On Tue, 10 May 2005, Dave Arquati wrote:

I got mine in the post today. They've moved from issuing plain old
photocards to printing your photo and name onto a personalised Oyster,
which is encoded with your discount entitlement,

Do you get a new one every year?

so you can buy your discounted season tickets from the machine or
online, rather than having to go to the ticket office to do it.

Hmm. I can buy student-rate period travelcards at the machine; i have to
do it via a renewal rather than a new ticket purchase, though.

Unfortunately you can't get your existing Oyster's prepay balance
transferred onto it; looks like I'll have a main Oyster and an
emergency/guest Oyster from now on.

Huh? Can't you give in your old one and get the money back? I've never
tried that, but i'd assumed it was possible - after all, you pay a deposit
for an Oyster, and 'deposit' implies the possibility of a refund.

I mention this all because a while ago we had a thread mentioning YP
Railcard discounts on Travelcards versus prepay capping. It would seem
that since Oysters are now issued to students in this fashion, it would
be easy to set different prepay cap levels for a student Oyster,
corresponding to the YP discounts.

That would be nice.

I'm still looking forward to capping to 7DTC etc prices, though ...

tom

--
Any Christmas message which ends with "... everything's pointless ..." probably doesn't need sharing -- cleanskies

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 10 May 2005, Dave Arquati wrote:


I got mine in the post today. They've moved from issuing plain old
photocards to printing your photo and name onto a personalised Oyster,
which is encoded with your discount entitlement,


Do you get a new one every year?

No. The entitlement has a finish date encoded, so once that runs out,
you can either carry on using it for adult-rate tickets, prepay, or get
the entitlement renewed if appropriate.

I'm not sure if the finish date is the end of the current academic year
or the end date of your course as entered on the application form. Both
are the same for me at the moment, as I'm starting a new course in October.

so you can buy your discounted season tickets from the machine or
online, rather than having to go to the ticket office to do it.


Hmm. I can buy student-rate period travelcards at the machine; i have to
do it via a renewal rather than a new ticket purchase, though.


Unfortunately you can't get your existing Oyster's prepay balance
transferred onto it; looks like I'll have a main Oyster and an
emergency/guest Oyster from now on.


Huh? Can't you give in your old one and get the money back? I've never
tried that, but i'd assumed it was possible - after all, you pay a deposit
for an Oyster, and 'deposit' implies the possibility of a refund.

You can, but I don't think I can be bothered with the hassle. I really
just wanted to transfer the prepay from my old card straight onto the
new one.

I mention this all because a while ago we had a thread mentioning YP
Railcard discounts on Travelcards versus prepay capping. It would seem
that since Oysters are now issued to students in this fashion, it would
be easy to set different prepay cap levels for a student Oyster,
corresponding to the YP discounts.

That would be nice.

I'm still looking forward to capping to 7DTC etc prices, though ...

Yes, that would be extremely handy, particularly for students in the
summer term who may be going to and from university unpredictably.

I'm still slightly bemused by the discount Zone 2 7DTC only costing 10p
more than a bus pass. Make a single tube journey to/from Zone 2 and
you're quids in.


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

On Thu, 12 May 2005, Dave Arquati wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 10 May 2005, Dave Arquati wrote:

I got mine in the post today. They've moved from issuing plain old
photocards to printing your photo and name onto a personalised Oyster,
which is encoded with your discount entitlement,

Do you get a new one every year?

No. The entitlement has a finish date encoded, so once that runs out,
you can either carry on using it for adult-rate tickets, prepay, or get
the entitlement renewed if appropriate.

Clever.

I'm still looking forward to capping to 7DTC etc prices, though ...

Yes, that would be extremely handy, particularly for students in the
summer term who may be going to and from university unpredictably.

Or those who, in the spring term, cycle to work, except when the weather's
horrible!

tom

--
Gotta treat 'em mean to make 'em scream.

