I went from Hayes and/or Harlington to Hackney Central the other day,
changing at Shepherds Bush. With my 2/3 travel card I expected to pay
£1.10, and then get the overground for nowt.
But Oyster decided that my journey was long enough that it must have
gone through zone 1, and charged me £2.70.

Next time, I am wondering if I should find a bus and touch in on it,
and immediately exit the bus, in order to cancel the outerchange.
Would that work? Anyone think of a better way (apart from walking from
Holland Park?)

wrote:
I went from Hayes and/or Harlington to Hackney Central the other day,
changing at Shepherds Bush. With my 2/3 travel card I expected to pay
£1.10, and then get the overground for nowt.
But Oyster decided that my journey was long enough that it must have
gone through zone 1, and charged me £2.70.

Quite a regular question, this one. The answer is always that 'certain
journey pairs are deemed to be via zone 1'. They are not timed for this
purpose, although that has been proposed by some posters here as a possible
obvious solution.

It is believed that there will be a change to this eventually, as it is the
Overground, specifically the NLL, that has led to this criticism, but it
will be more common with full NR inclusion.

Next time, I am wondering if I should find a bus and touch in on it,
and immediately exit the bus, in order to cancel the outerchange.
Would that work? Anyone think of a better way (apart from walking from
Holland Park?)

Don't know, but seems logical.

Paul S

On Jan 14, 12:22*pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:
Oyster decided that my journey was long enough that it must have
gone through zone 1, and charged me £2.70.

Quite a regular question, this one. The answer is always that 'certain
journey pairs are deemed to be via zone 1'.

Yes, I've lurked a while and got that impression.
I just wondered whether the bus trick might solve the problem until
they implement a better system.
But I don't know if a bus journey actually cancels an outerchange, or
if it would still count if it was within the time limit.

Also, it only works for me because I have a travelcard, and because
there is a bus station between the two real stations at SB. I wonder
if ticket offices can force a journey to be completed, possibly by
selling some kind of zero-priced "null oyster journey".

But I don't know if a bus journey actually cancels an outerchange, or
if it would still count if it was within the time limit.

a possible related case:
what happens if someone on pre-pay hops on the 73/30/205/etc etc to
perform their outerchange between Euston Square and Euston ?
what happens if someone with a bus pass (who is using pre-pay for an
unaccustomed tube journey) does the same?

In message
of
Wed, 14 Jan 2009 06:20:57 in uk.transport.london,
writes
But I don't know if a bus journey actually cancels an outerchange, or
if it would still count if it was within the time limit.

Your use of outerchange is something I do not recognise.
How did you get from Hayes & Harlington (Journey Planner does not
recognise Hayes and Harlington) to Shepherd's Bush. Which Shepherd's
Bush? I see routes via Willeden Junction/


a possible related case:
what happens if someone on pre-pay hops on the 73/30/205/etc etc to
perform their outerchange between Euston Square and Euston ?

I believe the possibly complete journey at Euston Square is completed by
touching in on the bus. I had something similar when, failing to touch
out at Finchley Central, I boarded a bus. I was charged for an
unfinished journey.

what happens if someone with a bus pass (who is using pre-pay for an
unaccustomed tube journey) does the same?

I expect the journey consists of 3 legs - one already paid. Walking
between Euston Square and Euston means that the possibly complete
journey at Euston Square is restarted.

The Journey Planner shows Hayes & Harlington Rail Station - Ealing
Broadway Station + Take the Route Bus 607 to Acton Central Rail Station
- Hackney Central Rail Station. It takes about 20 minutes longer than
most routes using zone 1, but will give the 1.10 charge on top of a 2/3
TravelCard.

