David of Broadway wrote:

Hardly a small station, but I ran into problems buying a train ticket at
Schiphol. Either I hadn't obtained cash yet or the machine didn't
accept bills/notes or I simply wanted to preserve my cash, but I
couldn't convince the machine to accept either my credit card or my ATM
card. (Could it be because we don't have chip-and-PIN here? I also had
trouble this year at the large Oyster machines in London, although the
small ones seemed to accept my card.)

Schiphol is the exception to the rule in that the ticket machines *do*
accept credit cards. They do ask for a PIN, but I believe they don't
verify it (as the Dutch don't use Chip & PIN yet - they use a much more
rudimentary "strip and PIN" system, and sign for credit card
transactions).

That said I always enter the correct PIN as I don't want to risk card
trouble when abroad, so someone else can test that theory if they like


So I waited in a long line at the ticket window and bought my ticket
there. I later realized that I was overcharged by €0.50, and I'm still
not sure why -- perhaps that was a surcharge for buying a ticket from a
human? As if I had a choice!

Yes, there is a surcharge, and you should have been given a separate
ticket to represent that charge.

It is bloody ridiculous. As, additionally, is the fact that you can't
buy an international ticket beyond NL/BE/LU or a limited number of
stations in Germany except at some very large stations and the ticket
machines - if you have change!

While NS does have the Taktfahrplan (connectional regular interval
timetable) just about sewn up, not to mention the rather odd (!) idea
of actually running enough capacity on their trains, they are years
behind the UK in terms of passenger information and friendliness,
especially to foreigners.

Notably, in the land of integrated transport, you can't buy a through
train-bus ticket like you can in the UK (though if you have a
Strippenkaart it isn't really an issue).

When I got into Amsterdam, I asked at an information booth how to buy a
tram ticket, since I didn't see any ticket machines. He told me to just
buy one from the driver. He did /not/ mention the Strippenkaart option.
Granted, I should have done my own research in advance, but it would
been nice if the person at the information booth had given me some more
information.

Indeed. I'm surprised they didn't sell you a day ticket or something.

I hope I offend anyone with my observations, but I've never seen such a
crowded supermarket. Customers were frantically stocking up, as though
they had a half hour to buy all the groceries they'd need for the next
three months. I was going to buy a souvenir (perhaps the Kroger-brand
instant oatmeal that dominated the American food section), but I changed
my mind when I saw the immensely long lines to pay.

Sounds like a lot of Tesco Metros, smaller city stores where there is
less room for tills. (IMX most Tesco superstores have more than
sufficient even at busy times).

Oh, and there was a clothing store upstairs. Also Tesco.

Common in the UK - they, and Asda, are getting a significant part of
the cheaper (but still decent quality) end of the market.

Neil

David of Broadway wrote:

Having just come from London, with its fare integration, on a National
Rail ticket that I was told would be accepted on either First Capital
Connect from King's Cross or on 'one' from Liverpool Street, this caught
me by surprise. But apparently it's London and National Rail that are
the exception, not the rule.

What happened with National Rail was a bit of learning from the
mistakes of bus deregulation, albeit by introducing other mistakes. I
hate to think how things would have been if the bus free-for-all had
hit the rails.

There are, in certain areas, interavailable tickets. They aren't the
rule, though, and they are inconsistent and complex. Visitors not
wishing to have to argue the point about whether a given ticket is
valid or not are probably best off just buying cash singles from the
driver, noting (!) that bus drivers are usually only happy to accept
the note "above" the fare (i.e. £5 note for a fare less than £5, £10
for a fare £5-£10 etc) as they tend to carry limited amounts of
change, and that in a very small number of places (e.g. Birmingham)
there are exact change policies.

Whatever "Uncle Ken" does with his overcharging for singles, London is
still far better off...

Neil

On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 05:08:09 GMT, David of Broadway
wrote:
On my two brief visits to London since Oyster was launched, I managed to
thoroughly confuse the Oyster system several times. And, although I
really shouldn't be looking over random strangers' shoulders while they
use the ticket machines, I couldn't help but notice that many of their
cards triggered the unresolved journey warning.

I agree with Tristán that this is a problem.

I think Oyster is an excellent system, which would have been very easy
to use except for a few exceptions that let it down and make things
more complicated, usually at the interface between different modes,
and sometimes made worse by the physical layout of the stations.

Pre-pay users seem to get the worst of it, especially with the £4
charge for not Doing the Right Thing - IMHO it's far too early to
introduce this charge while there are so many special rules around.
I'm talking mainly of National Rail stations, London Bridge and
Wimbledon, where I think I paid 3 times for a tram journey (long
story), and all the various validators around with special
instructions - for instance the Entry Only at Bank onto the DLR, of
course I touched it there anyway on the way out as like most people I
didn't read the instructions but it was all OK in the end. Perhaps
the system is more forgiving than I think? Also, I might be
over-stating it: most people will be making "simple" Underground
journeys where you can't go far wrong, from an Oyster point of view.

Perhaps these special cases will go away with proper fare integration,
leaving the system that it should have been all along. As usual,
thanks to the politicians for that.

