Mark Hynes wrote:

There's no difference surely between that situation and someone with a
paper
travelcard exiting outside their zones, surely?

Actually, there is a difference - with a paper ticket the passenger
will (likely)
know they're outside their zones and should be paying something extra,
somehow.
A passenger with both a travelcard and PAYG credit on their Oyster
card is likely
to think they'll have some credit deducted when they leave and not
have any idea
what an OEP is. (I know this has been done before, but it's still
crazy)

As you say, when challenged by an RPI the guy outside of his paper TC zones
has no defence - it's a fair cop. OTOH the 'Oyster passenger' you describe
can say 'I am going to touch out on exit' if challenged, but still not
bother...

Paul S

On 3 Jan, 19:09, Jonathan Harris wrote:
On 3 Jan, 17:40, "Paul Scott" wrote:



Chris wrote:
On 3 Jan, 15:52, trainmanUK wrote:
The whole reason for these OEP is that many NR stations do
not have barriers so if you get to your destination and see no one
there you can just walk off the station with out paying (Touching
out)

Not so....all in-zone NR stations are or will have Oyster validators -
and it is your responsibility toi touch out. Barriers or no.

ISTM you've missed the very point of the previous post. He explained exactly
why OEPs are needed. At unbarriered stations there is nothing whatsoever to
stop a passenger who entered elsewhere with a season travelcard ignoring a
validator. *The TOCs aren't prepared to take that obvious revenue risk - but
TfL do already, and are prepared to accept it.

Paul S

But ISTR that the only ungated stations on the underground are Mill
Hill East (because they don't fit) and Roding Valley (because the
number of passengers doesn't justify it). *If TfL want to leave
barriers open somewhere to save on staff costs and then be subject to
revenue risk, that's a different matter. I appreciate that there are
now plenty of LO stations wthout barriers and various 'open'
interfaces with National Rail but the number is small relative to the
number of NR stations that are ungated.

Jonathan

Finsbury Park is not gated, and one entrance at West Harrow and
Finchley Central aren't either.

Rupert Candy wrote

On Jan 3, 12:51*pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

You cannot register Gold Cards or Network Cards onto Oyster cards

And this, to my mind, is the biggest fudge of the whole lot. The
whole point of the Gold Card is that it recognises the loyalty of
those who put up ~2 grand in advance, and the Oyster card must 'know'
it holds an annual season. How hard would it be for said annual
season to trigger an automatic 'Railcard' flag, thus allowing Gold
Card holders the same reduced cap as (e.g.) YP card holders?

As discussed here, the cheapest Gold card is less than £150 (forget
whether it is between Ryde - Ryde Pierhead or Exeter/other Exeter).

And Gold (and Network) card discounts only kick in after 10:00 M-F so
don't match the 9:30 off-peak start of Railcards and NR/Tfl.

Allow registration for W/E only ?

--
Mike D

Neil Williams wrote:

The solution to all this is to remove all situations (other than
equipment failure) where you'd legitimately touch in using an Oyster
and not touch out. This would be done by changing paper BZ extensions
such that they are valid for any journey from inside the Zones the
Travelcard is valid for to the specified destination, but are shown as
only valid when carrying the specific numbered Oyster card shown (and
checked) at purchase (to prevent double-use).

It's a solution but it doesn't take into account the number of stations that
are simply not physically designed for the peak hour crowds to all have stop
to use readers, let alone barriers. My local station, Forest Gate, is just
one where the evening crowd is so big that I can easily see chaos, fights
and people risking their lives by crossing the fast tracks to the quiet
platform all for the sake of getting out of the station quicker rather than
waiting an eternity to squeeze through a narrow hallway with only a couple
of readers - and having to deal with London bound passengers fighting to get
to their own platform. The station just isn't designed * for that and for
that matter it will also create problems on the trains and at Stratford
because even more people will be trying to wedge themselves into the front
carriages in the hope of getting out quicker. Until the station, and many
like it, are designed to make the crowd flow smoother, requiring everyone to
touch out will be utterly unworkable.

(* Actually when originally built Forest Gate was actually reasonably
designed for this because stopping services used what are now the fast
tracks and vice versa. On that configuration the evening peak crowd would
have used platform 4 which had both its own staircase to the ticket hall and
also a ramp to a direct street exit. The staircase has now been bricked up.)

On Jan 3, 8:19*pm, "Michael R N Dolbear" wrote:
Rupert Candy wrote

On Jan 3, 12:51*pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

You cannot register Gold Cards or Network Cards onto Oyster cards
And this, to my mind, is the biggest fudge of the whole lot. *The

whole point of the Gold Card is that it recognises the loyalty of
those who put up ~2 grand in advance, and the Oyster card must 'know'
it holds an annual season. *How hard would it be for said annual
season to trigger an automatic 'Railcard' flag, thus allowing Gold
Card holders the same reduced cap as (e.g.) YP card holders?

