On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 20:19:56 +0000, Richard Adamfi
wrote:

Posters have appeared at the entrances to Finsbury Park station
(famously without ticket gates) telling Pre-Pay Oyster users to touch
the validators entering and exiting the station.

That is fine - but this is followed by:

"Customers with Oyster Cards charged with Travelcard Season tickets
not valid at Finsbury Park (Zone 2) are also advised to touch their
cards on the validators"

Can someone explain what this is about?

I think it is a badly worded attempt to explain that if you have a
Travelcard for say Zone 3 and arrive at Finsbury Park (Zone 2) *and*
have pre-pay value on your card that you must validate so that the
reader can make a pre-pay deduction for the out of zone travel. In other
words "please be honest and validate and pay for your travel, don't
dodge your fare".

With a validator equipped station Travelcard holders who are "in zone"
don't have to swipe their Oyster card but if you are out of zone you do
for the purposes of calculation of auto ticket extensions.

As to the Highbury validators that it is to deal with the issue of
someone opting to have a pre-pay card for LUL services but opting to
purchase a day return from Welwyn Garden City to Highbury. The pre-pay
must be validated on entry to LUL and at Highbury you do that at
platform level. It would be impossible to impose a rule that said you
must go the ticket hall, exit on your NR ticket and then re-enter and go
all the way back to the Tube platform having activated your Oyster card
at the gates. There are many instances of these open interchanges on
the system and LUL is the only large scale application of a stored value
system to have such "gaps" in the system.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!