On 11 Feb, 21:55, MIG wrote:

On Feb 11, 9:51*pm, MIG wrote:

On Feb 11, 5:10*pm, Mizter T wrote:

(snip)

P.S. A query regarding something I've wondered about - if someone
holding an Oyster card with a Railcard discount loaded on it was to
only make off-peak bus journeys, then would they be capped at the
£3.30 daily bus cap or the £3.00 zones 2-6 cap? Or would they even be
capped at the £3.30 bus cap until they made a Tube/DLR/LO/NR (where
valid) journey when the cap would be reduced to £3.00, i.e. 30p would
be refunded? I guess it's the former as opposed to the latter, but I
don't know for sure!

I'm pretty sure there was a thread on that quite a while back. *I
remember predicting the higher (bus) cap (then £3) but the poster who
raised the question reported back that it was the lower.

I suppose I could search the archive ...

Well I could have saved an extra message.

Here it was
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.tr...7fbdeeb6ba18a9


Thanks for that MIG. I thought it likely that it would be the lower
cap i.e. the £3.00 Railcard-discounted z2-6 cap as opposed to the
£3.30 bus cap, not least because I don't think there's a mechanism to
refund money back to an Oyster card if they then qualify for a lower
cap essentially because that situation doesn't arise - in other words
one can get bumped up to a higher cap, but not down to a lower cap.

I did try and do an experiment with a Railcard holding acquaintance
last year but in the end the situation on the day prevailed against it
happening, then they later lost their Oyster card and Railcard so I
gave up!

Incidentally I think the author of that post 'Michael' is quite wrong
when he says he reckons that London Buses will lose out as a result of
this revenue being shared with LU/LO/DLR/NR (where valid) - I'm pretty
certain that this wouldn't be the case because as the passenger
wouldn't have used any other transport modes then there'd be no need
for that revenue to be shared out.

The thing is that Oyster PAYG provides for a far more accurate
attribution of revenue than does the Travelcard scheme. If a passenger
buys a zones 2-6 Travelcard then the money will all go in a big pot
and will be shared out according to a complex formula agreed between
TfL and the TOCs based on how a passenger may have used that
Travelcard. With Oyster PAYG a good part of that guesswork can
essentially be removed and the revenue more accurately targeted.

That said there's still a good degree of ambiguity with regards to
what route a passenger may have taken for a journey between A and B,
though thus far this hasn't mattered so much as it'll most likely have
been a choice between a number of different routes all on LU. However
once all of NR in London accepts Oyster PAYG there'll be a whole load
more of these areas of ambiguity regarding presumed routes as each TOC
will want its fair share too. I dare say is part of the reason behind
what must surely have been mind-numbing negotiations between TfL and
the TOCs over its introduction - bear in mind the TOCs are also
looking over their backs at each other as well as dealing with TfL. I
speculate that a new 'pot' will have been created to distribute the
PAYG monies between the TOCs (particularly for 'ambiguous journeys'),
except this will be an even more complex pot compared to the
Travelcard one!

Of course data from the use of season Travelcards on Oyster can feed
into the Travelcard revenue attribution model and I expect that it
already does and will do so more as and when TOCs start selling
Travelcards on Oyster - indeed I wonder if they'll want to try and
enforce a policy of passengers touching-in and out so as to get the
usage data from this, I can imagine they might try and encourage it
though I have my doubts about whether the system might be altered so
that Travelcard holders would actively be penalised for not doing so.
We shall see.

Anyway I digress - thanks for the info again. It makes getting the
Railcard discount loaded onto an Oyster even more worthwhile, though
obviously many Senior Railcard holders will already have free bus
travel (if they're 60+ residents of England). Who'd think a Railcard
could make London bus travel cheaper eh?!