I've been a 'lurker' for a short while on this ng, being interested as
I am in transportational matters in the great metropolis that is
Londinium, so it's about time I got involved.

I'd never noticed the pricing difference of 20p (not 10p, but it's not
a deal breaker) between a 7-day Bus Pass and a Zone 2 7DTC (or indeed a
single zone 7DTC for any of the zones apart from Z1, i.e. Zone
2/3/4/5/6).

There is (obviously) a similar negligible difference between monthly
and annual Bus Passes and monthly Z2/3/4/5/6 Travelcards - £42.30 vs
£43.10 for monthlies, and £440 vs £448 for annuals.

My current travel needs mean I often purchase weekly bus passes, but I
do on occasion travel on the 'overground' entirely within Zone 2 (and
having a Travelcard would mean I'd so more frequently) so I'll
definitely be buying said Travelcard in the future.

In addition, on the (admittedly rare) occasions I need to take my young
cousins somewhere by public transport, it'd enable me to get them a Day
Travelcard for a quid. Though this might be more useful for other
people, however considering that the 'kid for a quid' kid has to travel
with you, and you can only travel by rail/tube in one zone then perhaps
it's not much more useful than the £1 child one-day buss pass.

If someone was to buy an annual Travelcard as opposed to a Bus Pass,
then of course they'd also benefit from the Gold Card 1/3 reduction on
rail travel in the south east.

The one thing that you'd lose out from if you were buying a Zone 2
Travelcard instead of Bus Pass would be the freedom of Croydon, more
specifically the ability to use Tramlink on your ticket. To travel on
the trams you need either a Bus Pass, or Travelcard valid for any zone
between 3 and 6. But as I don't go out with 'her' anymore I'm not down
that way so often!

(By the by, I do think that it's a slight anomaly that Travelcards are
now valid on any bus regardless of that Travelcard's zone (a great
recent innovation), and Bus Passes are now valid on the trams (again a
good thing), so in terms of ticketing a tram is almost the same thing
as a bus - apart from the lack of validity of Z1 and Z2 Travelcards. I
guess the logic is that you can't go by train/tube to a tram
interchange without going into Z3/4/5, but I still think it's an
aberration from the 'tram is a bus' ticketing logic.)

A far more verbose first post than intended - but thanks for the heads
up on the Bus Pass / Travelcard pricing difference Mr Arquati.

"Mizter T" typed

In addition, on the (admittedly rare) occasions I need to take my young
cousins somewhere by public transport, it'd enable me to get them a Day
Travelcard for a quid. Though this might be more useful for other
people, however considering that the 'kid for a quid' kid has to travel
with you, and you can only travel by rail/tube in one zone then perhaps
it's not much more useful than the £1 child one-day buss pass.

Don't forget under 11s go free on the buses anyway. How old are your cousins?

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

Three of them are between 10 and 16, and another is older. They're all
good fun.

To be honest I doubt I'll take advantage of the 'kid for a quid' option
very often, but it's an advantage of a 7-day or longer Travelcard that
should be bourne on mind. Though I'm not planning on having any little
terrors quite yet!

I guess there's a mix of newer and older Londoner's on this newsgroup,
and perhaps some may agree with me in thinking that TfL ticketing is
certainly more innovative and, in some respects, better value than it
was say 7 years ago. Though of course when you start comparing the
prices with Paris, Berlin and New York it doesn't look so rosy!

Mizter T wrote:
(snip)

A far more verbose first post than intended - but thanks for the heads
up on the Bus Pass / Travelcard pricing difference Mr Arquati.

You're very welcome. I'll probably get myself a Z2 7DTC as I'll most
likely be living in Zone 2 soon, and I'm almost certain to take the Tube
at least once a week - saving myself a few pence in the process.

I don't have much of an urge to go to Croydon except about once a year,
so I should be OK on the tram front. It's an interesting oddity though!


