On Jun 8, 11:45*pm, "Tim Roll-Pickering" T.C.Roll-
wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:

On Mon, 8 Jun 2009 11:28:54 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:
* Most strikingly Oyster PAYG "will be accepted on all National Rail
journeys within Greater London on Wednesday and Thursday, just show
your Oyster card at station gate lines". In practice I'm pretty sure
this means that anyone who can flash an Oyster card can travel on NR
services in London.

I'm sure people will simply be waved through.

What about journeys where one has to go through a set of PAYG readers at one
end but not at the other - e.g. Forest Gate (where readers have been
installed but don't appear to be operational) to Liverpool Street (where the
readers are configured for PAYG for Stratford to Liverpool Street), for
travellers substituting Upton Park to central London?

This was *exactly* the issue I was trying to get at earlier with my
Bowes Park to King's Cross example - except, as Paul C's questioning
showed, it was a bit of a rubbish example.


Will these be automatically reversed or will the PAYG user have to chase it
up - especially as they can't easily do so at Forest Gate.

Paul C suggests in his reply that there might be "a mass reversal of
maximum fares implemented after the strike to remove any such charges"
- i.e. an automatic reversals after the event, with money being
credited back to people's cards.

If you read my reply, you'll see that I wouldn't consider this ideal -
far from it in fact.

My thought was that the very system that results in these £4 charges,
the 'entry charge' system (whereby £4 is debited on entry and the
correct fare is calculated and appropriate sum is refunded on exit) is
disabled for the strike days. Instead the system could go back to how
things were in the early days of PAYG - the system would charge the
minimum fare on touching-in, and then on touching-out any difference
was calculated and the remaining fare deducted. In this system, not
touching in or out would not result in a £4 charge, instead one would
simply be charged the minimum fare from that station. As I said,
that's how I'd do it! But I'm not doing it, so we'll see how it works
out on the day.


[...] (Or could they
nip down to Wanstead Park and touch out on the readers there?)

They could - but it's not really something you could ask people to do!

The easier alternative would be to simply avoid touching in/out at
Liverpool Street, if at all possible - i.e. go through the side gate
if it's open, brandishing Oyster in hand. Depends how they're doing
things on the day there. Afraid I have my doubts that the gateline
staff will completely comprehend the whole picture (not least because
they likely get free travel on the mainline hence don't have to
confront this personally).