As discussed here, the cheapest Gold card is less than £150 (forget
whether it is between Ryde - Ryde Pierhead or Exeter/other Exeter).

That's still quite a lot more than the cost of any other Railcard
(particularly if you're never actually going to get any Ryde-Ryde
travel for your 150 quid).

And Gold (and Network) card discounts only kick in after 10:00 M-F so
don't match the *9:30 off-peak start of Railcards and NR/Tfl.

Allow registration for W/E only ?

It's just that the USP of having a Travelcard Season on Oyster (and,
frankly, the reason why I went out of my way to get my Z1-5 on Oyster
rather than just buying a paper season from my local Southeastern
station) has always been that it's possible to extend its validity
using pre-pay (where valid, obviously) *without* having to plan in
advance and buy some sort of extension ticket. I accept that OEPs
have made a complete mockery of that advantage insofar as NR is
concerned, but we now have a situation where, at least off-peak, it is
*never* worthwhile for a Gold Card holder to use pre-pay to extend
their zones on NR, rather than buying a paper, discounted extension.
That seems entirely counter to the spirit of Oyster and the (semi-)
integrated zonal fare system, not to mention completely bonkers to an
outside observer.

Sorry, I'm really quite cross about this.

On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 20:46:14 -0000, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:

Until the station, and many
like it, are designed to make the crowd flow smoother, requiring everyone to
touch out will be utterly unworkable.

But it *wouldn't* require everyone to touch out. Only those who have
some PAYG credit.

(I think that's a "user friendlier" way of making the differentiation
than the OEP - "you have to have the money on your card before you
start your journey if you wish to go out of zone").

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On 3 Jan, 15:32, asdf wrote:
On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 03:20:19 -0800 (PST), Daniel wrote:
It seems bonkers to me too, but has it ever been suggested that NR
stations can issue OEPs?

Could there also be some cross-london journeys where travelcard
holders without the central zones on their tickets could require two
(or more) OEPs (due to the original OEP being cancelled by a gateline
en-route)? I suspect that ticket-holders with this type of ticket
could see some non-optimal charges as well.

Yes, I think that could happen. For example, the holder of a Z23
Travelcard wishes to travel from Finsbury Park (Z2) to Thornton Heath
(Z4), changing at Moorgate (Z1) and Balham (Z2). An OEP is needed from
the start of the journey, due to starting at a LU station and
travelling out-of-zone on FCC. However, this OEP is removed by the
touch-out at Balham (LU) (due to having travelled out-of-zone), so a
second OEP needs to be added in order to avoid a PF when travelling
out-of-zone (again...) to Thornton Heath on Southern.

Would it be removed at Balham though? Balham is in the zones and the
route could have been via Finsbury Park. It doesn't seem likely that
it would work that way based on assumed route unless you touched out
at an NR-only station in zone 1.

In article ,
(Paul Scott) wrote:

wrote:

If you register the Gold Card on your Oyster Card you do get a
railcard discount on the extension fare, surely?

You cannot register Gold Cards or Network Cards onto Oyster cards

Another stupidity then.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 3 Jan, 20:02, Matthew Dickinson
wrote:
On 3 Jan, 19:09, Jonathan Harris wrote:





On 3 Jan, 17:40, "Paul Scott" wrote:

Chris wrote:
On 3 Jan, 15:52, trainmanUK wrote:
The whole reason for these OEP is that many NR stations do
not have barriers so if you get to your destination and see no one
there you can just walk off the station with out paying (Touching
out)

Not so....all in-zone NR stations are or will have Oyster validators -
and it is your responsibility toi touch out. Barriers or no.

ISTM you've missed the very point of the previous post. He explained exactly
why OEPs are needed. At unbarriered stations there is nothing whatsoever to
stop a passenger who entered elsewhere with a season travelcard ignoring a
validator. *The TOCs aren't prepared to take that obvious revenue risk - but
TfL do already, and are prepared to accept it.

Paul S

But ISTR that the only ungated stations on the underground are Mill
Hill East (because they don't fit) and Roding Valley (because the
number of passengers doesn't justify it). *If TfL want to leave
barriers open somewhere to save on staff costs and then be subject to
revenue risk, that's a different matter. I appreciate that there are
now plenty of LO stations wthout barriers and various 'open'
interfaces with National Rail but the number is small relative to the
number of NR stations that are ungated.

Jonathan

Finsbury Park is not gated, and one entrance at *West Harrow and
Finchley Central aren't either.

Er ... and the whole of the DLR.

On Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:22:05 -0600,
wrote:

You cannot register Gold Cards or Network Cards onto Oyster cards

Another stupidity then.

It is bloody silly. I don't see why the system can't cope with just
giving a weekend discount on the Network Card cap.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.