I'm still a bit concerned about arrangements for stations that need to
be evacuated. Will people still try to validate their cards on the
way out? (A comparison with Couronnes might be stretching it a bit,
but there's a potential problem, I think.) How is a £4 charge or
unresolved journey cancelled, if the user rarely travels on the
Underground?

Richard.

Arthur Figgis wrote:
On 13 Sep 2006 04:08:44 -0700, "sweek"
wrote:

Neil Williams wrote:
sweek wrote:

An Oyster is a little card that you touch in and touch out the gates
with. On buses, you only touch in. Get a PAYG one and you do not have
to worry about how much it costs. It will be the cheapest way for you
to get around. A trip will cost you 1 pound on the bus, and one fifty
on the tube. Put enough money on the card to make sure you can travel
around. You can check your balance at every station using the machine.
This is roughly the level it needs to be at, yes, though I think you
may be intending to be ironic. It needs to be put above the ticket
machines (or before you reach them) in tube stations to prevent the 4
quid rip-off occurring, and in several languages.

Next, you need to make it easier to obtain an Oyster by having it sold
from several machines pre-credited, rather than having to queue for
ages at the ticket office. (Note: many tourists will want to avoid the
ticket office as the language barrier may be an issue, let alone the
invariably long queue).

Neil
No I wasn't being ironic. Just trying to keep it very simple, and
ignore the things that probably won't affect tourists in the first
place. I was just thinking that something about getting to Heathrow and
Camden Town costing more should be in there, since those are the only
tourist destination outside of zone 1 that I think people might go to.

Greenwich. Which is likely to be accessed by rail. Oops...

I would direct tourists via the DLR to Greenwich - Cutty Sark DLR is
closer to the tourist attractions and the DLR is much more
tourist-friendly than trains from London Bridge or Charing Cross.


--
Dave Arquati
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

Great points, and nice to see people agreeing with me for a change :-))

One quick question (on behalf of my wife, who has a 1-3 annual ticket on
her Oyster, but with £20 on top for whenever she may go out of zone...

What happens if she forgets to touch out at Plaistow (the gates are always
open) under the new rules?

Will she be charged £4 from her contingency pre-pay for not ending the
journey? Or are people with season tickets not charged in this way?

About those problems in the Netherlands.

I think they reverted the system to the old system where you can buy a
train ticket on the train, if you have a good reason for it anyway.
That means that if you're a foreigner and can't use the ticket machines
nor is there any ticket office (open), you can get on the train and buy
it from the conductor.
It is ridiculous however that even in the new machines that are being
installed just now, you still can't use credit cards. i think Maestro
cards should work with most European debit cards though, but I'm not
sure of that.

But you're right, it's ridiculous how bad our railways can be when it
comes ot customer service and information at times, and we really need
to start accepting credit cards in a lot more places.

We are switching to integrated transport though; an OV Chipkaart, which
is basically like an Oyster card that you should be able to use for any
form of public transportation throughout the country in the end. Right
now they are only testing it in the bigger cities. You might have seen
the gates already in Amsterdam and Rotterdam if you have been there
lately.
Their website is available in Dutch only, but if anyone wants to have a
look: http://www.ov-chipkaart.nl/

sweek wrote:

I think they reverted the system to the old system where you can buy a
train ticket on the train, if you have a good reason for it anyway.

Not so far as I know. I understand that on-train staff still have no
way of issuing anything other than a penalty fare.

If this did become the case, I'd like to know about it as it could be
useful for me, as it's a right pain having to either keep 7 euro of
change handy for Den Haag-Schiphol or wait in a bloody long queue (the
50 cent charge doesn't bother me as much as I'm not paying myself,
though I do consider it very unfair).

It is ridiculous however that even in the new machines that are being
installed just now, you still can't use credit cards. i think Maestro
cards should work with most European debit cards though, but I'm not
sure of that.

It's a common Dutch and German mistake to assume everyone follows the
Maestro standard. Approximately 50% of UK debit cards are of the Visa
(Delta) type, and these must be processed as if they were credit cards.
The other 50% are Maestro cards, but they follow an old UK standard at
times so I'm not 100% that they work abroad (though I have heard that
they do work in NS ticket machines).

I wouldn't even mind if NS charged the difference in costs (yes, the
difference in costs, not a sneaky 4 quid penalty like cheapo airlines
do) for processing credit cards in exchange for acceptance. The ticket
machines themselves can do it, as the ones at Schiphol already do[1].
It's just a software and accounting mod that's necessary.

[1] Actually, this must cause a lot of problems for tourists. It's not
unreasonable to assume that as cards are accepted at Schiphol, they are
also accepted elsewhere.

But you're right, it's ridiculous how bad our railways can be when it
comes ot customer service and information at times, and we really need
to start accepting credit cards in a lot more places.

Yep.

They might also want to consider, when installing new passenger
information displays that use LCD or LED, that these are vastly more
flexible than the old flap board systems, and, as such, that it would
be really helpful for tourists and others unfamiliar with the system if
they could display all calling points rather than just a summary.

We are switching to integrated transport though; an OV Chipkaart, which
is basically like an Oyster card that you should be able to use for any
form of public transportation throughout the country in the end. Right
now they are only testing it in the bigger cities. You might have seen
the gates already in Amsterdam and Rotterdam if you have been there
lately.

