Buskers, Oyster prepay
 

There was an unlicenced busker at St Paul's a few days ago who nearly
poked my eye out with the bow of her violin. She was standing right at
the bottom of the escalators and her bow was poking into the escalator
on the left at about eye level for a tall person. I passed through
today and she was still there, but at least she had moved from the eye
poking position.

Oyster prepay has the rather annoying ability of allowing you to travel
without a travelcard when you actually want to buy one. I fairly
regularly end up being charged for making journeys and buying a
travelcard later in the day. Will capping be able to take it into
account if you make journeys on prepay and then later in the day buy a
period ticket (weekly, monthly etc.) that would have covered those
journeys? This would be handy for things like taking a bus to the local
tube station to buy your ticket.

--
message by Robin May. Inimitable, but would you want to anyway?
"GIVE IN! IT'S TIME TO GO!" - The NHS offers a high standard of care.

"You MUST NOT drive dangerously" - the Highway Code
Spelling lesson: then and than are different words.

Buskers, Oyster prepay
 

In article , Robin May
writes
There was an unlicenced busker at St Paul's a few days ago who nearly
poked my eye out with the bow of her violin. She was standing right at
the bottom of the escalators and her bow was poking into the escalator
on the left at about eye level for a tall person. I passed through
today and she was still there, but at least she had moved from the eye
poking position.

So did you ask the station staff to boot her out? There were 2 guys
playing guitars there a couple of days ago.
--
Andrew
Electronic communications can be altered and therefore the integrity of this
communication can not be guaranteed.
Views expressed in this communication are those of the author and not
associations or companies I am involved with.

Buskers, Oyster prepay
 

Andrew P Smith wrote the following in:


In article ,
Robin May writes
There was an unlicenced busker at St Paul's a few days ago who
nearly poked my eye out with the bow of her violin. She was
standing right at the bottom of the escalators and her bow was
poking into the escalator on the left at about eye level for a
tall person. I passed through today and she was still there, but
at least she had moved from the eye poking position.

So did you ask the station staff to boot her out? There were 2
guys playing guitars there a couple of days ago.

No, she was at the bottom, they were at the top (of the escalators) and
she would have been very clearly audible to them, perhaps even visible
too. I thought that if they hadn't bothered to get rid of her already
then me saying something probably wouldn't change matters.

--
message by Robin May. Inimitable, but would you want to anyway?
"GIVE IN! IT'S TIME TO GO!" - The NHS offers a high standard of care.

"You MUST NOT drive dangerously" - the Highway Code
Spelling lesson: then and than are different words.

Buskers, Oyster prepay
 

In article , Robin May
writes
Andrew P Smith wrote the following in:


In article ,
Robin May writes
There was an unlicenced busker at St Paul's a few days ago who
nearly poked my eye out with the bow of her violin. She was
standing right at the bottom of the escalators and her bow was
poking into the escalator on the left at about eye level for a
tall person. I passed through today and she was still there, but
at least she had moved from the eye poking position.

So did you ask the station staff to boot her out? There were 2
guys playing guitars there a couple of days ago.

No, she was at the bottom, they were at the top (of the escalators) and
she would have been very clearly audible to them, perhaps even visible
too. I thought that if they hadn't bothered to get rid of her already
then me saying something probably wouldn't change matters.

Well, if they weren't licensed buskers on a licensed pitch (and the
bottom of the escalators at St Pauls' isn't IIRC then the station staff
should have booted them out or got the BTP to do it.

Clogging the bottom of the escalator area is dangerous.
--
Andrew
Electronic communications can be altered and therefore the integrity of this
communication can not be guaranteed.
Views expressed in this communication are those of the author and not
associations or companies I am involved with.

Buskers, Oyster prepay
 

On 27 May 2004 21:50:13 GMT, Robin May
wrote:


Oyster prepay has the rather annoying ability of allowing you to travel
without a travelcard when you actually want to buy one.


???

I fairly regularly end up being charged for making journeys and buying a
travelcard later in the day.

Why is that any different from paper ticketing? Surely if you travel
before buying a travelcard you have to pay for those journeys?

Buskers, Oyster prepay
 

Andrew P Smith typed



Well, if they weren't licensed buskers on a licensed pitch (and the
bottom of the escalators at St Pauls' isn't IIRC then the station staff
should have booted them out or got the BTP to do it.

Clogging the bottom of the escalator area is dangerous.

I think there *might* be a licensed pitch somewhere sat St Pauls.
I am mighty fed up of the guitarist who only plays that darned Cavatina
though.

