On 16 Feb, 13:17, Mizter T wrote:

I hope that helps - sorry this post is so epic in length!

Thank you so very much Mizter T, your post made engrossing reading !
Just wanted to add a couple of things. On each occasion I have had
cause to go to Stratford I had to "exit" the station and pick up a
friend alighting from a bus at the terminus point outside of the
station. I have seen the validators you mentioned which are close to
the NLL platforms and have occasionally wondered as to what would
happen if I did touch on them ! I assume now that the gate system must
have changed so even a quick touch out and touch in again at the same
station is being recognised as two separate journeys ( the ending of
one journey and the beginning of another).
The problem over the Xmas S. Ruislip - Clapham Junction route was
due to incorrectly configured gates at Shepherd's Bush LO ( so I was
told). I got charged separately for both SR - SB (LU) and SB(LO) - CJ,
£1.00 + £1.00 instead of just £1.00 for the entire SR-CJ journey.

Thanks again !

cs

On 16 Feb, 13:17, Mizter T wrote:
wrote:
Gentlemen,
Thank you so much for the most excellent and very useful information.
Some of the fare & journey calculations seem to have changed perhaps
for the better or worse ? Expanding on what Mizter *T said about
changing at *Willesden J and touching out and then in again. Well, in
the past I have touched out and then back in again in quick
succession, at several different stations and this has not registered
on my card, e.g. last year I travelled from Camden *Road - Stratford
( via LO) , touched out at Stratford *for less than 5 minutes, met a
friend, touched in again and we both continued on to Mile End.
Inspection of my Oyster usage showed that I was charged for *Camden
Road - Mile End journey, with no reference to Stratford.

Question - when you say you touched-out and back in at Stratford last
year, did you go all the way outside through the main gateline and out
on to the street outside the station entrance?

In this situation there is a difference between touching-out/in on the
standalone Oyster validators that are *within* Stratford station (i.e.
within the fare paid area inside the gates) and leaving and then re-
entering the station through the gates. It sounds to me as though you
may have just used one of these 'interchange validators' (more on this
later).



Hence, on
Saturday's journey I thought perhaps such quick touching out and back
in to try to force a z2-6 cap (at both Willesden J and Stratford)
would not count as a journey. I have read other examples where
passengers have quickly got out of a station to pick up some dry
cleaning or shopping, touched back in again within a space of 0-15
mins and not been charged for this break of journey nor has this break
been registered /noted on their Oyster usage.

OK. My understanding is that if you exit and then re-enter *the same
station* *through an automatic gate* then this will finish your
previous journey and start a new journey.

At stations where there are no gates, just standalone Oyster
validators, the situation might be different. At these stations it
*might possibly* be the case that if you touch-out and then touch-in
after a short space of time your journey is considered as continuing.
This basically depends on how the standalone Oyster validators are
configured - they can either be set up to simply end journeys when
they detect there is an 'open journey' on the card (i.e. it has been
touched-in somewhere else), or if no existing journey is detected then
they will start a new journey. (This is how most of the standalone
Oyster validators work at DLR stations - plus I think it's how they're
generally set up at other ungated stations which aren't significant
interchange points.)

Otherwise they can be set as 'interchange validators' - touching-in on
these doesn't finish a journey that has already started, instead it
tells the card that the journey may be finished, or it may carry on to
somewhere else. In other words if you don't touch-out somewhere else
in the next hour or two then the journey will be considered as having
finished, if you do touch-out somewhere else then the journey will be
extended on to that next station.

And because of the way the system is currently set up, it means that
you will only be charged for the journey between your starting station
and your ultimate destination station - hence the fact that you got
charged for a direct Camden Road to Mile End journey, despite the fact
that you touched on a standalone Oyster validators in Stratford
station (at least that's what I'm assuming you did - right?).
Thankfully though this situation looks likely to change in the near
future which will mean that Oyster will be capable of charging cheaper
fares for cheaper routes.

