On 28 Apr, 00:47, MIG wrote:
I've got some queries that might take a bit of working out and could
take a bit of time and money to test.

The PAYG fare from the southern end of the DLR to Bethnal Green (zone
2) is £1, which presumably means that it is assumed to involve going
via Stratford.

Indeed.


If one went on PAYG via Bank, touching only at the start and end of
the journey, it wouldn't know the difference and would charge £1, and
anyone checking on the way would see that you'd touched in and have no
complaint.


Yes, AFAICS that's fine.


Question 1: If you touched at the mysterious readers at Bank DLR,
would it treat it as a continuation of a journey nevertheless always
priced at £1, or would it work out that you'd been via zone 1 and
charge £1.50/£2?


You'd be charged the via zone 1 fare.


If you had a zone 1 and 2 travelcard loaded on the Oyster, went via
Bank and didn't touch beforehand, it would let you through the gates
at Bethnal Green and would be valid if it was checked on the DLR on
the way to Bank whether you touched in or not.


On the DLR you don't need to touch-in with a Travelcard if your
journey is entirely within the zonal validity of that Travelcard.

Note that whilst the Oyster T&Cs do not actually contain a specific
exemption from the requirement for users to touch-in if they have a
period Travelcard, such usage is nonetheless implicitly allowed when
one considers the relevant DLR publicity. In essence the same
situation applies on bendy-buses with Oyster users who have a period
Travelcard/ Bus Pass. (A while back I gathered a load of evidence to
support that but in the end never got round to posting it, so I'll try
and gather it up and get around to doing so soon.)

An Oyster loaded with a zone 1&2 Travelcard that hadn't been touched-
in would still be accepted as valid if checked on the DLR, and would
also still let someone out through the gates at Bethnal Green without
any issue (at least the way things are currently configured).


Question 2: If you touched the travelcard on entering the DLR, would
it just acknowledge that it was valid, or would it figure that you've
used a zone 1 and 2 travelcard on a journey priced as involving zone
3, and deduct the extension fare, in which case would it be one
extension or two?

(I think probably not, but if so I'd have hit on a way that you would
pay extra by touching a travelcard valid for the whole of the DLR
journey, nevertheless unfairly.)


Because the presumed route to Bethnal Green is via Stratford which is
in zone 3, aha I see what you're saying.

Interesting question, I'm not entirely sure, and I'm pretty sure I've
pondered on very similar issues in the past.

Touching-in on the DLR when using an Oyster loaded with a Travelcard
doesn't just lead to the system acknowledging it is valid, it acts as
an entry or exit to the system (and thus electronically 'marks' the
card as appropriate).

Like you, I think it quite possible that there's some leeway built
into the system that would mean one wouldn't get charged for
travelling via Stratford/ zone 3.


Question 3: In the unlikely event of the answer to question 2 being
that you'd be charged an extension for zone 3, could this be avoided
by touching the mysterious readers at Bank?


Yes, I'd certainly think so.

This touches (ho ho) on a number of issues with Oyster than I'm most
interested in, and I've got some evolving thinking about how Oyster
works in more complicated cases such as this. I'd thus be most
interested to hear about people's real experiences as to how things
actually work out on the ground.

Dare I suggest that the easiest way to get to the bottom of this
specific question is for it to be tried in practice!