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

Buskers, Oyster prepay
 

k wrote the following in:


On 27 May 2004 21:50:13 GMT, Robin May
wrote:


Oyster prepay has the rather annoying ability of allowing you to
travel without a travelcard when you actually want to buy one.


???

Travelcard runs out, you've forgotten about it, put your oyster on the
reader and it lets you through because it charges the ticket to your
prepay.

I fairly regularly end up being charged for making journeys and
buying a
travelcard later in the day.

Why is that any different from paper ticketing? Surely if you
travel before buying a travelcard you have to pay for those
journeys?

Because with a paper ticket if it's run out and you put it in the gates
it won't let you through. Therefore you won't be charged for a journey
you actually wanted to buy a travelcard to cover. With an oyster you
can forget your ticket has run out, put it on the gates and instead of
being prevented from getting through it will let you through but charge
you.

--
message by Robin May. Inimitable, but would you want to anyway?
"GIVE IN! IT'S TIME TO GO!" - The NHS offers a high standard of care.

"You MUST NOT drive dangerously" - the Highway Code
Spelling lesson: then and than are different words.

Buskers, Oyster prepay
 

On 28 May 2004 10:28:37 GMT, Robin May
wrote:



Travelcard runs out, you've forgotten about it, put your oyster on the
reader and it lets you through because it charges the ticket to your
prepay.

Ah, yes, of course.

Because with a paper ticket if it's run out and you put it in the gates
it won't let you through. Therefore you won't be charged for a journey
you actually wanted to buy a travelcard to cover. With an oyster you
can forget your ticket has run out, put it on the gates and instead of
being prevented from getting through it will let you through but charge
you.

Yes, I see the problem now. Plus of course your less likely to know
its run out as you can't see the expiry date on it. (Although I've
seen some messages come up on gates which say it will soon run out)

Buskers, Oyster prepay
 

Robin May ) gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying :

sod the rest of it, the subject line just raises such an interesting
concept...

So - when WILL the official licenced busker pitches be equipped with Oyster
readers, so you can use your prepay credit to donate to them?

Buskers, Oyster prepay
 

The solution seems simple: require buskers to use only defective Oyster
cards, thus preventing them from blocking ped traffic within the system.

Buskers, Oyster prepay
 

Adrian wrote:

So - when WILL the official licenced busker pitches be equipped with Oyster
readers, so you can use your prepay credit to donate to them?

Singapore already makes that possible - their Oyster-equivalent cards
(ezLink) can be touched against charitable donation machines in shopping
centres. There was a video playing saying how great the chairty was,
and then touchpads for donating $1, $5 and $10 from your ezLink card.

ezLink isn't really comparable to Oyster though, it works as you'd
expect, and works first time. It also gives you credit/discount for
using interconnecting public transport services (ie if you took a bus to
your MRT/tube station, took the tube/MRT, then a bus from the
destination station to your final destination, the bus + train + bus
journey would cost less than a single train and two single bus journeys
alone.

Buskers, Oyster prepay
 

On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 13:30:31 GMT, Robinson
wrote:

ezLink isn't really comparable to Oyster though, it works as you'd
expect, and works first time. It also gives you credit/discount for
using interconnecting public transport services (ie if you took a bus to
your MRT/tube station, took the tube/MRT, then a bus from the
destination station to your final destination, the bus + train + bus
journey would cost less than a single train and two single bus journeys
alone.

That this isn't the case is a fault of London's fare structure and not
Oyster per-se. In most of Germany's Verkehrsverbuende in the major
cities, there is one public transport fare, not a bus, tram or train
fare.

You pay one single, and it is valid by as many modes for as many
changes as required to make your journey. Indeed, because of how the
bus services are structured, it is rare to be able to do a journey by
one mode. There may be a short-distance single as well, but there
isn't a discount for only using the bus like there effectively is in
London.

The difference, I guess, is that most European U- and S-Bahn systems
are not well over capacity like LUL is, so there is less of a reason
to want to shy people away from rail and onto bus for journeys that
are really too long or too slow for a city bus.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
To e-mail use neil at the above domain

Buskers, Oyster prepay
 

On Tue, 1 Jun 2004, Fustanella wrote:

The solution seems simple: require buskers to use only defective Oyster
cards, thus preventing them from blocking ped traffic within the system.

But surely that's the majority of the cards?

tom

--
But in natural sciences whose conclusions are true and necessary and have nothing to do with human will, one must take care not to place oneself in the defense of error; for here a thousand Demostheneses and a thousand Aristotles would be left in the lurch by every mediocre wit who happened to hit upon the truth for himself. -- Galileo