On Mar 16, 6:05 pm, David of Broadway
wrote:
Edward Cowling London UK wrote:





In message , Richard J.
writes

The problem is that despite raising the congestion charge and
enlarging the area, all most of us can see from Ken in the way of
transport improvement is buses.... buses the numbers of which even
God hasn't seen before :-) Then Ken made it 2 quid to get on them
!

Don't be silly; it's £1 with Oyster.

I know it's away from the thread, but I really think Oyster isn't the
solution for many people who Ken should be helping. The out of work off
to the odd interview, granny on a special trip.... they just aren't
catered for, and of course it can hit tourists hard if they aren't
prepared for it.

Prepared for what? I had no trouble obtaining an Oyster card at Heathrow.

And I can't understand why anyone who lives in the London area or ever
visits the London area wouldn't have an Oyster card.



I have got an Oyster card. My problem is that I can't use it for all
the journeys I make for a number of reasons and nor do I have the
typical options (eg when passing my local station ticket office) for
putting credit on it.

There simply isn't any justification for imposing penalty fares to
coerce people into using a system that isn't fully available.

MIG wrote:

I have got an Oyster card. My problem is that I can't use it for all
the journeys I make for a number of reasons and nor do I have the
typical options (eg when passing my local station ticket office) for
putting credit on it.

Understood. I was somewhat frustrated when I discovered that daily
capping was useless if I was riding NR. And the day I went to Hampton
Court, I was a bit surprised to find that a ODTC was my best bet.

But, even if Oyster isn't /always/ the best payment mode, it /often/ is.
Since it effectively costs nothing to have one, why not keep one in
your wallet just in case?

There simply isn't any justification for imposing penalty fares to
coerce people into using a system that isn't fully available.

On the systems that accept it, how is it not fully available?

It isn't fully integrated with NR yet, and that's a shame. But it's
fully available on all TfL services, no?
--
David of Broadway
New York, NY, USA

On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 15:16:28 -0400, David of Broadway wrote:

There simply isn't any justification for imposing penalty fares to
coerce people into using a system that isn't fully available.

On the systems that accept it, how is it not fully available?

It isn't fully integrated with NR yet, and that's a shame. But it's
fully available on all TfL services, no?

I think what you're saying is that for any given journey, either:

(a) Oyster PAYG is valid, and the cash fare is 'punitive'; or

(b) Oyster PAYG is not valid, but the cash fare is not 'punitive'.


However, there is at least one type of journey where neither of these
holds - where one part of the journey is along a route where Tube cash
fares are valid but Oyster isn't, and the other part of the journey is
by Tube.

For example, Camden Road to Manor House, changing from NLL to Tube at
Highbury & Islington. In 2005, the cash fare for this journey was
£1.30 (a Z23 Tube single). At the 2006 fares revision, when the
'punitive' fares were introduced, the cash fare increased to £3.00.
But Oyster PAYG cannot be used for this journey.

(It's possible to reduce the fare slightly by buying a paper ticket
for the NLL part of the journey (£1.50) and using Oyster for the Tube
part (£1.00), but that's still almost a 100% increase.)

On Mar 18, 7:16 pm, David of Broadway
wrote:
MIG wrote:
I have got an Oyster card. My problem is that I can't use it for all
the journeys I make for a number of reasons and nor do I have the
typical options (eg when passing my local station ticket office) for
putting credit on it.

Understood. I was somewhat frustrated when I discovered that daily
capping was useless if I was riding NR. And the day I went to Hampton
Court, I was a bit surprised to find that a ODTC was my best bet.

But, even if Oyster isn't /always/ the best payment mode, it /often/ is.
Since it effectively costs nothing to have one, why not keep one in
your wallet just in case?


Yeah, I just said that I do, but ...



There simply isn't any justification for imposing penalty fares to
coerce people into using a system that isn't fully available.

On the systems that accept it, how is it not fully available?


Firstly, when I reach the point where I want to switch to PAYG, I
haven't previously had the full range of opportunities to put credit
on it.

Secondly, when I have a paper travelcard and want to go an extra zone
on LU (this is not hypothetical; it has happened to me several times)
I either have to pay £4 for the single zone extension (ludicrous), do
the whole journey on PAYG (less, but still paying for the part of the
journey for which I already have a paper season ticket) or get off, go
up the escalator, touch "in", go back down and wait for a later train.

None of these options is acceptable, despite there being obvious
solions, eg

1) put pads in the trains
2) offer paper extensions at a reasonable price to people who can show
a paper travelcard
3) flag a person's Oyster (where the extension is being bought) as
haveinb being touched in at the boundary station, only then needing to
be touched out.

These solutions can't be beyond the technology, and the problem can't
have been unknown. The explanation is that is whole bluddy thing is
a cynical scam.

MIG wrote:

These solutions can't be beyond the technology, and the problem can't
have been unknown. The explanation is that is whole bluddy thing is
a cynical scam.

Well, someone is cynical, that is for sure. I don't think it's TfL though.
--
Michael Hoffman