MIG wrote:

On Jan 25, 9:31pm, Mizter T wrote:

two long, comprehensive posts cut

The idea of a rebate if one transfers to another bus is an interesting
one - there are occasionally discussions here about whether free bus
transfers in London would be a good idea , perhaps instead a half-
price second bus fare might be an idea. The idea of free bus travel
before or after using the Underground also gets raised from time to
time - for a bus to Tube transfer this would take the form of a
rebate, applied on exit from the Tube.

On this particular point, I am not quite sure what the situation
currently is anyway.

If, for example, you touch on route 555 and it breaks down or stops
short so that you get the next bus on route 555 where you get
inspected ...

You're supposed to get a transfer ticket from the driver of the first
bus. I think they scan your Oyster to check that you have properly
paid the fare before issuing you with a transfer ticket. If you have a
paper ticket bought on board the bus then again I understand the
proceedure is that a transfer ticket should be obtained.

I don't know whether transfer tickets are supposed to be issued when
the bus was advertised as stopping short of the normal destination.

I have also been on a bus which was turned short by a service
controller, and all passengers were merely escorted from one bus to
the other (which was just in front) by that controller without any
rechecking of tickets by the second driver - we were just waved on -
which of course is a sensible course way of doing things in such an
event.

A friend has also told of a couple of recent-ish occasions when the
bus they were on was turned short without a service controller present
(late in the evening) - so I presume the instructions were issued by
radio - and they didn't obtain a transfer ticket, but merely got on
the bus behind and after a quick explanation were waved on by the bus
driver. The fact that the other bus that had been turned short was
still in the bus stop would have helped this second bus driver realise
what was going on - and of course they may have also had radio
communications about it.

That does sound like an occasion when transfer tickets should have
been issued/obtained - but the truth is most passengers aren't aware
of the transfer ticket system. I think perhaps it would be a good idea
if bus drivers were more upfront in communicating this to passengers.

When it comes to bendy buses, then I don't know whether technically
the rules are any different. However I have certainly been on bendy
buses a number of times that have been turned short, and when this has
happened and I've paid using Oyster PAYG I've simply got on the next
bendy bus of the same route number and not touched-in. I think this is
absolutely fine given that I had already paid for a journey to
destination Z yet I'd only been taken as far as Y. I'm pretty sure
I've had my ticket inspected after this has happened and there wasn't
a problem. I don't recall anyone obtaining transfer tickets from the
bendy bus driver on such occasions either.

I don't know what the situation is when a bendy bus is only advertised
as going so far, but not to the normal end point of the route - though
on such occasions I really don't think it would be an issue if
passengers transferred from the terminating bus to one behind that was
going all the way. I may have done this myself, I really can't
remember. Next time I see some RPIs on board a bus I shall ask them.



Does each bus have its own ID so that the inspector can tell that you
touched on that particular bus, or does the reader just show that you
touched on route 555 within the allowed time?


I've no idea - I'd be interested to know what the situation was. Each
bus ticket machine (or ETM - Electronic Ticket Machine?) must of
course have a serial number of some kind which is recorded on an
Oyster card when it is touched-in.

I've seen RPIs using different handheld Oyster readers, and I
understand some are more sophisticated than others, and so can display
more comprehensive data. The typical handheld Oyster reader I see used
looks much like a pocket calculator, and has a small LCD text display
and also a red and green light. I presume that it is programmed with a
few parameters, such as what bus route the RPI is inspecting, and it
then gives a green or red light when the Oyster card is inspected.
I've seen someone get done because they didn't have enough PAYG
credit, and the RPI was able to display the last time the Oyster had
been used properly - in this instance on a bus the previous day.


In general, unlimited travel for a period of time is easier to enforce
than a (possibly unjust) charge per vehicle regardless of distance.
(I remember a combination of metro and bus being allowed in Lille in
the 1980s within an hour of clunking the ticket.)


Hmm, maybe. Of course the London bus fare model is the same as in
(much of) the rest of the UK, where in essence one pays a fare for a
journey on one particular bus. It can serve as an incentive to
passengers to get a through bus for their journey, rather than
chopping and changing which one could argue slows things down. That
said of course so many people are using passes or will expect to reach
a daily cap when using Oyster PAYG that this only works to an extent.
Nonetheless, when I've been using Oyster PAYG I've certainly waited
for my through bus, and I know many others who do the same, because I
don't see the need to pay the extra for a second fare for that
journey.

Whether there should be free or reduced rate transfers to another bus
is of course a discussion that often comes up on utl.


Whatever the answer about bus IDs, it must be impossible to enforce on
the DLR and, in fact, why should you be charged double on your journey
from Shadwell to Greenwich just because you want to do some shopping
at Canary Wharf Tescos on the way (within the time)? If you drove,
you wouldn't use double the petrol.


I think the rules are pretty clear that one should touch-out at the
end of the journey, and touch-in before you start the next - so in the
case of leaving Canary Wharf DLR station to go shopping at Tesco's one
is leaving the DLR network and should touch-out.

That said, I'm of the fairly strong suspicion that if you did this you
would still only get charged for one through journey. My reasoning for
this is that the Oyster readers at DLR stations cannot determine
whether or not you are entering or leaving the network with certainty,
unlike entrance and exit gates. Therefore I think that they might well
presume you were touching-in mid journey when you changed from one DLR
train to the other.

I'm curious about that, not least because it is very much a real world
scenario, so I will try to give it a go myself sometime soon.