Another situation where one might well only get charged for one
journey despite going off and doing other things in between is where a
person exits from one station, let's say Shepherd's Bush (Central
line), goes and does there stuff (returning some hideous pink and lime
green footwear bought during a lapse of taste at a shop in Westfield),
and then goes and gets on a train from Shepherd's Bush LO/ WLL
station. As the two Shepherd's Bush stations are tied together as an
out-of-station interchange (OSI, or 'outerchange' as we often
colloquially call them on here) then the system will consider the
previous journey as being continued.

The thing about this is that the Shepherds Bushes seem to be treated
not as an outerchange but as a more-like-Stratford situation where
it's all one station. The poster seems to have been charged for
travelling via the Central Line despite entering a building from which
it isn't possible to access the Central Line.

If the Shepherds Bushes were set up as separate stations with an
outerchange, you'd think he'd be charged the non-zone 1 fare.

On 16 Feb, 14:34, wrote:

On 16 Feb, 13:17, Mizter T wrote:

I hope that helps - sorry this post is so epic in length!

Thank you so very much Mizter T, your post made engrossing reading !
Just wanted to add a couple of things. On each occasion I have had
cause to go to *Stratford I had to *"exit" the station and pick up a
friend alighting from a bus at the terminus point outside of the
station. I have seen the validators you mentioned which are close to
the NLL platforms and have occasionally wondered as to what would
happen if I did touch on them ! I assume now that the gate system must
have changed so even a quick touch out and touch in again at the same
station is being recognised as two separate journeys ( the ending of
one journey and the beginning of another).

OK, in that case I'm guilty of making an incorrect assumption about
what you had done at Stratford - sorry!

That's very interesting to hear what happened at Stratford. There's no
out-of-station interchange at Stratford with anywhere else - I mean
not going out of the main gates, so it seems peculiar that they would
be configured to allow a passenger to exit and then re-enter and
continue making their journey. They may have been incorrectly
configured at the time - perhaps the result of the complexity of what
happens at Stratford. I dunno - I must admit it's a bit of a mystery
to me!

I am certainly under the impression that exiting and then re-entering
Stratford would mean that the initial journey was ended and then a new
one was started - that's how I recollect things happening there, I've
never noticed anything happening like what you experience when I've
been there but perhaps I haven't been observant enough - indeed
perhaps it still happens. I'll try it next time I'm up in that neck of
the woods.

As I said, *if* you can stay within the station and meet your friends
in there, then for the time being at least I think you'd get charged
for a Shepherd's Bush to Camden Road journey even if you touched on an
interchange validator within the station - indeed I'd recommend doing
just that, as it would ensure that you were legit for your journey
back west to Camden Rd on the NLL.


The problem over the Xmas S. Ruislip - *Clapham Junction *route was
due to incorrectly configured gates at *Shepherd's Bush *LO ( so I was
told). I got charged separately for both SR - SB (LU) and SB(LO) - CJ,
£1.00 + £1.00 instead of just £1.00 for the entire *SR-CJ journey..

That would indeed explain it. It shouldn't really happen in the first
place, of course.

One hopes that there won't be too many other errors like this when
Oyster PAYG is rolled out across the whole of National Rail in London
- it's important to get it right, preferably first time, or passengers
will end up paying too much and losing confidence in the system. The
problem is that it can't really be trialled out in the real world -
once the Oyster readers at NR stations are switched on, they've all
just got to work from the get-go.


Thanks again !

No worries.

MIG wrote:

On 16 Feb, 13:17, Mizter T wrote:

wrote:
Gentlemen,
Thank you so much for the most excellent and very useful information.
Some of the fare & journey calculations seem to have changed perhaps
for the better or worse ? Expanding on what Mizter T said about
changing at Willesden J and touching out and then in again. Well, in
the past I have touched out and then back in again in quick
succession, at several different stations and this has not registered
on my card, e.g. last year I travelled from Camden Road - Stratford
( via LO) , touched out at Stratford for less than 5 minutes, met a
friend, touched in again and we both continued on to Mile End.
Inspection of my Oyster usage showed that I was charged for Camden
Road - Mile End journey, with no reference to Stratford.

Question - when you say you touched-out and back in at Stratford last
year, did you go all the way outside through the main gateline and out
on to the street outside the station entrance?

