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Mizter T · October 20th 06, 04:46 PM posted to uk.transport.london

wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
In that case I agree with your point absolutely. To be blunt the whole
notion of Oyster card holders being required to maintain a £5 minimum
PAYG balance is something that I don't find at all credible whatsoever.
I think that somewhere along the line the upcoming changes (i.e. the
£4 charge for unresolved journeys) have been misconstrued, and after a
round of chinese-whispers what emerged was this new £5 minimum
balance "rule". It's just not going to happen though, for so many
reasons.

I've just finished a training course, a small part of which involved
discussions on this very matter. The £4 charge is definite, and the
best reason we came up with for it was to quickly teach people a lesson
(aimed particularly at those who skip fares on purpose, but obviously
its also good, in the long run, for everyone who regularly has
incomplete journeys).

We all had some trouble stomaching the £5 minimum too - at current an
Oyster deducts the minimum fare for the station you enter, and charges
any extra required when you leave the network. As of 19th Nov, it will
charge essentially the maximum, and refund the difference when you
exit. Whilst this is obviously controversial, hopefully it is clear
enough that this is simply designed to avoid anyone trying to cheat the
system by walking around with a negative balance until they need to
travel again (say by putting £1 on, then travelling from Amersham back
home in zone 1), Perhaps the £3 deposit will be adjusted to go
towards this...

As to whether it'll work... we'll see I guess. Considering its a
"pre-pay" ticket though, I guess it should be used as such. After all,
no-one complains that they have to put £10 minumum on a mobile phone,
when the call they want to make might cost 10p. Doesn't make it right
by any means, but there's a similar idea behind it.

Anyway to answer one of your points - there's no chinese whispers. The
£4 penalty is coming, and will be enforced as of 19th November (a
sunday) upon anyone who fails to touch in or out properly with pre-pay.
The big question I and my colleagues would like answered is how this
affects users of child oysters...

wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
In that case I agree with your point absolutely. To be blunt the whole
notion of Oyster card holders being required to maintain a £5 minimum
PAYG balance is something that I don't find at all credible whatsoever.
I think that somewhere along the line the upcoming changes (i.e. the
£4 charge for unresolved journeys) have been misconstrued, and after a
round of chinese-whispers what emerged was this new £5 minimum
balance "rule". It's just not going to happen though, for so many
reasons.

I've just finished a training course, a small part of which involved
discussions on this very matter. The £4 charge is definite, and the
best reason we came up with for it was to quickly teach people a lesson
(aimed particularly at those who skip fares on purpose, but obviously
its also good, in the long run, for everyone who regularly has
incomplete journeys).

We all had some trouble stomaching the £5 minimum too - at current an
Oyster deducts the minimum fare for the station you enter, and charges
any extra required when you leave the network. As of 19th Nov, it will
charge essentially the maximum, and refund the difference when you
exit. Whilst this is obviously controversial, hopefully it is clear
enough that this is simply designed to avoid anyone trying to cheat the
system by walking around with a negative balance until they need to
travel again (say by putting £1 on, then travelling from Amersham back
home in zone 1), Perhaps the £3 deposit will be adjusted to go
towards this...

As to whether it'll work... we'll see I guess. Considering its a
"pre-pay" ticket though, I guess it should be used as such. After all,
no-one complains that they have to put £10 minumum on a mobile phone,
when the call they want to make might cost 10p. Doesn't make it right
by any means, but there's a similar idea behind it.

Anyway to answer one of your points - there's no chinese whispers. The
£4 penalty is coming, and will be enforced as of 19th November (a
sunday) upon anyone who fails to touch in or out properly with pre-pay.
The big question I and my colleagues would like answered is how this
affects users of child oysters...

I understand the £4 maximum fare absolutely - read my post again and
you'll see I wasn't disputing that. I was disputing the notion that
there'll be a new rule that requires a £5 minimum balance to be
maintained on the card by Oyster PAYG users - *that's* the bit that I
was suggesting was the result of chinese whispers.

If anyone can absolutely definitely and authoritatively confirm this
then I'll get annoyed about it - but until that point I ain't gonna get
worked up about a rumoured new rule that would appear to be so absurd I
simply can't believe it's going to happen.

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