I am more interested in a journey including a walk between Euston Square
and Euston which takes longer than 2.5 hours. It ought to be viewed as 2
journeys, but, I suspect, would be assessed as an incomplete and an
unstarted journey.
--
Walter Briscoe

On Jan 14, 3:50*pm, Walter Briscoe
wrote:
In message
of
Wed, 14 Jan 2009 06:20:57 in uk.transport.london,
writes
Your use of outerchange is something I do not recognise.
How did you get from Hayes & Harlington (Journey Planner does not
recognise Hayes and Harlington) to Shepherd's Bush. Which Shepherd's
Bush? I see routes via Willeden Junction/

Hayes - Ealing - Shepherd's Bush central line - Shepherd's Bush LO -
Hackney Central (an unusual direct train - i think 1840 or
thereabouts)

The Journey Planner shows Hayes & Harlington Rail Station - Ealing
Broadway Station + Take the Route Bus 607 to Acton Central Rail Station
- Hackney Central Rail Station. It takes about 20 minutes longer than
* most routes using zone 1, but will give the 1.10 charge on top of a 2/3
TravelCard.

yes, i have done that before - but the Route Bus is not very fast
through Acton and it stops on the wrong side of the park from the
station.

It's probably true that it would have been faster to go to liverpool
street and get off at hackney downs. Changing at Highbury didn't occur
to me.

wrote:

I went from Hayes and/or Harlington to Hackney Central the other day,
changing at Shepherds Bush. With my 2/3 travel card I expected to pay
£1.10, and then get the overground for nowt.
But Oyster decided that my journey was long enough that it must have
gone through zone 1, and charged me £2.70.

Next time, I am wondering if I should find a bus and touch in on it,
and immediately exit the bus, in order to cancel the outerchange.
Would that work? Anyone think of a better way (apart from walking from
Holland Park?)


OK, I know *exactly* what you're on about and you've managed to ask
this question with prescient good timing!

First off, w.r.t. Oyster stations are paired together for the purpose
of determining what the Oyster PAYG fare between them should be - this
fare is then charged regardless of the actual route taken, even if
analysing the actual route would prove that the passenger had taken
one route (e.g. avoiding zone 1) as opposed to another route (e.g.
through zone 1).

Querying the TfL Fare finder will reveal the presumed route for any
journey, or at least what zones the system presumes the route would
have taken in - or as TfL puts it, "Some journeys are defined as
requiring travel
via Zone 1 and will be charged and capped accordingly, irrespective of
the actual route taken." [1]

The TfL Fare finder can be found he
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/tickets/fa...09/farefinder/

As you can see, a journey from Hayes and Harlington (zone 5) to
Hackney Central (zone 2) is charged at £3.70/£2.20 peak/off-peak.
Consulting the table of Oyster PAYG single fares one can see this is
the fare charged for a z1-5 journey - so the system presumes you have
gone via zone 1, regardless of the fact that you haven't.

The £2.70 you paid is made up of the z4&5 extension fare of £1.10
(same peak and off-peak) plus the z1 extension fare of £1.60 (again
the same peak and off-peak).

I've also found out that you cannot currently override the assumed
route assumed between a start and end point by taking a different
route (Queen's Park to Bethnal Green NR via Hackney Central/ Hackney
Downs) even if you pass through gatelines that prove you've taken a
different route.

To force the system to break an outerchange then you could indeed use
your Oyster card on a bus - I've tested this myself and it works.
Alternatively you could avoid the outerchange altogether by exiting at
a different station - in the case of your journey either Holland Park
or White City (the latter is marginally nearer if you walk through the
new Westfield shopping centre).

However, you'll be pleased to hear that this situation may well change
in the future. I said your question had prescient timing, and that's
because it was raised in a utl/uk.r thread (about the DLR extension to
Woolwich) a couple of days ago and it elicited a response from a man
with his ear to the ground on such matters, Paul C. I hope he won't
mind me reproducing his reply below...

---quote---
On 12 Jan, 19:11, Paul Corfield wrote:

Oyster can only deal with one PAYG fare between an origin and
destination at present. There is a further project underway to support
extension of PAYG to NR which will introduce the concept of intermediate
validation to confirm a route and also for more than one rate between
origin and destination pairs to be held. The last I heard was that
LUL would be using intermediate validation to allow people to travel via
non Z1 routes and for them to benefit from that - provided they validate
at the designated intermediate point (almost certainly the natural or
logical interchange route - e.g. Rayners Lane station for some west
London trips by tube). There is not yet sufficient clarity as to
whether the train companies will use the intermediate validation concept
(or more accurately I haven't read anything definitive about it).

One other aspect of the project is that leaving the LU system (e.g. at a
NR terminal station like Victoria) and then entering the NR side would
automatically extend permissible journey times to reflect the fact that
many more trips (valid via PAYG) will take longer than the 2 hour
journey time "cap".

