TheOneKEA wrote:
Kentish Town - Elephant & Castle / London Bridge

Thameslink in the central zone I presume... Am I right that PrePay is
available at City Thameslink?

I have seen standalone validators at City Thameslink. I suspect PrePay
is valid there.

Yes, and at all other TL stations between KT - E&C/LB

Marylebone - Amersham

Duplicating the Met plus allowing the London terminal rather than have
everyone changing trains at Harrow on the Hill to arrive at a very nearby
station.

This route isn't really a duplication IMO, it's an enhancement.
Chiltern probably decided to implement through PrePay ticketing because
they knew that from the POV of Met passengers, their Aylesbury line
services are the same as the Met services. Besides the long tradition
of through ticketing makes it less of a duplication than the other
routes.

The latter is the important factor: Chiltern (and all the other
operators on inter-available routes) are obliged to accept LU tickets
on this route, whether they're formatted as paper or Oyster prepay,
under agreements with BR (and quite possibly its predecessors) that are
written into the current TOCs' franchise agreements.

Marylebone - West Ruislip (only intermediately at South Ruislip)

Similarly with the Central Line I guess, although the Marylebone to South
Ruislip section isn't really duplicating the Central in a meaningful sense
or going to cause bizarre interchange habits is it?

This isn't really a duplication either. I think Chiltern first accepted
it because it doesn't make sense to only allow NR trips between the
Ruislips on PrePay. Now that Wembley Stadium station is increasing in
importance, Chiltern might start accepting PrePay there too (in fact,
they should definitely do so IMO).

They certainly should. Whether they -will- is another question,
especially as their franchise isn't up for renegotiation any time soon.
I suspect any changes would have to involve Ken throwing them some
money...

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

John B wrote:
The latter is the important factor: Chiltern (and all the other
operators on inter-available routes) are obliged to accept LU tickets
on this route, whether they're formatted as paper or Oyster prepay,
under agreements with BR (and quite possibly its predecessors) that are
written into the current TOCs' franchise agreements.

Not quite. If I remember correctly, the TOCs are only obliged to accept
LU Travelcards and LU paper tickets under the equivalency agreements
created between the new TOCs after privatisation and LU. That is why
Oyster Travelcards are accepted throughout, despite the lack of
validator equipment - the equivalency agreement was extended to make
Oyster Travelcards equal to LU travelcards. Since PrePay is a new
product not covered by the equivalency agreements, TOCs can and do
refuse to accept it except on certain inter-available routes where
passenger discrimination is not possible to enforce (i.e.
Marylebone-Amersham).


This isn't really a duplication either. I think Chiltern first accepted
it because it doesn't make sense to only allow NR trips between the
Ruislips on PrePay. Now that Wembley Stadium station is increasing in
importance, Chiltern might start accepting PrePay there too (in fact,
they should definitely do so IMO).

They certainly should. Whether they -will- is another question,
especially as their franchise isn't up for renegotiation any time soon.
I suspect any changes would have to involve Ken throwing them some
money...

It would behoove Chiltern to install standalone validators at the
station - it would make the scrum at Marylebone much less painful when
the 8-car Football Shuttles come back.

Besides, there is also the fact that Wembley Stadium station is still
the closest to the entire Wembley Stadium complex; even when there
aren't games running, the massive regenration of the area will cause
traffic at the station to skyrocket. Implementing explicit Oyster
support at this station will certainly be very useful.

On 23 Mar 2006 04:42:31 -0800, "John B" wrote:

This isn't really a duplication either. I think Chiltern first accepted
it because it doesn't make sense to only allow NR trips between the
Ruislips on PrePay. Now that Wembley Stadium station is increasing in
importance, Chiltern might start accepting PrePay there too (in fact,
they should definitely do so IMO).

They certainly should. Whether they -will- is another question,
especially as their franchise isn't up for renegotiation any time soon.
I suspect any changes would have to involve Ken throwing them some
money...

Chiltern are a fairly enterprising and customer-focused TOC, and given
the level of customer demand for pre-pay, I suspect (though I have no
direct reason to) that the main reason they aren't accepting it there
yet is due to the obstructiveness of ATOC (re ITSO compliance etc).

On 23 Mar 2006 07:27:49 -0800, "John B" wrote:

Overall, I can't think of any
routes where LU paper tickets are accepted and Oyster Prepay is not,

There are several - most of the NLL and WLL, for example.