I've not been around those parts, but I have heard about it. Unlike
Oyster, I understand that there's going to be a version that can be
issued easily by a machine. The only concern I have about it is that I
believe the plan is for "relational prices" to replace zonal fares,
which suggests that the fares themselves are to become a whole lot less
understandable, and more like the UK bus free-for-all, as well as
disadvantaging[1] those who are forced[2] to make connectional
journeys, which is the contemptible way most of the UK bus market
operates.

The Dutch authorities also *need* to realise that there will need to
be, easily available, a means of loading up a card with cash. Not
everyone has a Maestro-compatible card (see above).

[1] I understand that, like in Singapore, there will be a discount for
transfers within a certain time period. That can still disadvantage
the passenger where two relational fares exceed the price of the
through journey without changes.
[2] Few people will do so by choice.

Neil

asdf wrote:


Seriously? I always just change over without touching any readers at
all, just like changing between Tube lines, and it works fine.

Incidentally, acceptance of PAYG at the barriers at London Bridge
STILL hasn't been fixed. Worse, the barrier staff seem to have been
trained to tell you that it isn't valid, only letting you through if
you insist it is. The following exchange is typical:

Me: [walks up to side gate with Oyster card]
Him: [points to Oyster reader on adjacent ticket gate. I assume he
needs to see the error code]
Me: [touches card on reader; as usual, it is rejected]
Him: "Your Travelcard has expired." [points to excess fares window]
Me: "I'm using pre-pay."
Him: "It's not valid." [still pointing] "You need to buy a ticket."
Me: "It is valid, on Thameslink."
Him: "No it isn't."
Me: "Yes it is. You're standing next to a poster that says it is."
Him: "Where have you come from?"
Me: "Farringdon."
Him: [lets me out through the gate]

I've been through a similar routine every time I've passed through (3
times in total) over the past couple of months, so I'm pretty sure
it's deliberate. (Incidentally, I do touch in/out on the platform
validator as well, and it does always charge the correct fare with no
unresolved journeys.)

That sounds familiar - TfL staff passes were (last time I tried) also
rejected, despite being valid on the Thameslink. After this happened a
few times, I took to carrying a printed copy of the National Rail
easements around with me, which at least got me through.

Cheers

Steve M

Neil Williams wrote:

Schiphol is the exception to the rule in that the ticket machines *do*
accept credit cards. They do ask for a PIN, but I believe they don't
verify it (as the Dutch don't use Chip & PIN yet - they use a much more
rudimentary "strip and PIN" system, and sign for credit card
transactions).

Interesting. So I could have entered anything I felt like entering?

Come to think of it, I think I also tried my ATM card, which requires a
PIN even here. I used my PIN, but it didn't work.

Yes, there is a surcharge, and you should have been given a separate
ticket to represent that charge.

I definitely did not get a separate ticket. All I got was a receipt.

I hope I offend anyone with my observations, but I've never seen such a
crowded supermarket. Customers were frantically stocking up, as though
they had a half hour to buy all the groceries they'd need for the next
three months. I was going to buy a souvenir (perhaps the Kroger-brand
instant oatmeal that dominated the American food section), but I changed
my mind when I saw the immensely long lines to pay.

Sounds like a lot of Tesco Metros, smaller city stores where there is
less room for tills. (IMX most Tesco superstores have more than
sufficient even at busy times).

No, this was nothing like a Tesco Metro. The overall store was much
larger, and there were lots and lots of registers (er, tills). And the
lines (er, queues) were much, much, much longer than I ever saw at the
Tesco Metro I used several times last year on Notting Hill Gate, or for
that matter at any of the even smaller Tesco Expresses I've used.

Oh, and there was a clothing store upstairs. Also Tesco.

Common in the UK - they, and Asda, are getting a significant part of
the cheaper (but still decent quality) end of the market.

Oh, I didn't know that Tesco had clothing stores in the UK. Asda, of
course, is owned by our Wal-Mart.
--
David of Broadway
New York, NY, USA

David of Broadway wrote:

Interesting. So I could have entered anything I felt like entering?

I think so, though for reasons noted I did enter the correct value

I definitely did not get a separate ticket. All I got was a receipt.

Maybe it's changed recently, then. Every time I've bought a ticket
from an NS booking office and been charged the surcharge, I've had a
separate ticket for it.

Oh, I didn't know that Tesco had clothing stores in the UK. Asda, of
course, is owned by our Wal-Mart.

No dedicated clothing stores that I can think of, but every "full-size"
Tesco store has a clothing department of some sort, and all the Tesco
Extra stores have a very large one which is a significant part of the
business and not something on the side.

Asda is owned by Wal-Mart, but MX is that its concept (apart from low
prices) is very different. In particular, it is, or certainly was,
known for looking after staff well, which is rather an opposite of what
you often hear from Wal-Mart. The store interiors also tend to be of
higher quality than Wal-Mart in the US, or for that matter Germany,
while the ranges (of clothing and food) seem to be more complete rather
than just "rock-bottom".

Neil