---/quote---

To see the reply in the context of the thread, go he
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk....7a77e389d447ad


That all sounds like very good news - if the above changes were to be
implemented in the future then it seems likely that the journey you
made would be charged 'correctly', i.e. according to the route
actually taken. The concept of 'intermediate validation' could also
solve a whole number of issues about Oyster PAYG being applied to NR,
where many different routes are possible - though the question would
then be how best to communicate any requirement to touch-in at an
interchange station (unless the 'intermediate validation' concept were
only to apply to situations where one might pass through a gateline).

The last of Paul C's points about the permissible journey time being
extended when passengers entered the NR side (via gates or a touch-in)
is also good to hear, though I note that TfL has already extended the
basic permissible journey time from 2hrs to 2hrs 30 mins [3] - not
sure quite when this change was implemented, perhaps at the fares
change on 2 Jan '09.


P.S. You say "Hayes and/or Harlington" - I can't quite figure out your
rejection of the name of the station which is simply "Hayes and
Harlington"?! (Perhaps you weren't sure if it was in Hayes or
Harlington - well basically it's between the two.)

-----
[1] Quote from page 4 of TfL Fares and Tickets 2009 booklet (PDF):
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...6-02-01-09.pdf

[2] Table of Oyster PAYG single fares is also found on the page
referenced immediately above.

[3] Quote from page 2 of the aforementioned booklet follows:
"Your Tube, DLR, London Overground and National Rail pay as you go
journey must be completed within
two and a half hours of you having touched in at the start of your
journey."

On 14 Jan, 14:16, wrote:

On Jan 14, 12:22*pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

Oyster decided that my journey was long enough that it must have
gone through zone 1, and charged me £2.70.

Quite a regular question, this one. The answer is always that 'certain
journey pairs are deemed to be via zone 1'.

Yes, I've lurked a while and got that impression.
I just wondered whether the bus trick might solve the problem until
they implement a better system.
But I don't know if a bus journey actually cancels an outerchange, or
if it would still count if it was within the time limit.

I've posted an extensive reply downthread, but I'll just add that yes,
touching-in on a bus does cancel the 'outerchange' - so your "bus
trick" would work.


Also, it only works for me because I have a travelcard, and because
there is a bus station between the two real stations at SB. I wonder
if ticket offices can force a journey to be completed, possibly by
selling some kind of zero-priced "null oyster journey".

I think you would be met with total blank stares at a ticket office if
you tried to ask for that! I dare say there might be some obscure way
of doing this via an Oyster terminal in a ticket office but it's
nothing I've ever heard of before.

The fact that you have a Travelcard doesn't in and of itself make any
difference to the fact that you can 'break' an outerchange by touching-
in on a bus - but obviously if you didn't have a Travelcard or Bus
Pass on your Oyster then you'd be charged a single bus fare (though
this might not matter if you were going to reach an Oyster OAYG cap
that day).

On 14 Jan, 15:50, Walter Briscoe wrote:
In message
of
Wed, 14 Jan 2009 06:20:57 in uk.transport.london,
writes

(snip)

a possible related case:
what happens if someone on pre-pay hops on the 73/30/205/etc etc to
perform their outerchange between Euston Square and Euston ?

I believe the possibly complete journey at Euston Square is completed by
touching in on the bus. I had something similar when, failing to touch
out at Finchley Central, I boarded a bus. I was charged for an
unfinished journey.

Yes - touching-in on a bus will 'reset' the Oyster card and it will no
longer be thinking that the Tube journey might continue via an
outerchange (IYSWIM).


what happens if someone with a bus pass (who is using pre-pay for an
unaccustomed tube journey) does the same?

I expect the journey consists of 3 legs - one already paid. Walking
between Euston Square and Euston means that the possibly complete
journey at Euston Square is restarted.

Yes.

Actually getting a bus between these stations is nigh-on unforgivable
anyway.


The Journey Planner shows Hayes & Harlington Rail Station - Ealing
Broadway Station + Take the Route Bus 607 to Acton Central Rail Station
- Hackney Central Rail Station. It takes about 20 minutes longer than
* most routes using zone 1, but will give the 1.10 charge on top of a 2/3
TravelCard.

