On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 06:22:41 -0800 (PST),
Mizter T wrote:

Agreed. I haven't yet come across a case of a gate opening when an
Oyster card is presented without the touch-in or touch-out
registering.

This happened to my girlfriend the very first time she used Oyster
(Actually it was the second time she used it as it was the exit of her
very first journey from Euston to Watford Junction). I'm 100% certain
she used the card correctly because I'd explained it just before we got
to the gateline. I also watched her walk up to the barrier. Touch her
card. Gates opened. She walked through with a big smile on her face
saying "He he. It works!"

(I was watching particularly closely because the next day she would be
using the card to go to Hatch End where there aren't barriers so she had
to remember to touch out or incur a maximum fare.)

(The next day she told me the balance on her card didn't seem right when
she went back in at Watford Junction and she'd been overcharged for her
first journey. I didn't believe her until a couple of days later when we
were in London and could check the journey history and see that the
first journey was incomplete.

I also think I had one touch that didn't register. I don't believe that
I went through on someone elses ticket by mistake but I suppose I could
have done. I'm usually travelling with a bicycle and use the manual
gates and I don't think I've had any problems there (once when the
Watford Junction manual gate had been broken for a couple of days I'd
got into the habit of touching out in the subway. When the gate was
repaired I "touched out" again at the manual gate which registered as an
entry but I spotted that straight away.)

Tim.

--
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = - @B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t,"
and there was light.

http://www.woodall.me.uk/

Tim Woodall wrote:

On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 06:22:41 -0800 (PST),
Mizter T wrote:

Agreed. I haven't yet come across a case of a gate opening when an
Oyster card is presented without the touch-in or touch-out
registering.

This happened to my girlfriend the very first time she used Oyster
(Actually it was the second time she used it as it was the exit of her
very first journey from Euston to Watford Junction).

It also happened to me once, at Amersham. It just confirmed my
suspicions that Oyster is at best a useless white elephant, and at
worst a force for evil.

On Fri, 12 Feb 2010, Recliner wrote:

"Tim Fardell" wrote in
message

On Fri, 12 Feb 2010, Mizter T wrote:

On Feb 12, 2:11 pm, Tim Fardell tim.fardell.all-your-
wrote:

On Fri, 12 Feb 2010, Recliner wrote:
[snip]
How do you know your Tube station exit wasn't picked up? The
on-line Web pages aften have gaps, but ticket machines will show
you the full history. So, even though the history shown online may
be incomplete, you won't necessarily have been overcharged.

Ah-ha! I think you're right - it's just that the 'Exit' events have
not shown up on the Web history. I spoke to the Oyster helpline,
and they said they can see that both journeys were completed
correctly and I have not been overcharged.

He's sending me a full statement to confirm it, but it certainly
sounds like the Web history is just missing the exit events.

At least I now know not to trust the journey history on the web.
Thanks :-)

How long ago was this?The online journey history does have a tendency
to lag somewhat.

One was last Saturday (6th Feb) and the other was way back on January
22nd.

The first one back in January I initially attributed to incompetence
on my part, but when it happened again at the same station I began to
smell a rat. Hence I've only just raised it. But it seems all is well
anyway.

I've found that the apparent gaps can stay indefinitely, but an event
such as topping up the card or reading it on a ticket machine sometimes
seems to correct the online history. It's almost as if the data is
sitting waiting in cache somewhere, but doesn't get written to the
online database until some event causes the cache to clear. But the
credit on the card always seems to be correct.

Having received the postal statement, I can see that both journeys were
recorded and charged correctly, but the gaps are still there in the Web
site display. In both cases, 'exit' events at Kings X are not shown on
the Web, but are shown on the postal statement. However, the card balance
is shown correctly in both places.

It seems that the Web journey history is indeed not reliable, which seems
very weird to me as I would assume it is based on the same data.

"Tim Fardell" wrote in
message

On Fri, 12 Feb 2010, Recliner wrote:


I've found that the apparent gaps can stay indefinitely, but an event
such as topping up the card or reading it on a ticket machine
sometimes seems to correct the online history. It's almost as if
the data is sitting waiting in cache somewhere, but doesn't get
written to the online database until some event causes the cache to
clear. But the credit on the card always seems to be correct.

Having received the postal statement, I can see that both journeys
were recorded and charged correctly, but the gaps are still there in
the Web site display. In both cases, 'exit' events at Kings X are not
shown on the Web, but are shown on the postal statement. However, the
card balance is shown correctly in both places.

It seems that the Web journey history is indeed not reliable, which
seems very weird to me as I would assume it is based on the same data.

I think 'based on' is the key phrase. The Web reports seem to be based
on an incomplete/late copy of the original database. But, as I have
found, you seem to be able to force an update by, for example, topping
up the PaYG balance.