On 23 Mar 2006 07:57:24 -0800, "John B" wrote:

Overall, I can't think of any
routes where LU paper tickets are accepted and Oyster Prepay is not,

There are several - most of the NLL and WLL, for example.

Rilly? What LU paper tickets (not travelcards) are accepted on the NLL
northwest of Stratford/northeast of Kew?

Normal LU single/return tickets. See the TfL fares leaflet.

John B wrote:
asdf wrote:
Overall, I can't think of any
routes where LU paper tickets are accepted and Oyster Prepay is not,
There are several - most of the NLL and WLL, for example.

Rilly? What LU paper tickets (not travelcards) are accepted on the NLL
northwest of Stratford/northeast of Kew?

Yup, paper Tube singles valid at *all* stations Richmond - North
Woolwich and West Brompton - Willesden Junction. This was only
introduced recently and I've never really understood why.


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

asdf wrote:
On 23 Mar 2006 04:42:31 -0800, "John B" wrote:

This isn't really a duplication either. I think Chiltern first accepted
it because it doesn't make sense to only allow NR trips between the
Ruislips on PrePay. Now that Wembley Stadium station is increasing in
importance, Chiltern might start accepting PrePay there too (in fact,
they should definitely do so IMO).
They certainly should. Whether they -will- is another question,
especially as their franchise isn't up for renegotiation any time soon.
I suspect any changes would have to involve Ken throwing them some
money...

Chiltern are a fairly enterprising and customer-focused TOC, and given
the level of customer demand for pre-pay, I suspect (though I have no
direct reason to) that the main reason they aren't accepting it there
yet is due to the obstructiveness of ATOC (re ITSO compliance etc).

I also imagine it's difficult to negotiate the fares for these journeys.

Currently, a Standard Day Single from Marylebone to Wembley Stadium is
£2.80. The equivalent TfL PAYG fare is £2.00 offpeak and £2.50 peak. To
accept prepay, one of two things has to happen:

(a) Chiltern accept PAYG as it stands, with TfL negotiating a regular
bulk payment to them based on the number of prepay passengers using the
appropriate services.
TfL's payment will probably exceed the new PAYG revenues because:
- TfL fares are cheaper anyway (for singles)
- Through fares from other Tube destinations incur no additional cost to
the passenger (e.g. Embankment to Wembley Stadium would be the same as
Marylebone to Wembley Stadium, so the additional PAYG revenue for the
latter part of the journey would be even smaller).

(b) TfL and Chiltern agree that PAYG on the relevant services will be
the same (or similar) price as existing paper tickets, meaning that
passengers are confused even further by the fare structure, and that the
capping logic becomes even more complicated (or doesn't apply to the
relevant service).

Having said all that, they've obviously managed to negotiate it for the
Ruislips to Marylebone when no such agreement was in place for paper
tickets.

Incidentally, if/when PAYG is implemented on most rail services in
London, I wonder how the fare income will be distributed - the
Travelcard fare distribution system seems to work fairly well, but TfL
will have extensive data about exactly how much each particular route is
being used by Oyster holders.


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

asdf wrote:
On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 16:20:19 -0600, "Tristán White"
wrote:
Any idea when pre-pay will be adopted throughout all zonal NR stations?

Not for the forseeable future, unfortunately.

....although acceptance of PAYG is now in the South Western franchise
specification, meaning that it should be valid on all South Western
services within Greater London after 4th February 2007 (although
installation of validators may take some time, so it could be later in
the year).

http://www.londontravelwatch.org.uk/news.php?id=350

Actually, that's before the North London Railway take over, which is
November 2007 - so by the end of next year, PAYG should be valid at
another 60-70 rail stations.

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

"Clive D. W. Feather" wrote in message
...

Liverpool Street - Upminster is for two reasons:
(1) duplicates Central Line to Stratford, hence Stratford is legal;
(2) late at night when Fenchurch Street is shut, hence Maryland and
Forest Gate aren't.

Fenchurch Street no longer closes early (22:00). Two trains (22:58 and
23:58) are timetabled from Liverpool Street to keep the drivers route
knowledge up. C2C also use Liverpool St some weekends during engineering
work west of Barking - this weekend being one.