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

Dave Arquati wrote:
Mizter T wrote:
(snip)

A far more verbose first post than intended - but thanks for the
heads
up on the Bus Pass / Travelcard pricing difference Mr Arquati.

You're very welcome. I'll probably get myself a Z2 7DTC as I'll most
likely be living in Zone 2 soon, and I'm almost certain to take the
Tube
at least once a week - saving myself a few pence in the process.

I don't have much of an urge to go to Croydon except about once a
year,
so I should be OK on the tram front. It's an interesting oddity
though!

I noticed the Tramlink odity too. Although if your just popping to
Ikea (or whatever else there is in Croydon) for a little while it
doesn't seem to charge you for the return journey

Chris! wrote:
Dave Arquati wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
(snip)

A far more verbose first post than intended - but thanks for the

heads

up on the Bus Pass / Travelcard pricing difference Mr Arquati.

You're very welcome. I'll probably get myself a Z2 7DTC as I'll most
likely be living in Zone 2 soon, and I'm almost certain to take the

Tube

at least once a week - saving myself a few pence in the process.

I don't have much of an urge to go to Croydon except about once a

year,

so I should be OK on the tram front. It's an interesting oddity

though!

I noticed the Tramlink odity too. Although if your just popping to
Ikea (or whatever else there is in Croydon) for a little while it
doesn't seem to charge you for the return journey

There's something else in Croydon except Ikea? I never did get further
than Ampere Way tramstop.

I think the lack of charging on the return journey is because if the
time from your touch-in is short enough, it considers you to be changing
trams.

The application of Oyster to the trams seems a bit messed up compared to
other modes. It would be more intuitive to either be touch in on
boarding (like buses) or touch in and touch out at the platform (like
the Tube). I know if the latter were the case, people could go off and
do their shopping and get back on the tram without officially leaving
the system, but it seems as though they can do that anyway under the
current system. There could be something stopping you touching in and
out at the same station after time interval X.

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

(Apols for the lack of brevity in the post that follows!)

I don't live down that way, but my dentist (an old family friend)
practises in Croydon, so every six months or so I take the opportunity
to complement my polish and scale with picking up bits and bobs in the
department stores down that way (which are in the town centre - Ikea is
'out' on the Purley Way, alongside the other warehouse style stores, so
a trip to Ikea is not really a trip to Croydon). Plus I've had other
connections with the area over time.

Croydon is also the tenth largest town in England (if you regard the
whole London Borough of Croydon as the town), and the "sixth largest
commercial office location" - according to
http://www2.newsquest.co.uk/local_london/croydon/today/.

If it sounds like I'm in love with the place, I'm not! Just pointing
out that in transport terms it's an important 'satellite town' of
London. It can have a bit of a provincial feel, though it is still
relatively cosmopolitan. I wouldn't recomment the centre of Croydon as
a location for a night out though, unless you have a particular
penchant for Yates's Wine Bar and the like.


Dave Arquati wrote:
The application of Oyster to the trams seems a bit messed up compared
to other modes. It would be more intuitive to either be touch in on
boarding (like buses) or touch in and touch out at the platform (like

the Tube). I know if the latter were the case, people could go off
and
do their shopping and get back on the tram without officially leaving

the system, but it seems as though they can do that anyway under the
current system. There could be something stopping you touching in and

out at the same station after time interval X.

I don't think I agree that the Oyster implementation is 'messed up' on
Tramlink. The rest of what I say assumes we're talking about Oyster
pre-pay, given that if you have a valid season ticket on your Oyster
card you need not touch in *.

First off I don't see the need to touch-in and touch-out - given that
the system uses a flat fare (the same fares as a bus). If it used a
more complex fare structure (as it did when it opened, in pre-Oyster
days) then touching in and out would be neccessary, but hopefully this
will never be the case as IMO flat fares (at least for buses and trams)
are a 'good thing'. Also, the faffing about having to touch-out would
annoy passngers (it'd certainly annoy me), people would forget and at
busy traqm stops the scramble to get to the platform Oyster reader when
a busy tram emtied out would be silly and perhaps unsafe.

