u n d e r a c h i e v e r wrote:

Hi all

I'm now using the tube and buses on an infrequent enough basis that I
don't really need a period travelcard. However, often on a daily basis a
one-day would be cheaper. I was told that Oyster pre-pay would do this
automatically, but it doesn't, and I was then told the feature would be
activated 'in June'. Any word from those in the know here if/when this
will actually happen?

Oyster is a total waste of time and money. I sent mine back long ago and got
my £3 back eventually*. What's the point of Oyster when you can't top up
online the same day - you have to spend money to get to a station that has
a ticket desk; you can't see your usage online, you have to spend money to
go somewhere that has a ticket desk; you can't use off-peak 1-4 or 2-6 one
day travelcards (which account for pretty much all my usage), instead,
ending up getting a paper ticket.

*and that's another thing - why was I penalised £3 just to carry around this
useless card for a while? Why not take a leaf out of the cellular industry
and include a few pounds of pre-pay on the card for the "fee", as you'd get
if you bought a sim? Typical of a money-grabbing transport system with an
unrealistically overpriced fat-cat fare structure. This is why there's no
industry or jobs in London any more - every time one goes out of the house
it costs a flaming fortune.

--
Ian Tindale

Ian Tindale typed


Oyster is a total waste of time and money.

I disagree. It *can* save you money (especially on weekend Tube fares)
but you *really* have to know what your travelling pattern is likely to
be are work out the fares first.

I sent mine back long ago and got
my £3 back eventually*. What's the point of Oyster when you can't top up
online the same day

That's a nuisance but you can either:
always keep some credit on your card or
top up at a sweet shop (aka Ticket Point) near your home.

- you have to spend money to get to a station that has
a ticket desk; you can't see your usage online, you have to spend money to
go somewhere that has a ticket desk; you can't use off-peak 1-4 or 2-6 one
day travelcards (which account for pretty much all my usage), instead,
ending up getting a paper ticket.

Much of my Tube usage is also with this sort of (paper) Travelcard. I
try to purchase them in advance. I have a Bus Pass anyway. Oyster is
often cheaper than a Travelcard at weekends though.

*and that's another thing - why was I penalised £3 just to carry
around this
useless card for a while? Why not take a leaf out of the cellular industry
and include a few pounds of pre-pay on the card for the "fee", as you'd get
if you bought a sim?

Wot, like £1 calling credit on a £29.99 sim from Orange????

Typical of a money-grabbing transport system with an
unrealistically overpriced fat-cat fare structure. This is why there's no
industry or jobs in London any more - every time one goes out of the house
it costs a flaming fortune.

It's not too bad if you know how to play the system...

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 12:32:09 +0100, Helen Deborah Vecht wrote:
Ian Tindale typed


Oyster is a total waste of time and money.

I disagree. It *can* save you money (especially on weekend Tube fares)
but you *really* have to know what your travelling pattern is likely to
be are work out the fares first.

ok, but I don't know what my travel patterns are in advance each day. So I want the convenience of turn-up-and-go and i do not want to pay over the odds if I can help it. Today feels like the sort of day I'm going to get stung; I've done three bus journeys and a short hop on the tube already (and a river boat journey as well!). Somedays I dont' use public transport at all.

Wot, like £1 calling credit on a £29.99 sim from Orange????

Virgin SIMs used to cost a tenner and have a tenners credit. No idea if they still do...


--
u n d e r a c h i e v e r

"Helen Deborah Vecht" wrote in message
...
Ian Tindale typed


Oyster is a total waste of time and money.

I disagree. It *can* save you money (especially on weekend Tube fares)
but you *really* have to know what your travelling pattern is likely to
be are work out the fares first.


In the long term, I think Oyster can and will be great. Useable, rapid and
eco-friendly, and always offering the best possible value to the traveller.

But that day is still some way off.

