On Monday, 30 March 2015 16:30:40 UTC+1, Mizter T wrote:
On 30/03/2015 00:27, Neil Williams wrote:

On 2015-03-29 21:47:54 +0000, CJB said:

Not at Schipol or Amsterdam Central etc. - all the ticket machines
throughout the Nederlands refuse to 'speak' English.

You what? They have an English option. But even if they didn't, they
are not at all hard to navigate.

And now with the new chip-cards you have to pay a premium for personal
service at a ticket office window AND for the cost of the card.
Rip-off - worse than in the UK. CJB

I am in favour of fees to use the ticket office, it will keep it
available for those occasions when I want something the machine won't
do, and so there won't be a queue of half an hour of people buying a
simple outboundary Travelcard to London which they could easily have
done at the machine.


I've given this counter-example before, but at London area railway
stations it's not uncommon to find a queue for the TVM(s) and no queue
at the ticket window - the latter, in most cases (with some exceptions),
being unequipped to topup Oyster. I do wonder just how much retail
commission the various TOCs threw away by not installing the requisite kit.

SWT and London Midland have recently withdrawn Oyster at their ticket windows, so they can't value any commission that much.

On 2015-03-30 15:46:47 +0000, Matthew Dickinson said:

SWT and London Midland have recently withdrawn Oyster at their ticket
windows, so they can't value any commission that much.

Possibly confirmation that Oyster is going to become much more niche -
only really for those of limited means, tourists and children, as
everyone else will use contactless instead.

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

In message , at 11:39:11 on Tue, 31
Mar 2015, Neil Williams remarked:
SWT and London Midland have recently withdrawn Oyster at their ticket
windows, so they can't value any commission that much.

Possibly confirmation that Oyster is going to become much more niche -
only really for those of limited means, tourists and children, as
everyone else will use contactless instead.

What about commuters in London? Will they all migrate their in-boundary
Travelcards to ITSO, or is there a plan to link them to a contactless
card, and have it work throughout the Travelcard-valid estate?
--
Roland Perry

On 2015-03-31 10:44:56 +0000, Roland Perry said:

What about commuters in London? Will they all migrate their in-boundary
Travelcards to ITSO, or is there a plan to link them to a contactless
card, and have it work throughout the Travelcard-valid estate?

With monthly capping (and perhaps a move to longer-term capping), who
needs a Travelcard?

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

On 31/03/2015 15:14, Neil Williams wrote:

On 2015-03-31 10:44:56 +0000, Roland Perry said:

What about commuters in London? Will they all migrate their
in-boundary Travelcards to ITSO, or is there a plan to link them to a
contactless card, and have it work throughout the Travelcard-valid
estate?

With monthly capping (and perhaps a move to longer-term capping), who
needs a Travelcard?

Someone who wants their month to not start on the 1st (as monthly
capping might be implemented), or wants an odd-period Travelcard, or
wants to just buy their travel in one go (poss related to a loan from an
employer, or just the way they wish to budget for things).

One of t

On Tuesday, 31 March 2015 11:47:48 UTC+1, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 11:39:11 on Tue, 31
Mar 2015, Neil Williams remarked:
SWT and London Midland have recently withdrawn Oyster at their ticket
windows, so they can't value any commission that much.

Possibly confirmation that Oyster is going to become much more niche -
only really for those of limited means, tourists and children, as
everyone else will use contactless instead.

What about commuters in London? Will they all migrate their in-boundary
Travelcards to ITSO, or is there a plan to link them to a contactless
card, and have it work throughout the Travelcard-valid estate?
--
Roland Perry

One of the next stages of TfL's Future Ticketing Program is to allow in-boundary Travelcards to be loaded onto the contactless back office (presumably this will include TfL's proposed EMV closed loop Oyster replacement).

In message , at
08:46:13 on Tue, 31 Mar 2015, Matthew Dickinson
remarked:
SWT and London Midland have recently withdrawn Oyster at their ticket
windows, so they can't value any commission that much.

Possibly confirmation that Oyster is going to become much more niche -
only really for those of limited means, tourists and children, as
everyone else will use contactless instead.

What about commuters in London? Will they all migrate their in-boundary
Travelcards to ITSO, or is there a plan to link them to a contactless
card, and have it work throughout the Travelcard-valid estate?

One of the next stages of TfL's Future Ticketing Program is to allow
in-boundary Travelcards to be loaded onto the contactless back office

That's logical.

