I have been thinking about some flaws in the Oyster system and was wondering
if anyone knew the legal situation in the following case.

If I have a zone 2-6 travelcard and travel from Highbury & Islington to
Richmond via the North London Line I am staying within my zones so no money
is deducted - no problem.

However if I decide to take the Victoria line then the District (going via
Zone 1) the Oystercard has no way of knowing how I got to Richmond so
presumably it cannot deduct any money in this case either.

Question: If I were to travel from Highbury to Richmond via Zone 1 on a
daily basis, knowing full well I was not being charged the correct fare, is
this fare evasion? Or could I say that as I am following the instructions by
touching in and out correctly it is not my fault that the money is not being
deducted correctly. With a paper ticket there is always the small risk of a
ticket inspection within zone 1, but if I have a validated Oyster with
sufficient Prepay on it there is nothing a ticket inspector could do.

Question 2: If I am honest and want to pay the extra £1.50 to go via zone 1,
how would I do this? The only way would seem to be to touch a validator on a
platform in zone 1, however there aren't any at most stations.

I think that this problem will only get worse when Oyster is rolled out to
National Rail services as there will then be many possible routes for a
given journey. As the Oystercard can only know the start station and the end
station, it can only work properly when the fare from A-B is always
constant, regardless of the route you use between them. However this is not
consistent with London's zonal fare system.

Peter Smyth