In this situation there is a difference between touching-out/in on the
standalone Oyster validators that are *within* Stratford station (i.e.
within the fare paid area inside the gates) and leaving and then re-
entering the station through the gates. It sounds to me as though you
may have just used one of these 'interchange validators' (more on this
later).


Hence, on
Saturday's journey I thought perhaps such quick touching out and back
in to try to force a z2-6 cap (at both Willesden J and Stratford)
would not count as a journey. I have read other examples where
passengers have quickly got out of a station to pick up some dry
cleaning or shopping, touched back in again within a space of 0-15
mins and not been charged for this break of journey nor has this break
been registered /noted on their Oyster usage.

OK. My understanding is that if you exit and then re-enter *the same
station* *through an automatic gate* then this will finish your
previous journey and start a new journey.

At stations where there are no gates, just standalone Oyster
validators, the situation might be different. At these stations it
*might possibly* be the case that if you touch-out and then touch-in
after a short space of time your journey is considered as continuing.
This basically depends on how the standalone Oyster validators are
configured - they can either be set up to simply end journeys when
they detect there is an 'open journey' on the card (i.e. it has been
touched-in somewhere else), or if no existing journey is detected then
they will start a new journey. (This is how most of the standalone
Oyster validators work at DLR stations - plus I think it's how they're
generally set up at other ungated stations which aren't significant
interchange points.)

Otherwise they can be set as 'interchange validators' - touching-in on
these doesn't finish a journey that has already started, instead it
tells the card that the journey may be finished, or it may carry on to
somewhere else. In other words if you don't touch-out somewhere else
in the next hour or two then the journey will be considered as having
finished, if you do touch-out somewhere else then the journey will be
extended on to that next station.

And because of the way the system is currently set up, it means that
you will only be charged for the journey between your starting station
and your ultimate destination station - hence the fact that you got
charged for a direct Camden Road to Mile End journey, despite the fact
that you touched on a standalone Oyster validators in Stratford
station (at least that's what I'm assuming you did - right?).
Thankfully though this situation looks likely to change in the near
future which will mean that Oyster will be capable of charging cheaper
fares for cheaper routes.

Another situation where one might well only get charged for one
journey despite going off and doing other things in between is where a
person exits from one station, let's say Shepherd's Bush (Central
line), goes and does there stuff (returning some hideous pink and lime
green footwear bought during a lapse of taste at a shop in Westfield),
and then goes and gets on a train from Shepherd's Bush LO/ WLL
station. As the two Shepherd's Bush stations are tied together as an
out-of-station interchange (OSI, or 'outerchange' as we often
colloquially call them on here) then the system will consider the
previous journey as being continued.

The thing about this is that the Shepherds Bushes seem to be treated
not as an outerchange but as a more-like-Stratford situation where
it's all one station. The poster seems to have been charged for
travelling via the Central Line despite entering a building from which
it isn't possible to access the Central Line.

I absolutely understand what you're saying - however I wonder if this
is currently an inevitable by-product of OSIs/ outerchanges. I don't
know, that's just speculation, but it would provide an explanation.


If the Shepherds Bushes were set up as separate stations with an
outerchange, you'd think he'd be charged the non-zone 1 fare.

I'm just wondering whether that's possible - see above. Perhaps it is
and this situation is simply the result of sloppy programming. I don't
know enough about the machinations behind it to say, unfortunately.

Hopefully the PAYG system upgrade should sort out stuff like this. As
you can see, I'm placing a lot of hope in that, so it had better
deliver! We shall see, hopefully sooner rather than later - but I'd
prefer later if it meant that kinks were going to be ironed out before
it went live. The thing is that it's all enmeshed with the rollout of
PAYG across NR in London - 'oysterisation' as Boris would put it - so
there's a lot of (political) pressure for it to happen asap. If the
TOCs are still bickering about who gets what revenue for which
journeys then I imagine it could make working on the finer details of
the PAYG upgrade challenging - I'd think the system's planners would
want the position of all the chess pieces decided upon so they could
plan around them, if they keep moving this might well make life more
difficult for them.