Meanwhile those of us deciding whether or not to buy outboundary
travelcards have a complex matrix of decisions based on how much out
particular TOC marks up (or discounts) the price when added to a London
Terminals Ticket, and how that all shifts around when buying off-peak,
or with a railcard discount, and also attempting to predict whether one
will hit any of the caps is travelling ad-hoc.

If they can stick *all* of that into the contactless system and
guarantee to offer the best deal from the numerous potential
combinations, that would be great. But how the ordinary traveller is
supposed to audit that, I have no idea.

And they haven't got a clean track record so far with Oyster capping,
where all they promise[1] turns out to be to cap to the cheapest
Travelcard that would once upon a time have been available for purchase,
and not try to work out if a slightly cheaper travelcard plus one single
from that card's boundary, might have worked out less expensive.

They've perhaps wormed their way out of that corner now by pretty much
having a flat fare for all paper day travelacrds.

[1] Mizter T can correct me if I'm wrong.
--
Roland Perry

On 31/03/2015 17:08, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at
08:46:13 on Tue, 31 Mar 2015, Matthew Dickinson
remarked:
SWT and London Midland have recently withdrawn Oyster at their ticket
windows, so they can't value any commission that much.

Possibly confirmation that Oyster is going to become much more niche -
only really for those of limited means, tourists and children, as
everyone else will use contactless instead.

What about commuters in London? Will they all migrate their in-boundary
Travelcards to ITSO, or is there a plan to link them to a contactless
card, and have it work throughout the Travelcard-valid estate?

One of the next stages of TfL's Future Ticketing Program is to allow
in-boundary Travelcards to be loaded onto the contactless back office

That's logical.

Meanwhile those of us deciding whether or not to buy outboundary
travelcards have a complex matrix of decisions based on how much out
particular TOC marks up (or discounts) the price when added to a London
Terminals Ticket, and how that all shifts around when buying off-peak,
or with a railcard discount, and also attempting to predict whether one
will hit any of the caps is travelling ad-hoc.

If they can stick *all* of that into the contactless system and
guarantee to offer the best deal from the numerous potential
combinations, that would be great. But how the ordinary traveller is
supposed to audit that, I have no idea.

Ha, well I can't really see the above happening!


And they haven't got a clean track record so far with Oyster capping,
where all they promise[1] turns out to be to cap to the cheapest
Travelcard that would once upon a time have been available for purchase,
and not try to work out if a slightly cheaper travelcard plus one single
from that card's boundary, might have worked out less expensive.

They've perhaps wormed their way out of that corner now by pretty much
having a flat fare for all paper day travelacrds.

[1] Mizter T can correct me if I'm wrong.

You are wrong, sorry!

If you do enough journeys within say zones 1&2 to reach a cap, and then
make a journey out to zone 6 (e.g. last day being a tourist in London
then out to Heathrow), you'll be capped for z1&2 and then pay a z3-z6
journey on top.

Since Jan 2015 things are a bit simpler (though I don't approve coz it's
much more expensive for some) - there's now one daily cap for Tube/rail,
rather than peak and off-peak caps.

In message , at 18:51:18 on Tue, 31 Mar
2015, Mizter T remarked:
And they haven't got a clean track record so far with Oyster capping,
where all they promise[1] turns out to be to cap to the cheapest
Travelcard that would once upon a time have been available for purchase,
and not try to work out if a slightly cheaper travelcard plus one single
from that card's boundary, might have worked out less expensive.

They've perhaps wormed their way out of that corner now by pretty much
having a flat fare for all paper day travelacrds.

[1] Mizter T can correct me if I'm wrong.

You are wrong, sorry!

If you do enough journeys within say zones 1&2 to reach a cap, and then
make a journey out to zone 6 (e.g. last day being a tourist in London
then out to Heathrow), you'll be capped for z1&2 and then pay a z3-z6
journey on top.

My impression was that they'd charge you for a Z1-6 travelcard.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 18:51:18 on Tue, 31 Mar
2015, Mizter T remarked:
Meanwhile those of us deciding whether or not to buy outboundary
travelcards have a complex matrix of decisions based on how much out
particular TOC marks up (or discounts) the price when added to a London
Terminals Ticket, and how that all shifts around when buying off-peak,
or with a railcard discount, and also attempting to predict whether one
will hit any of the caps is travelling ad-hoc.

If they can stick *all* of that into the contactless system and
guarantee to offer the best deal from the numerous potential
combinations, that would be great. But how the ordinary traveller is
supposed to audit that, I have no idea.

Ha, well I can't really see the above happening!

Very similar issues can easily result from ITSO cards making non-optimal
(for the passenger) choices about which tickets to use *today* when you
have various period returns 'in stock'.
--
Roland Perry