On 15 Feb, 16:12, Mizter T wrote:
On 15 Feb, 15:43, Mr Thant
wrote:

On 15 Feb, 15:35, "John" wrote:

Not living within
the TfL area I've only just found out they are allowed to do this i.e.
charge more than the daily price cap, which I consider sharp practice to
say the least, as this means the cap is in fact not the max you can pay.
Is this fact widely known?

I think so. Not touching in and out is considered a potential fraud,
so the £4 charge is a sort-of penalty fare rather than part of the
normal charging regime.

I don't think the fraud argument makes sense, because every single
travelcard journey could involve the same fraud. I think it's a case
of the system charging people because it can. Even if everyone with a
zone 1 - 2 travelcard could be assumed to have nipped off to an
ungated zone 6 station, there is no practical way of charging them for
it.


TfL call it the "maximum cash fare", and it is currently set at £4
which is indeed the maximum you will pay for a single Underground fare
if you buy a cash fare (i.e. buy a paper single LU ticket).

Note that this rises to £5 if one passes through the gates at some
National Rail stations on routes where Oyster PAYG is valid (e.g.
Liverpool Street or Euston) and one fails to touch-out at the end of
the journey or have already failed to touch-in at the start of the
journey.

The logic is simple - the system needs to know where you began and
ended your journey so it can charge you accordingly. If it doesn't
know this, it cannot charge you accordingly, so you get hit with the
maximum fare. As TfL say (on posters, in leaflets and during regular
PA announcements) "always remember to touch-in and touch-out" (though
note that when using buses and trams you only need to touch in) - and
yes, this is a widely known fact, at least within London.



If I failed to spot *them, fair enough, (can anyone confirm this)

They're kind of behind you as you go through the arch into the Central
Line area.

I can also confirm this.



but surely I'm not expected
to pass through the barriers twice when all I wanted to do was change
trains. Can somebody please clarify this.

They've specially provided freestanding readers for people like you at
just about every NR/tube interchange. You're meant to make sure you
use them (even if it means hunting for them) every time you want to
pay for a journey with PAYG.

U

Just a quick message to back up what Mr Thant has said. What I go into
below really is an edge case - I cannot think of any other instances
where standalone Oyster readers are not provided for passengers
interchanging between a paper ticket route and an Oyster PAYG route.


It's not a rare case at all. It's the case at every single
Underground station where someone with a paper travelcard for certain
zones needs to travel to another zone. You have to get off and go to
the exit or else get stung.

Why oh why oh why won't they just sell reasonably-priced extension
tickets to people who can show a paper ticket/travelcard for part of
the journey? The punishment cash fares for not using Oyster won't
teach them any kind of lesson apart from not to use the Underground.



~ ~ ~

The only place I have come across where there are no standalone Oyster
readers within the gated area is at Blackfriars (and by extension at
City Thameslink - see below). Oyster PAYG is valid on the central
section of FCC Thameslink between Elephant & Castle/London Bridge and
West Hampstead (and so is presumably also valid on Southeastern
between E&C and Blackfriars as well).

So if one was arriving at Blackfriars using a paper rail-only ticket
to "London Terminals" and wanted to continue further north then one
would have to exit the gates with the paper ticket and then re-enter
using Oyster PAYG. In fact "London Terminals" tickets are valid on
journeys from points south (only) as far as City Thameslink, so again
if one wanted to change over from a paper ticket to Oyster PAYG there
then they would have to exit the and then re-enter the gates.