On Jan 27, 2:51Â*pm, Mizter T wrote:
Andy wrote:
On Jan 27, 11:45�am, Mizter T wrote:
On 26 Jan, 18:22, Andy wrote:

On Jan 25, 11:47 am, Andy wrote:

This Saturday there is engineering work which means the the West
Ruislip - Marylebone services are diverted to Paddington. Currently
Oyster PAYG is valid on the Marylebone route, but not into Paddington
(this being on the list for spring 2008). Does anyone know if
provision has made for people touching in at West Ruislip and then not
being able to touch out at Paddington during the diversion? Will the
be posters saying that PAYG is not available or will people have to
phone up about unresolved journeys.

Well, having gone for a ride today. No sign of any posters about PAYG
being valid or not on the Paddington trains, but the guard just
glanced at my Oyster and said OK (although I do have a Zone 1-5
travelcard on it and so the PAYG couldn't really be checked). Touching
out at West Ruislip bought up an 'Entry' on the validator and I'll
have to see what the records say has been charged in a day or two.

As West Ruislip is in zone 6, outside the validity of your z1-5
Travelcard, I'd think you will have been charged the £4 max fare for
an unresolved PAYG journey.

I don't think so, as the system (in other locations) assumes that I've
entered in Zones 1-5 and charges the correct fare. I've checked on my
records (updated overnight) and I think that the correct fare was
deducted (£1.00). I've got £1.00 (Entry) deducted at West Ruislip and
then £1.00 (Entry) deducted at Ickenham where I took the Met line back
to Harrow. These look like the correct fares, although I've got to
check capping levels!!

That is interesting. I would have thought that the always touch-in/out
or be charged a max cash fare for an unresolved journey rule would
always apply when you are using PAYG - and you were indeed using PAYG,
in combination with your Travelcard, for that journey.

However I have two possible explanations for this. The first is that,
as I postulate elsewhere, the validators at West Ruislip were
specifically reprogrammed so as to give passengers the benefit of the
doubt yesterday - i.e. the max cash fare was not charged for
unresolved journeys that started or ended at West Ruislip - and this
change was made specifically to make an allowance for the fact that
Chiltern's services were running in and out of Paddington instead of
Marylebone.


My experience at West Ruislip is no different to when I touch in if
going travelling from Watford Met (or Watford Junction). I always get
£1 deducted upon entry and an exit when I leave the system outside the
zones of my travelcard (during the week I might get an extra deduction
on exit depending on the journey). This has always appears to be the
case when travelling into the zones of a travelcard. Travelling out, I
have never seen the entry point on the journey history, just £1 (or
whatever) deducted on exit.

(If this was the case then any PAYG journey ending at West Ruislip
yesterday where the Oyster card had not been touched-in would have
been charged the £1 'minimum fare'. Perhaps if Chiltern do this again
soon before the Paddington gates get installed I'll try this using
Oyster PAYG - note that if I did this I would of course have another,
valid ticket such as a Day Travelcard.)

The second explanation is this - you had used London Underground
earlier that day and had exited the network, say at Paddington. When
you got to West Ruislip the system simply extended your journey from
the last location where you had validated your Oyster card, and made
the presumption that you were extending your journey out to West
Ruislip. I understand that in this might not make a lot of logical
sense, in that when one exits the LU network through some gates AIUI
this is clearly recorded as an exit - but perhaps there is a level of
tolerance built in to the system.


I too wondered if this was the case, but in that case I would have
expect the gates to flash up 'exit'

I've had the problem with validators saying the opposite to what I've
done before, but the correct fare being applied. It is down to an
entry within the zones not actually being recorded on the card, [...]

That's not right. When using a Travelcard on Oyster, entry and exit
points are not shown on the online Oyster journey history (I suppose
this is regarded as clutter, as users of the online journey history
want to see details of chargeable journeys) - however they are
recorded on the card, and this can be seen if you look at your journey
history on a Tube ticket machine.

Entry and exit points are always recorded on an Oyster card when it is
used to pass through PAYG enabled gates (i.e. the whole LU network,
plus some other gates at stations served by mainline trains where PAYG
is valid, e.g. Liverpool Street, Euston or stations on the London
Overground network such as Dalston Kingsland).


I've never used the journey history at a ticket office, but it is a
shame that the detailed information isn't available online as well
(maybe as an option). It also doesn't appear to be visible to the
Oyster helpline as I've been questioned about why I havn't touched in
before when I have done so. The explanation that I have a travelcard
on the Oyster has always been accepted.

However entry and exit points are not recorded when an Oyster card
with valid Travelcard is used to pass through gates that are *not*
PAYG enabled - for example, at Victoria, London Bridge, Earlsfield or
East Croydon. In these cases the gates simply check for a valid
Travelcard loaded on the Oyster card, and do not electronically 'mark'
the card with an entry/exit point.

[...] only
the exit outside the zones and at West Ruislip I used the validators
on the exit from the Chiltern platforms, not the ticket barriers in
the Central line bit of the station. Unresolved PAYG penalties seem to
be different if you have a season on the ticket as well, I think that
they are £1 regardless of the route (not sure about National Rail)

As I explain above I'm not sure about whether those with Travelcard
seasons really are normally treated any differently to those using
'pure' PAYG when it comes to extending their journey through the use
of PAYG, but I certainly take full note of your experience. I will
have to investigate.

See above


I think that using the standalone validators or Oyster readers as
opposed to entering or exiting from the gates could potentially lead
to different results, as unlike gates standalone Oyster readers cannot
determine for certain whether someone is starting or finishing a
journey, or indeed merely touching-in midway through one (when, say,
they change lines or trains). This perhaps would explain why the
Oyster reader you used displayed "Entry".