I am more interested in a journey including a walk between Euston Square
and Euston which takes longer than 2.5 hours. It ought to be viewed as 2
journeys, but, I suspect, would be assessed as an incomplete and an
unstarted journey.


I agree with your assessment - I think it would be viewed as an
incomplete journey.

Out-Of-Station-Interchanges (OOSI) - or 'Outerchanges' - are great,
but they do seem to present a problem when it comes to journeys
'timing out'. There is a time-limit to outerchanges - i.e. the time
allowed for a passenger to get from one station to the other - but I
think it's quite generous (understandably).

This does present the problem of what happens if someone starts at
point A and arrives at one station (point B) which is twinned [1] with
another for outerchange purposes and stays there for a short time -
for example, enough time to go and pick up a friend or return some
clothes to a shop or have a quick pint - and then enters the other of
the twinned outerchange stations (point C), before leaving the system
at another station (point D).

If that person is quick enough then the system will presume they are
resuming their journey - and if the total journey time from entry at
point A to exit at point D exceeds 2 1/2 hrs, then this will be
assessed as an incomplete journey. (Note that the same would apply if
they returned to their original stating station - i.e. went from point
A via point B and point C back to point A.)

I suppose the solution to this is that the system should do what you
say it ought to - i.e. view the two journeys as being separate and
charge them accordingly. I suppose there might be some potential
implications for people fraudulently abusing the system if this were
to be the case, but off the top of my head I can't think of what they
might be. The other point may simply be that the system simply can't
cope with this level of complexity.

I guess it's perhaps worth bearing in mind these potential issues
about outerchanges whenever we are calling for their to be another one
- e.g. one I'd like is Moorgate to Liverpool Street - as along with
benefits they also come with complications. It would be good if the
technology could be made to handle these complications better rather
than just throwing a hissy-fit and yelling 'uncompleted
journey' (though as I say above it might not be as simple as that).


-----
[1] Nearly all outerchanges simply comprise of twinned pairs of
stations - but this need not be the case. Baker Street LU, Marylebone
LU and Marylebone NR are all part of the same big outerchange (there
being separate NR and LU gatelines are Marylebone). Off the top of my
head I can't think of any others like that at the mo.

On 14 Jan, 16:49, wrote:

On Jan 14, 3:50*pm, Walter Briscoe
wrote:

How did you get from Hayes & Harlington (Journey Planner does not
recognise Hayes and Harlington) to Shepherd's Bush. Which Shepherd's
Bush? I see routes via Willeden Junction/

Hayes - Ealing - Shepherd's Bush central line - Shepherd's Bush LO -
Hackney Central (an unusual direct train - i think 1840 or
thereabouts)

The Journey Planner shows Hayes & Harlington Rail Station - Ealing
Broadway Station + Take the Route Bus 607 to Acton Central Rail Station
- Hackney Central Rail Station. It takes about 20 minutes longer than
* most routes using zone 1, but will give the 1.10 charge on top of a 2/3
TravelCard.

yes, i have done that before - but the Route Bus is not very fast
through Acton and it stops on the wrong side of the park from the
station.

I want to say you could take a train that stops at Acton Main Line
station and walk the short way to Acton Central for the NLL - but of
course the only trains that stop at Acton Main Line are those off the
Greenford branch, so there's no possibility of catching a direct train
between H&H and Acton Main Line. So that;s that idea in the dustbin
then!


It's probably true that it would have been faster to go to liverpool
street and get off at hackney downs. Changing at Highbury didn't occur
to me.


I'd say that if you were to go via zone 1 then Central line to
Liverpool Street then NXEA mainline train to Hackney Downs would
probably be best - there's normally a very frequent service between
Liverpool St and Hackney Downs, more frequent than the North London
Line, and of course Oyster PAYG is valid on that particular route so
you'd only be charged once for a zone 1 fare).

Going via Highbury & Islington is ok but if you just miss an NLL train
you'll need to wait 15 minutes for the next.

If you do want to avoid the zone 1 fare (and why not, look after the
pennies and all that) then I reckon the easiest way to avoid the
outerchange problem is to get off the Central line at White City and
through the shopping centre to Shepherd's Bush WLL station. If one
can't bear the thought of that then one can skirt the south edge of
the shopping centre - a little bit further but less shoppers in your
way!