On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 18:45:33 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 15:54:18 GMT, Thunderbug
wrote:
It's not worth my while buying a monthly or weekly pass, so I think that
makes me a prime candidate for an Oyster Prepay. I'd like to be able to
load up a card with £100 and just tap the gate on entry to a station.
If I make two journeys I'd be charged two lots of Singles, if I make a
third, I'd like the Oyster card to make itself into a Travelcard.
Am I dreaming?

probably not - as I understand the functionality there will be a series
of "caps" with prepay. You load cash to the card and it deducts the
value for your trips within the zones that you are travelling in. If you
started in zone 6 and went to zone 1 the card knows this and therefore
will continue to deduct your trips for the day until you exceed the
equivalent cost of the applicable day travelcard. It then stops
deducting value for the remainder of the day for all subsequent trips
unless you go beyond Zone 6 to an LUL station where pre-pay works - e.g
Chorleywood. The higher day travelcard price would be the new cap.

The OysterCard Helpline told me that the value of single journey would
be deducted (and where no 'exit' is recorded a Z1-6 fare) on a journey
by journey basis - i.e. there wouldn't be caps through the day - and
overnight the system would update to adjust to the appropriate
Travelcard fare if this was cheaper.

Obviously I can't vouch for the accuracy of this information!


Cheers,

Jason.

On Tue, 02 Dec 2003 12:24:58 +0000, Jason
wrote:

The OysterCard Helpline told me that the value of single journey would
be deducted (and where no 'exit' is recorded a Z1-6 fare) on a journey
by journey basis - i.e. there wouldn't be caps through the day - and
overnight the system would update to adjust to the appropriate
Travelcard fare if this was cheaper.

Obviously I can't vouch for the accuracy of this information!

This makes some kind of sense. Unless you put the logic into the
ticket machines/barriers to calculate the appropriate fare for the day
(with both peak and off-peak travelcards this isn't as straightforward
as it sounds), it will be necessary to feed back the journey log from
the barriers[1], make the calculation and re-credit at the next
barrier encountered (a home station?). This could only realistically
be a batch job.

Thinking about it, with the journey log on the card, and limited
communication with buses, the implementation of such a scheme isn't
quite as simple as it sounds!

[1] This may be why buses are excluded - linking back to the base to
show the number of journeys undertaken for such a calculation using
only limited-capacity Wayfarer modules would seem to be a bit
difficult.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
is a valid email address, but is sent to /dev/null.
Try my first name at the above domain instead if you want to e-mail me.

Neil Williams wrote:

On Tue, 02 Dec 2003 12:24:58 +0000, Jason
wrote:


The OysterCard Helpline told me that the value of single journey would
be deducted (and where no 'exit' is recorded a Z1-6 fare) on a journey
by journey basis - i.e. there wouldn't be caps through the day - and
overnight the system would update to adjust to the appropriate
Travelcard fare if this was cheaper.

Obviously I can't vouch for the accuracy of this information!


This makes some kind of sense. Unless you put the logic into the
ticket machines/barriers to calculate the appropriate fare for the day
(with both peak and off-peak travelcards this isn't as straightforward
as it sounds), it will be necessary to feed back the journey log from
the barriers[1], make the calculation and re-credit at the next
barrier encountered (a home station?). This could only realistically
be a batch job.

Thinking about it, with the journey log on the card, and limited
communication with buses, the implementation of such a scheme isn't
quite as simple as it sounds!

[1] This may be why buses are excluded - linking back to the base to
show the number of journeys undertaken for such a calculation using
only limited-capacity Wayfarer modules would seem to be a bit
difficult.

Neil


I'm under the hopeful impression that the "bus ban" on Prepay is
temporary... the website says: "For the time being, Pre Pay is only
available for use on the Tubes and DLR. It will soon be available on
buses and Tramlink as well."

The preliminary 2004 Fares information released some time ago also said
that a Saver and a "Pre Pay Ride" would both be 70p.

I hope it won't be too long before it's ready for use with buses,
because one of the aims of the Prepay is to make life easy for
occasional PT users, at which the Carnet and Saver are aimed...



--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7