Capping needs to be introduced, and it needs to be smart and effective. The
£90/50 Prepay limit needs to be abolished and the 'nominate a specific
station to pick up your credit' thing must go. Also, a Non-prepay
Pay-as-you-go that bills your credit/debit card would also be far better
than having to add value to the card periodically.

BTN

Ben Nunn wrote:

"Helen Deborah Vecht" wrote in message
...
Ian Tindale typed
Oyster is a total waste of time and money.

I disagree. It *can* save you money (especially on weekend Tube fares)
but you *really* have to know what your travelling pattern is likely to
be are work out the fares first.

In the long term, I think Oyster can and will be great. Useable, rapid and
eco-friendly, and always offering the best possible value to the traveller.

But that day is still some way off.

Capping needs to be introduced, and it needs to be smart and effective. The
£90/50 Prepay limit needs to be abolished and the 'nominate a specific
station to pick up your credit' thing must go. Also, a Non-prepay
Pay-as-you-go that bills your credit/debit card would also be far better
than having to add value to the card periodically.

BTN

I'm not 100% sure on the technology but AIUI the value is stored on the
card itself, to avoid problems with buses which cannot reliably contact
a network on demand. So therefore it isn't possible to update an Oyster
with prepay unless you do it at a networked terminal, such as an LU
ticket machine, ticket agent or ticket gate. I'm sure someone will be
along to correct any of this if required.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

"Ben Nunn" wrote in message ...

Capping needs to be introduced, and it needs to be smart and effective. The
£90/50 Prepay limit needs to be abolished and the 'nominate a specific
station to pick up your credit' thing must go. Also, a Non-prepay
Pay-as-you-go that bills your credit/debit card would also be far better
than having to add value to the card periodically.

Performing all the calculations required to get the 'instant' capping
to work (based on your last few journies) in the time you have your
card over the reader then to write back the refund to the card while
it is still in range is a non-trivial exercise - and is limited by the
length of the journey record kept on the card. This record needs to
hold every journey over the capping period for the calculation to be
correct.

For example if only the last 10 journeys are held and the period is 24
hours then a two zone tube journey could be made on peak (£2 prepay),
followed by 10 bus journeys (that would be capped at £2.50 for a one
day bus pass), followed by another £2 tube journey. The bus journeys
would have 'pushed off' the first tube journey resulting in a £6.50
total for the day rather than a £5.30 day travelcard because the first
journey can no longer be 'seen' by the program in the gate responsible
for the capping. While I admit this is a very contrived example it
illustrates the problem well - especially if the capping period is
scaled up substantially (to say, 1 week) without increasing the
journey storage capacity on the cards. And once you increase the
amount stored on the card it takes longer to read and write back -
causing lots of '96 Seek Assistance' errors as people pull the cards
away too fast without waiting for the green light. These are not easy
(or cheep) problems to solve - which probably explains the length of
time it is taking to come up with a 100% working solution - if one is
ever found.

From a technical point of view it would be far easier to introduce
'credit card' style billing (which I think was announced a while back)
whereby the price calculations are made based on a whole months travel
then you get sent the bill to pay at the end of the month. In this
case the backend system does not have a limited time frame to make the
calculations (in comparison to instant capping) and also has access to
all travel events for the past month to base them on. This requires a
completely new infrastructure to be installed that prints out the
bills and collects the payments, but in reality not much different
from the kind of tried and tested billing infrastructure that any
telco has had in place for years - just with a slightly more complex
pricing plan

--
Gareth Davis

Gareth Davis wrote:


For example if only the last 10 journeys are held and the period is 24
hours then a two zone tube journey could be made on peak (£2 prepay),
followed by 10 bus journeys (that would be capped at £2.50 for a one
day bus pass), followed by another £2 tube journey. The bus journeys
would have 'pushed off' the first tube journey resulting in a £6.50
total for the day rather than a £5.30 day travelcard because the first
journey can no longer be 'seen' by the program in the gate responsible
for the capping. While I admit this is a very contrived example it
illustrates the problem well - especially if the capping period is
scaled up substantially (to say, 1 week) without increasing the
journey storage capacity on the cards. And once you increase the
amount stored on the card it takes longer to read and write back -
causing lots of '96 Seek Assistance' errors as people pull the cards
away too fast without waiting for the green light. These are not easy
(or cheep) problems to solve - which probably explains the length of
time it is taking to come up with a 100% working solution - if one is
ever found.

