On Jul 9, 1:26*pm, Commuter wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
You're going to have to provide more comprehensive information about
what journeys you made if we're going to try and fathom this out.

Well I'd done the journey Heron Quays to Woolwich Arsenal (changing at
Poplar) and touched in at Heron Quays and out at Woolwich Arsenal
(ticket barriers).

*From my statement, the journeys before we
"Marble Arch - Tower Hill
* Marble Arch - Canary Wharf DLR
* Marble Arch - Canary Wharf"

Interesting that it's put Marble Arch - Canary Wharf as two separate
journeys when it was only one, but wasn't charged due to price capping
which had already been reached. (I had done Marble Arch - Canary Wharf
DLR and then entered Canary Wharf LU and exited straight away.

I assume you went from Marble Arch to Tower Hill, then from Tower
Gateway DLR to Canary Wharf DLR - in which case the way the system
displayed the first two lines is how it always displays journeys that
contain Out-of-Station-Interchanges (OSIs) - the starting station to
the first exit, then the starting station to the next exit, and so on
if there's another OSI involved.

The third line also makes sense in that when you entered Canary Wharf
LU, it assumed you were continuing your journey from Marble Arch -
because it was within a certain time of you touching-out at Canary
Wharf DLR and there is an OSI between CW DLR and CW LU stations - and
on exiting CW LU having not travelled anywhere then the system counts
that as a (non-) journey between CW LU and CW LU and charges the
minimum fare from that station (although in your case the fare would
not have been charged as you'd reached your cap).

The next thing to bear in mind is that there is also an OSI between CW
LU and Heron Quays DLR.

In every likelihood what has happened is that your original journey
from Marble Arch 'timed-out'. The current basic assumption is that
overall journeys should take no longer that two-and-a-half hours
(originally two hours), however this is to change in September as a
more complex system of variable maximum journey times is implemented -
and this system is currently being trialled at a number of stations
including Canary Wharf DLR and LU stations.

This might have meant that 80 minutes was the allowed time for a
Marble Arch to Canary Wharf journey, as per this information that
Peter Smyth obtained from TfL back in May:
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.tr...4747db850d431f

I'm not going to pretend that I can piece together exactly what has
happened (and whether the above stuff about variable max journey times
is relevant), but it seems possible that on touching-in at Heron Quays
the system assumed you were continuing your original journey from
Marble Arch, that original journey then timed out en-route to Woolwich
Arsenal and on exiting you were hit with the £4 'penalty' charge twice
for (a) not touching out from your original journey - because it had
'timed-out', and (b) touching-out at Woolwich Arsenal without having
touched-in - that's from the system's point of view by the way! I'm
not quite sure if that would be the sequence of events though.

What would be useful to know is when and where those two £4 charges
were applied - does this show up in your journey history at all?
(Sometimes it's actually easier to see these things on the journey
history screen on a Tube ticket machine.)


I still can't see how it could have happened. Surely if you have an
unfinished and an unstarted journey then they are the same journey and
should be charged accordingly (due to capping, no price).

As I said above, it seems likely you've been caught out by the journey
'timing-out'. Whether the trial arrangements for variable maximum
journeys times implemented at Canary Wharf LU and DLR stations has
something to do with this I can't quite say.

One other important question - how long were you around Canary Wharf
for, i.e. were there any significant gaps between exiting and entering
the CW DLR and/or LU stations and Heron Quays DLR station. And have
you any idea of the time of the overall Marble Arch to Woolwich
Arsenal journey?

I trust you'll get in touch with Oyster customer services about this -
you'll get a refund of course, and it should help the Oyster systems
bods to identify problem areas and adjust the configuration of the
system so as to be able to deal with them.

They can be contacted online via a secure web form - go to the TfL
website http://www.tfl.gov.uk/, then in the top right click on "Help
& Contact" -- "Make a complaint" -- "Oyster" -- "Fares/Refunds" and
fill out the form.