On 06/05/2011 13:33, Paul Corfield wrote:
Having looked at the TfL website I wonder what more TfL could do in
terms of making getting an Oyster Card easy for visitors and providing
pretty clear info on the system's rules and features. OK it is all in
English but many visitors will have a smattering of the language or
they can use an on line translation facility. It's not absolutely
perfect (show me a transport ticketing website that is) but neither is
it some sort of disaster zone where information is virtually
impossible to obtain or understand.

I'm not sure what more TfL could do: the Oyster system is,
unfortunately, extremely complex when you consider all the possible ways
you can use it. And visitors are quite likely to use it (or try to)
when going to places like Greenwich or Windsor, in awkward combinations
of tubes and buses and national rail trains and maybe even trams, so
they run more than a tiny risk of encountering the rough edges of the
scheme.

And that's not to mention boats - I realised too late last time I took a
boat along the Thames that I could have done it more cheaply using my
Oyster card than by paying cash. I don't think that any of the Oyster
Card literature that I'd read told me that.

Regards

--
Clive Page

Paul Corfield wrote:

On Fri, 06 May 2011 22:13:59 +0100, Clive Page wrote:

On 06/05/2011 13:33, Paul Corfield wrote:
Having looked at the TfL website I wonder what more TfL could do in
terms of making getting an Oyster Card easy for visitors and providing
pretty clear info on the system's rules and features. OK it is all in
English but many visitors will have a smattering of the language or
they can use an on line translation facility. It's not absolutely
perfect (show me a transport ticketing website that is) but neither is
it some sort of disaster zone where information is virtually
impossible to obtain or understand.

I'm not sure what more TfL could do: the Oyster system is,
unfortunately, extremely complex when you consider all the possible ways
you can use it. And visitors are quite likely to use it (or try to)
when going to places like Greenwich or Windsor, in awkward combinations
of tubes and buses and national rail trains and maybe even trams, so
they run more than a tiny risk of encountering the rough edges of the
scheme.

Let's take a step back. At the most basic level Oyster is not that
complicated.

You buy a card, pay a deposit and add money or a Travelcard on it.
On rail journeys in the zonal area you must touch in and then touch out.
On a tram journey you touch in.
On a bus journey you touch in.

You can add more money at a LU station, at ticket machines at stations
across the zonal area and at shops with signs saying Oyster Ticket
Stops.

Oh and Oyster will add up your daily PAYG travel and will ensure you pay
the cheapest total fare.


It _should_ add up your daily PAYG travel and ensure you pay the
cheapest total fare. But it doesn't always do that in practice, does
it?

I've mentioned faulty pads that seem to read the card and open the
gate, but don't always write back to the card. There's one at Gipsy
Hill, one of my local stations, and it's caught me out a few times.
I've stopped using that particular gate whenever I'm on Oyster now,
but how's someone unfamiliar with the system supposed to know that?

How many other faulty pads are out there that we don't know about? If
the system doesn't even know where you've been, how's it going to work
out the right fare?


The above concepts are common to many smartcard systems elsewhere in the
world although few systems have as many validator only systems as
London. However they're more likely to be in the suburbs than in the
centre.

I tend to visit "off the beaten track" areas when I visit somewhere so I
might well fall across the apparent exceptions or complications in other
systems but I stress again - I haven't been caught out.

Are you talking about London or other places when you say you haven't
been caught out? If you mean London, then I just plain don't believe
you.


Now I accept that there are complications beyond what I have written
above but really how many tourists are going to fall across those
issues? How many tourists venture beyond zones 1 and 2? How many will
rove around the system breaking the maximum journey time rule or
tripping through OSIs? There may be a few but they will be very much
in the minority.

Is there still an OSI between the "entry" and "exit" barriers at
Oxford Circus? I got caught out by it last December, when I went to
collect some goods I'd ordered from John Lewis. Touched out, went to
the store, queued up, got my goods, touched in not knowing about the
OSI, and later found I had an unresolved journey.

I can see why TfL might think this OSI was a good idea for people who
got confused by the one-way layout of the station and were
accidentally channelled outside when they just wanted to change
trains. But I bet it catches out a lot of tourists doing Oxford
Circus.

But whether or not Oyster catches out tourists, it's still catching
out ordinary Londoners like us. That's the real problem.

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 06 May 2011 22:13:59 +0100, Clive Page wrote:

On 06/05/2011 13:33, Paul Corfield wrote:
Having looked at the TfL website I wonder what more TfL could do in
terms of making getting an Oyster Card easy for visitors and providing
pretty clear info on the system's rules and features. OK it is all in
English but many visitors will have a smattering of the language or
they can use an on line translation facility. It's not absolutely
perfect (show me a transport ticketing website that is) but neither is
it some sort of disaster zone where information is virtually
impossible to obtain or understand.

I'm not sure what more TfL could do: the Oyster system is,
unfortunately, extremely complex when you consider all the possible ways
you can use it. And visitors are quite likely to use it (or try to)
when going to places like Greenwich or Windsor, in awkward combinations
of tubes and buses and national rail trains and maybe even trams, so
they run more than a tiny risk of encountering the rough edges of the
scheme.

Let's take a step back. At the most basic level Oyster is not that
complicated.

You buy a card, pay a deposit and add money or a Travelcard on it.
On rail journeys in the zonal area you must touch in and then touch out.
On a tram journey you touch in.

Unless that tram's a docklands tram where you have to touch out!

On a bus journey you touch in.

You can add more money at a LU station, at ticket machines at stations
across the zonal area and at shops with signs saying Oyster Ticket
Stops.

Oh and Oyster will add up your daily PAYG travel and will ensure you pay
the cheapest total fare.


The above concepts are common to many smartcard systems elsewhere in the
world

Perhaps I'm not as travelled as you, but none of the similar systems that I
have used ever require you to touch out.

They either have a completely flat fare system (with or without "free"
transfers) or they require you to specify (by some mechanism) your exit zone
when you touch in, and rely upon honesty (and random on board checks) to do
it right.

It is "unresolved journeys" that cause most Oyster **** ups and is something
that no other system I have used can ever suffer from.

tim

On 4 May, 21:45, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Wed, 04 May 2011 21:31:52 +0100, Scott

wrote:
I think you go too far in condemning a whole system because of one or
two difficulties. *I will continue to use my Oyster card as a highly
convenient method of payment.

Go too far? George? surely not?

Some of us have read his comments over and over again in other places.
--
Paul C

I'm afraid that this is a bit more than one or two difficulties!

Definitely a failed touch-out at Cutty Sark!!

On 4 May, 18:05, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Wed, 4 May 2011 07:09:58 -0700 (PDT), George

wrote:
How much longer are people going to be ripped off like this? And
surely the London Tourist Board and similar organisations should be
telling visitors to London NOT to use Oyster and to buy a ODTC where
appropriate instead?

As ever George I assume that instead of moaning on here that you have
addressed your concerns to TfL and also to the London Tourist Board? *If
you haven't done so then you obviously don't think it is a particularly
serious matter.

PS - on an unrelated matter it was very nice of you to give me two new
nicknames in a recent posting about traffic in Purley on your "not
discredited" London-Transport Yahoo group. I have yet to finalise what I
"might not be able to do anything about" in response to my postings
being copied between groups.

You'd be surprised what I get to hear about. Have a nice day.

--
Paul C

Firstly Paul it is not my Yahoo Group it is Paul Morant that is the
owner.

Two new nicknames?? Some of your postings were being forwarded onto
the group from another group which I thought was a bit naughty!