So, if all a passenger needs to do is touch-in the choice is between
having Oyster readers on the platform or on the tram itself. The trams
are similar in a sense to the bendy buses where you touch-in on board
the bus, but there are some differences between these scenarios. All
the tram stops have next-tram indicators (which are always accurate,
unlike London Buses' countdown system which, whilst useful, doesn't
always pick up on all the buses due to arrive shortly, and gives ETA's
that can be a bit out), so tram passengers can make informed decisions
about whether to pay for a journey by touching-in on the platform. Tram
platforms are also, at leats notionally, compulsory ticket areas. The
tram stops are all also well maintained as an integral part of the
system. There are also the drawbacks of a system where the Oyster
readers are on board, such as congestion in the area of the carriage
where the readers are located, the possibility of many people moving
about the tram carriages to touch-in, and the potential for a scramble
to touch-in whenever inspectors board the tram from those who would
otherwise evade the fare.

The counter-question could be asked thus - why bendy bus routes don't
have Oyster readers at the bus stops as opposed to on the bus. At the
moment when using pre-pay passengers have to touch in at the drivers
door, which does mean that the type of opportunistic fare-evasion
described above (touching-in when inspectors board) is less likely, but
it does cause congestion at the front of a busy bendy bus (I ride them
often and am well aware of this). Thankfully bendy buses will have
Oyster readers near all the three doors later this year, a blessed
relief for many pre-pay users (when I'm not a Bus Pass-er I'm an Oyster
pre-payer), which obviously opens up the possibility for such
fare-evasion again - though I guess the driver could perhaps have a
button to hit to disable the readers as soon as the inspectors board.

I have wondered why the roadside ticket machines on bendy bus routes
didn't also incorporate an Oyster reader, to avoid the problems of
on-board Oyster validation - such a system would be the same as
touching-in at a tram stop (plus the roadside ticket machine could also
be used to top-up pre-pay and possibly load period bus passes onto
Oyster cards).

There are good reasons against this implementation - the lack of
countdown displays at all bus stops (or the cost of installing them)
and the innacuracies of countdown would mean people might pay for a bus
journey they never actually make (if the bus took too long), the
possibility of a scamble to validate Oyster cards when a bus did appear
on the horizon, the possibility of vandalism to Oyster readers (tram
stops are all monitored by CCTV, unline all bus stops), and the fact
that newsagents who sold TfL tickets (so called 'Ticket Stops') might
object that they're business was being taken away by a roadside machine
that could top-up Oyster pre-pay.

I think the implementation on the tram system is suited to the way the
system works and is used. The implementation of Oyster on bendy buses
meanwhile, whilst not perfect, is the best that can be done given the
limiting factors.

Finally, just to clarify how the Oyster system works on Tramlink (since
the introduction of capping in February). Your pre-pay is valid for 70
minutes after touching in at a tram stop (ot 'T' prefixed tram-feeder
buses). If you change trams (or from a tram to a 'T' route bus or
vice-versa), the second journey is free within 70 minutes as long as
you touch-in on the platform reader at the interchange point. This
would seem to explain why Chris gets a free journey. I guess the system
designers presume most people can't go to Ikea and get out of it within
an hour or so! In terms of revenue it means they lose out, but until
the Oyster card interfaces with a passengers brain to work out their
intentions, there's not a lot that can be done about it.

You could say that if the system was really smart then it could work
out from the direction of travel (determined by which platform you
touch-in on) whether you were continuing your journey or if you were in
fact making a return journey. However, this is not a realistic
porposal, as some tram stops have island platforms (so the reader
wouldn't know if you were going one way or the other), and the
publicity advises passengers that if a reader is broken they should use
another one, on the other platform if needed.

It seems designing ticketing systems that are workable is not a simple
business.