On Aug 11, 6:25*pm, MIG wrote:
On 11 Aug, 18:14, John B wrote:





On Aug 11, 6:08*pm, Roland Perry wrote:

In message
, at
09:56:28 on Tue, 11 Aug 2009, martin
remarked:

Walking past Alexandra Palace station this afternoon, I noticed that
the standalone Oyster reader (on the pavement, next to the outdoor
ticket machine) has had its neoprene jacket removed, and was inviting
passengers to touch in or out of the station, and had an orange LED
lit.

I can't see any mention on the TfL or First Capital Connect website
that PAYG is now valid from this station - does the working reader
mean that it probably is, but they've just not told anyone about it
yet?

Why does it have to active for PAYG, what about only for travelcards on
Oyster? (Or does the presence of an Oyster reader *always* mean PAYG is
allowed?)

a) Travelcard users don't need to touch in, so providing a touch-point
for them (other than to get through barriers) would be pointless.

Unless they are extending their journey beyond their zone on another
side of London ...

Good point. I've been caught out like that (luckily in an 'oops,
sorry' way, rather than a 'gbp20 fine' way) at LHR, having not touched
in my Z12 at Finsbury Park when I lived there.

But they don't provide such readers at all the other ungated stations
where travelcards are valid. *Maybe it's a special case because PAYG
is accepted on parts of FCC?

I'm sure it's *there* in preparation for PAYG being enabled for NR.

Why it's been switched on already is a harder ask (my top 3 options
are mistake, testing, and FCC having come to an agreement earlier than
the south-of-river TOCs which they'll announce shortly).

In the meantime, we need a guinea pig with a PAYG card and no
Travelcard loaded to touch in and see what happens...

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org