On Thu, 30 Oct 2008 05:26:05 -0700 (PDT),
MIG wrote:
I can't remember any sob stories about people found guilty in court
though. *The press stories are usually about people being hassled for
extra money on trains. *It's demanding money on the spot rather than
prosecution that leads to press stories.
I'm talking about the "TfL wastes thousands prosecuting [photogenic
sympathetic white-collar worker] over a 90p bus fare" type stories.
(usually coupled with gripes about Oyster touching in, which I believe
is a cause you're sympathetic too)
I do have objections to Oyster, but they are only relevant if you
agree with me (which many don't) that Oyster unresolved journey fares
etc are penalty fares. I don't know if my objections to Oyster rules
have any bearing on potential prosecution cases.
My fear with Oyster is that it's almost impossible to work out why it
goes wrong when it does.
I've had three failures, one was definitely an oyster problem because it
let me through the barrier but didn't register the entry (I've also
witnessed this happen with someone else not registering an exit but
opening the barrier). One might have been my mistake, again an entry
didn't register, but I was using the manual barrier. One was because I
didn't understand how oyster worked - there were problems with the
manual barrier at Watford Junction so I'd been using the thing at the
bottom of platform 9 to touch in an out. When the manual barrier was
fixed I touched out at the bottom of platform 9 and then again (because
I was asked to) at the manual barrier which registered as an entry.
I've also had a huge number of missing entries on the online journey
history. The balance has ended up correct but entries or exits (or both)
are completely missing.
I have wondered about building a little device to interrogate the oyster
card so you can tell whether an entry or exit has actually been
registered on the card. But that's going to take a lot of round tuits
that I can't see me having in the forseeable future.
Tim.
--
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = - @B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t,"
and there was light.
http://www.woodall.me.uk/