on their
Oyster card suddenly decided they wanted to go to East Croydon,
Bromley South or Kingston upon Thames then they'd encounter
fundamentally the same situation . If they could have envisaged making
such a journey at the start of the travels, they'd have bought a Z1-6
Day Travelcard - however if it is a spontaneous decision they'd need
to buy a paper ticket.

At least in the case of a journey up to Watford Jn then a passenger
has the option of doing it all on Oyster PAYG, albeit via a slower
route (the Overground from H&W to WJ).

I don't understand why anybody would want to buy a Z1&2 day travelcard
on PAYG given that you already have that option (infact slightly
cheaper) by using price capping. The only thing I can think of that
would change there is that you wouldn't get a 4GBP fare if you didn't
touch in or out somewhere.

Well, I don't agree with your proposal for Day Travelcards on Oyster
but I do have to point out that a Z1&2 Day Travelcard is far from
being made obsolete by Oyster daily price capping - there are plenty
of rail routes (in particular in south London) in zones 1 and 2, and
hardly any accept Oyster PAYG. I wish they did, but they don't (yet!).
Hence a Z1&2 Day Travelcard will get you on all of them.

But I'm really only talking about people starting at WJ. People
starting at Watford High street through Hatch End will probably take
the DC line to H&W so oyster already works for them. I suppose WHS
people might decide to go North to WJ and then take the fast train
which presumably would be allowed if PAYG oyster was accepted on the
fast train but not with a WHS travelcard.

Tim.

Basically it principally sounds like there are two issues/problems -
(1) the poor ticket selling facilities at WJ, and (2) London Midland
refusing to accept Oyster PAYG from Watford Jn. Perhaps if enough
noise was made London Midland might manage to resolve at least one of
these.

The question of what happens if a passenger doubles-back when using
Oyster PAYG is an interesting one. This could happen if a passenger
travels north from Watford High St to WJ so they could catch the
Southern train to Clapham Jn. However I'd expect this to be charged
the same as a direct Watford High St to CJ journey as the system would
be unaware of whether the passenger had gone via WJ or not. The only
way this might not be the case is if there is a specific instruction
at WJ for pax transferring between LO and Southern to touch on a
reader, which sounds a bit complicated and hence unlikely.

Thus I agree, Watford High St to (say) Clapham Jn via WJ must surely
be regarded as a valid journey on Oyster PAYG, and if London Midland
started to accept Oyster PAYG would have to be regarded as a valid
journey too, whilst a Day Travelcard from Watford High St will mean
the passenger can't do this.

The question of doubling-back on Oyster PAYG (or indeed on printed
single tickets) has already existed on LU - for example Neasden pax
might decide to double-back to Wembley Park on the Jubilee so as to
catch a Met line train (and I'm sure a few people must do this). I
wonder whether that is actually allowed?

To address your ultimate point about Day Travelcards on Oyster, you
will not be surprised to hear I am very much unconvinced and remain
hostile to the idea! I can see it'd be useful in the specific case of
WJ, but overall it'd just add a lot of unneeded confusion and
complexity. There's no chance of it happening either - TfL are very
keen to push Oyster PAYG (and hence daily price capping) on to the
railways, and your proposal would counteract that effort.

I think I'm right in saying that Watford was one of the areas
considered for inclusion into the new Greater London area that was
created in 1965, and this was fought by proud Watfordians who didn't
want to get swallowed up into this behemoth. If it had been, then we
wouldn't have any of these problems about Watford Junction fares - so
perhaps you can blame those who made influenced and made this decision
back in the early 60's!