But how do the weekly season tickets work? Are they some sort of blanket
'I've paid' signal that last a whole week? I'd have thought the same sort
of system would work for an off-peak one day travelcard* that simply says
'I've paid, let me through' and the oyster reader says 'is it after 9:30?
yep, okay'. Capping sounds complicated, whereas a straightforward off-peak
one day travelcard itself that works in the same way as a weekly (ie, don't
need to plonk on the reader on the way in or out of the station, but
nevertheless registers as valid when the driver comes up and inspects your
ticket) sounds quite simple in concept.

* Certainly not a peak - what's the point in such a minority-use ticket -
costs too much - never ever used one, never heard of anyone else paying for
one either.
--
Ian Tindale

In message , Ian Tindale
writes
* Certainly not a peak - what's the point in such a minority-use ticket -
costs too much - never ever used one, never heard of anyone else paying for
one either.

I bought a peak travelcard yesterday, or should I say "was sold one" as
it was apparently cheaper than buying a Z1 return (for use at 9am).

In years gone by, the introduction of a Peak Travelcard by WAGN has
avoided the early morning non-season-ticket traveller from having to buy
a Single to London plus a Network Card single back again (this being
much cheaper than buying a peak return).
--
Roland Perry

Ian Tindale wrote in message ...

But how do the weekly season tickets work? Are they some sort of blanket
'I've paid' signal that last a whole week? I'd have thought the same sort
of system would work for an off-peak one day travelcard* that simply says
'I've paid, let me through' and the oyster reader says 'is it after 9:30?

If you buy the peak travelcard in advance it will work as you suggest.
But in my example the passenger had not and it was upto the capping
system to work out that he/she should have done that to get the
cheepest fare for the days travel, rather than paying for the journeys
seperatly, then refund the excess prepay spent so they only ended up
paying for the peak travelcard even though he/she didn't buy one to
start with.

yep, okay'. Capping sounds complicated, whereas a straightforward off-peak

I don't think anyone will disagree with that!

one day travelcard itself that works in the same way as a weekly (ie, don't
need to plonk on the reader on the way in or out of the station, but
nevertheless registers as valid when the driver comes up and inspects your
ticket) sounds quite simple in concept.

To bring this back to the subject of this thread, I agree if you
ignore prepay than there is no reason why it could not be set up very
quickly - it's just a shorter validity version of the tickets already
available. However the lack of the one day travelcards/tickets on
Oyster makes a nice excuse for capping not to be available - after all
Oyster does not do day tickets so it can't cap the prepay fares down
to them


* Certainly not a peak - what's the point in such a minority-use ticket -
costs too much - never ever used one, never heard of anyone else paying for
one either.

If you need a travelcard for the day - but your first tube journey is
during the morning peek it is cheeper to get a peak day travelcard
than to buy a single then an off-peak travelcard in most (all?) cases.

--
Gareth Davis

(Gareth Davis)typed


If you need a travelcard for the day - but your first tube journey is
during the morning peek it is cheeper to get a peak day travelcard
than to buy a single then an off-peak travelcard in most (all?) cases.

It certainly was for me yesterday, when I did a *lot* of travelling.
I ended up using three types of ticket to get the cheapest options.

Bus Pass for my first trip from home.
PrePay Oyster to get to Kings Cross for 7.20am
6 zone ODTC to go to class in Golders Green, return to Burnt Oak & then
Met Line to Uxbridge in the evening...

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.