On 31 Jan, 00:11, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2009 06:54:52 -0800 (PST), MIG
wrote:
Some time ago there was discussion of touching in with a travelcard on
Oyster on the DLR.
Obviously, if one subsequently goes beyond zones (eg has zone 1 - 2
travelcard and needs to go on to Stratford) one needs to have touched
in.
Also, if one enters or leaves at a point where the travelcard is
valid, it lets one through any barriers regardless of touching at the
other end.
I was wondering what would happen if one touched in when making a
journey in zones 1 and 2, where the PAYG journey would be priced as
via zone 3.
I had a zone 1 - 2 travelcard and touched in at Mudchute and went to
Hackney Wick via Old Street and Highbury (ie covered by the
travelcard). *The Oyster single fare is £1.10, ie assumed to be zone
2/3 (and impossible without zone 3 at Stratford).
So did it just check that the travelcard was valid at each touching
point, or did it deduct £1.10 for an assumed PAYG journey via zone 3?
The former (good). *It didn't deduct anything.
I think other posts have covered the basics but here is my understanding
although I am not 100% up to date.
A travelcard is checked at entry and exit against the zones held on the
ticket / card. If there is no out of zone travel then there is no PAYG
transaction initiated - i.e. the origin or destination are both in the
zones on the ticket. *If either or both were outside the travelcard
zonal validity then I believe an auto extension transaction would be
initiated by creating a transaction in the PAYG part of the Oyster Card.
I believe, but am not 100% certain, that TfL introduced a rule
concerning "doughnut or polo mint" fraud. *In other words people do not
have Zone 1 on their Travelcard but have some of the outer zones. *I
believe the system does a secondary check to see if the origin /
destination pair for the journey (which may both be within the zonal
validity of the card) can *only* be achieved by travelling via Zone 1.
If that is the case then a PAYG transaction will be created to charge
for Zone 1 travel.
Clearly it becomes very complex when you have orbital routes that allow
legitimate travel on the TfL farescale that avoids Zone 1. *TfL have
clearly decided to allocate particular journeys to zone 1 or non zone 1
fares. *In your example your ticket included Zone 1 so the secondary
check for a Z1 PAYG charge was never initiated. As both origin and
destination were within the zones you'd bought then there is no need to
do anything to trigger a PAYG additional charge.
Aha, that does explain things! So when it comes to Travelcards loaded
on Oyster, merely looking at the TfL Fare finder is misleading as it
doesn't take account of the other key factor which is the existence of
this secondary check for travel via z1.
Regarding my hypothesis (upthread, actually developed in a Nov '07
post that I link to) regarding a Richmond/ Kew Gardens/ Gunnersbury to
Stratford journey, the TfL Fare finder gives the fare as being via z1.
As I explained (probably badly!), my contention is that a holder of a
Travelcard for zones 2&3 or z2-4 would not be charged a via z1 fare
for this journey. Your explanation appears to support that - as
Richmond/ KG/ Gunnersbury to Stratford is a journey that can be
achieved without travelling via z1, then the secondary check on the
origin / destination pair would have revealed that the journey could
be made without z1, so the z1 fare would not be charged.
In other words, the situation with Travelcards on Oyster is different
from pure Oyster PAYG usage - and thankfully this system appears to
come out in favour of passengers.
What I am not sure about is if you had taken a route involving JLE and
Stratford whether the JLE interchange gateline would have set a charge
for Zone 3 or not. *Clearly that is a rare example as virtually no flows
have interchange gatelines on them. If you had gone solely via DLR and
not touched a validator inside the paid area I imagine there would be no
issue. Quite what a DLR train captain might have said or done I don't
know if he'd checked your card on the approaches to Stratford!
Actually MIG did say he'd touched in at Mudchute, therefore the train
captain could not possibly have any complaints (it would only be if he
hadn't touched in that he'd have been in the wrong, as he'd be
travelling out-of-zone with an unvalidated Oyster card).
Plus MIG also said he'd actually gone the via central London route via
Old Street and Highbury (presumably on the FCC's Great Northern route)
so he wouldn't have encountered a DLR train captain at all!
There is a proposal for the extended PAYG system (that will cover NR) to
have a concept of extension transactions so that if people exit LUL on
PAYG and then re-enter on NR (e.g. interchange at a London Terminal)
there will be a transaction set on exit from LUL that there may be a
further journey on NR. *Once re-entry has taken place at the NR gateline
/validator line then the total permissible journey time will be extended
for the full through journey. This will recognise the full overall PAYG
fare due on exit while also preventing two journeys being charged
because maximum journey time would otherwise have been exceeded. *That
was certainly the concept the last time I read about it but I have to
warn that the final implemented solution may differ. *I'm sure I'll know
more later in the year as we get closer to implementation.
Sorry for a long explanation but I hope the "logic" is a bit clearer.
Long explanations are more than welcome here Paul! Thanks very much,
that really does clear up some of the mysteries of the system.
The extension of PAYG to NR will be most interesting - things get
complicated south of the river! As well as working out what the
presumed route is for each pair of origin / destination stations (my
earlier example was Richmond to Wimbledon) - which could in itself be
rather contentious (from both a passenger and TOC point of view!) -
there's also then the question of Travelcards on Oyster.
Let's say someone has a z345 Travelcard and travels from Balham (z3)
to Wimbledon (z3). The obvious route is via Clapham Junction (z2) * -
but they could also have gone via the sightseeing route via the Sutton
loop, a bit daft but perhaps they wanted to see their friend off the
train at Sutton. The latter route would mean the passenger had stayed
within their zones. So, the question is whether or this Balham to
Wimbledon journey would be presumed to have gone via CJ and whether it
would thus incur a z2 extension fare - and if it were to incur an
extra fare, how would this mechanism work? As I see it, the current
secondary check as described by Paul above is currently too simplistic
for such a purpose, but U suppose it could be expanded.
One can then ask a similar question of a Selhurst to Wimbledon journey
- in that case, it's really ambiguous as to what the obvious route
would be, i.e. via Clapham Junction or via Sutton. As well as the
question of what the PAYG single fare would be, we can again ask how
would a holder of a z345 Travelcard be treated.
Note to Paul - don't worry, I'm not actually trying to give you an
inquisition on these things, I'm just thinking out loud, that's all! I
dare say some of these issues form part of the tortuous negotiations
between the TOCs and TfL with regards to implementation of Oyster
PAYG.
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* An equally obvious route is the Northern line to South Wimbledon and
then a bus. There's also Balham to Mitcham Junction then Tramlink to
Wimbledon.
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N.B. Readers of uk.transport.london may find this thread is missing
some important parts - it originally got started on uk.railway and the
version of this thread over there is currently more complete. It can
be seen via GG he
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk....04535617844ac3