London Banter - View Single Post - Oyster PAYG and the Finchley Road / Finchley Rd + Frognal Interchangeproblem.

Paul Corfield · February 25th 08, 05:47 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On Mon, 25 Feb 2008 04:51:12 -0800 (PST), wrote:

[big snip]

I've been shouting at the computer screen while reading your adventures.
What a mess due to lack of proper publicity and decent training.

What I discovered over this weekend was :
Even though you have reached your Oyster Cap for the day you still
need a minimum amount of funds on your card to travel. This minimum
amount is dependent on what station you touch in at and what the
minimum fare from that station is at that time of the day.

This has always been the case but is *never* advertised. It is
completely ridiculous that this information is not made clear to
passengers. The lack of such publicity only results in people getting
confused and needless aggravation for staff - who are told about this
aspect of the system in their information.

I am still to be convinced that Finchley Rd / Finchley Rd + Frognal
is a valid interchange. Staff at West Ruislip , Ruislip and Harrow-on-
the-Hill say that I will get charged twice for the Ruislip-Gospel Oak
journey, while ticket staff at Finchley Road say that I will only get
charged once. I would really like some clarification of this. I have
emailed TFL and am awaiting a response.

As we previously advised it is *not* a valid interchange. West Hampstead
is. I appreciate this is marginally less convenient for your journeys
but it would save you all the hassle you put yourself through.

Staff at West Ruislip, Ruslip, Harrow-on-the-Hill and Finchley Rd
said that I could not travel through Z1 for the £1.00 fare. Clearly if
I had no more than £1.00 on my card before touching in at the start of
my journey ( Ruislip) they have a valid point. But I could have had
say £3.00 on my card at the start, travelled through zone 1 and still
got charged the £1.00 fare ?

The staff saying you cannot travel via Zone 1 are incorrect. It's
perfectly feasible for someone to have a negative balance on their card,
if using PAYG, given the £4 deduction on entry to the system. There is
nothing to suggest that having such a balance or even a low positive
balance prevents you from travelling via zone where the fare is charged
at apparently a non zone 1 price. Until such time as there is a
*choice* of fares and the choice is dependent of routing then people
must be allowed to travel via any logical route.

The Travelwatch document does point to there being more than one fare
per grouped origin / destination pair but I suspect that the use of
ticket gates / validators at Zone 1 terminals will be the deciding
factor in what price to charge. For example Highbury to Richmond but
changing via Vauxhall and exiting LU and entering SWT at that
interchange point. That would show in the card journey history and thus
a higher zone 1 fare would be applied at Richmond.

The fares shakeup on London Overground will definitely address the
issue of routes and the correction of some fare anomalies.
Unfortunately, I am still left with this Finchley Rd / Frognal tube /
London Overground problem. I have many friends who live along the NLL
and beyond so the interchange is very useful and avoids the need to
travel though Central London.

From my reading of the notes of the ticketing discussion it seems the
changes for Overground were rushed and subject to last minute changes.
Let's hope we don't get a repeat for full PAYG ticketing - now
apparently scheduled for March 2010 and not Jan 2009 from something I
read recently. I suspect this is the first of many slippages before we
get to PAYG nirvana.
--
Paul C

Admits to working for London Underground!