Oyster ticketing thought experiment
 

Imagine I had an Oyster card with both a Zone 1-2 Travelcard and a
Zone 5-6 Travelcard loaded on it -- not a completely implausible
scenario, e.g. I might have an annual Zone 1-2 Travelcard but the need
to spend a week in the outer zones so add a weekly Zone 5-6
Travelcard, too.

Imagine I then took a journey from Zone 1 to Zone 6. Would the system
charge me the correct fare for the journey? More to the point, would
the system charge me for the journey at all?

-roy

Oyster ticketing thought experiment
 

Oyster ticketing thought experiment
 

On 25/01/2011 22:29, Roy Badami wrote:
Imagine I had an Oyster card with both a Zone 1-2 Travelcard and a
Zone 5-6 Travelcard loaded on it -- not a completely implausible
scenario, e.g. I might have an annual Zone 1-2 Travelcard but the need
to spend a week in the outer zones so add a weekly Zone 5-6
Travelcard, too.

Imagine I then took a journey from Zone 1 to Zone 6. Would the system
charge me the correct fare for the journey? More to the point, would
the system charge me for the journey at all?

I'd guess you'd get charged the usual £1.40ish for a Zone 3-4 Tube
journey (£1.50/£1.90 for National Rail) as it should be impossible to
"dumbbell" with Oyster, given it knows where you enter and exit the
system, and what ticket(s) you have loaded on the card.

Having said that, I don't have such a card to test the theory, and you'd
likely end up paying more than the cost of a 1-6 anyway.

Zones 1 - 2 Weekly: £27.60
Zones 5 - 6 Weekly: £20.80
------
Total: £48.40
======

Zones 1 - 6 Weekly: £50.40

Difference: £ 2.00

So you'd only have to do two Zone 6 - Zone 1 (or vice versa) journeys a
week to make it better value to buy a Zone 1 - 6.

Cheers,

Barry

Oyster ticketing thought experiment
 

On Jan 25, 10:29*pm, (Roy Badami) wrote:
Imagine I had an Oyster card with both a Zone 1-2 Travelcard and a
Zone 5-6 Travelcard loaded on it -- not a completely implausible
scenario, e.g. I might have an annual Zone 1-2 Travelcard but the need
to spend a week in the outer zones so add a weekly Zone 5-6
Travelcard, too.

Imagine I then took a journey from Zone 1 to Zone 6. *Would the system
charge me the correct fare for the journey? *More to the point, would
the system charge me for the journey at all?

This is something I've pondered about before but never experimented
with - indeed it's on my mental list of question marks about Oyster
(which I generally forget about until someone or something reminds
me!).

This is what the TfL Conditions of Carriage have to say on the matter
(p18):
http://preview.tinyurl.com/TfL-CoC-from-2-Jan-2011

---quote---
6.6.8. If your Oyster card has more than one Travelcard season ticket
on it and they are valid on the same date or dates, the zonal
availability of any such Travelcard season tickets must cover adjacent
zones at all times.
---/quote---

I've no idea how this rule is enforced, for example whether Oyster
retailing systems don't allow one to purchase a non-adjacent
Travelcard when another TC is already loaded on the card - I don't
currently have a Travelcard so can't try and do a 'dummy purchase' of
a non-adjacent TC at TVMs - it's something I imagine I could have
fiddled around with in the past, but if I did I'm afraid I can't
remember doing so.

Just thinking aloud, but I can't help but think the various Oyster
retailing systems are relatively 'dumb' and maybe just maybe might
allow such a purchase, though at a guess if it was indeed possible to
successfully load a card with two non-adjacent TCs then I'm wondering
whether an Oyster validator would then reject it with an error code.

In the past I've definitely bought a zones 1&2 Travelcard and added it
to a card which already had a zones 2&3 TC present on it (poss. more
than once, I forget) - I suspect the 1&2 was a weekly and the 2&3
could well have been a monthly - and it all worked fine, but of course
such a combo is legit as per the rule quoted above. (I've also advised
others to do similar things with no bad feedback.)

As Barry Salter says in his reply, the way Travelcard seasons are
priced, there's little reason why most people would consider doing
such a thing. But it's an interesting question, no doubt.