On 16 Feb, 15:16, Mizter T wrote:
MIG wrote:
On 16 Feb, 13:17, Mizter T wrote:

wrote:
Gentlemen,
Thank you so much for the most excellent and very useful information.

This suggests that there is something different about the Shepherds
Bushes whereby they are treated as a single station.

That may be true for oyster but it's not true for paper tickets as I
found out once.
I bought a ticket from the LO machine for a journey to Stansted
Airport, which said
Shepherds Bush LO (or something to that effect, possibly "NR") and had
a "+" sign.
So I then crossed the road to the tube station to get the central
line. The gate validator didn't let me in,
and on showing the ticket to the man he said that the "+" meant I
could use the ticket on the tube only
if I had already got on a real train that started at Shepherds Bush
LO.

I suggested that to abide by the rules I should take a train to West
Brompton and change at Ealing Broadway to get to the other side of the
gate, to which he agreed.

MIG wrote:

On 16 Feb, 15:16, Mizter T wrote:
MIG wrote:

[big snip]

The thing about this is that the Shepherds Bushes seem to be treated
not as an outerchange but as a more-like-Stratford situation where
it's all one station. *The poster seems to have been charged for
travelling via the Central Line despite entering a building from which
it isn't possible to access the Central Line.

I absolutely understand what you're saying - however I wonder if this
is currently an inevitable by-product of OSIs/ outerchanges. I don't
know, that's just speculation, but it would provide an explanation.


If the Shepherds Bushes were set up as separate stations with an
outerchange, you'd think he'd be charged the non-zone 1 fare.

I'm just wondering whether that's possible - see above. Perhaps it is
and this situation is simply the result of sloppy programming. I don't
know enough about the machinations behind it to say, unfortunately.


Just done an interesting experiment on these lines with the TfL Fare
Finder.

Hackney Central/Hackney downs is an outerchange.

The Fare Finder price from Hackney Central to Lewisham is not priced
via zone 1.

The Fare Finder price from Hackney Downs to Lewisham is priced via
zone 1.

This suggests that despite being a valid outerchange for continuing
journeys (eg Cambridge Heath to Homerton*), the two outerchange
stations are treated differently with respect to journeys that start
there, presumably because if you enter Hackney Downs you can only
reach Lewisham via zone 1.

Good work MIG - I had half-thought that one could perhaps try and
narrow things down like that, but my brain had turned to oysterised
mush by that point! The Hackney to Lewisham example seems to be a
particularly good one as it's really clear cut.


This suggests that there is something different about the Shepherds
Bushes whereby they are treated as a single station.

Perhaps the Oyster people have gone for the easier route in doing
that, I dunno. It does seem pretty daft that a Shepherd's Bush (LO/
WLL) to Stratford journey is charged as being via z1 when it seems
pretty obvious that a passenger would be going via the WLL and NLL.
Unless...

Perhaps there's some idea that a passenger might go via Kensington
Olympia or West Brompton and then the District line through central
London. This would of course be rather nuts as the blindingly obvious
route via central London is direct along the District line. OK, there
might be a few people who're rather claustrophobic or whatever and
wish to do as much of the journey on 'big' District line trains, or
indeed people going an unusual route so as to travel some of the way
with others, but the system's assumptions on the route taken obviously
cannot be made on this basis!

I'm guessing that the assumed routes were/are initially generated by a
computer, a process which perhaps involves it it quizzing the journey
planner as to what the quickest route is, and this forms the basis of
the assumed routes, though is then subject to human involvement in
finessing the results. But perhaps the computer decided that folk
using Shepherd's Bush going to Stratford would actually choose to
travel via Kensington Olympia/ West Brompton and decided to charge
them for so doing, and no human caught this in time?

The other possible explanation I'd though of is that the assumed
routes for both Shepherd's Bushes were deemed to be the same - but
this notion can easily be rubbished by querying the fares finder again
- the fares from Clapham Junction to Shepherd's Bush LU are z1&2
fares, whilst CJ to Shepherd's Bush (LO/ WLL) is just a zone 2 fare.

Hmm. It seems possible that this issue is the result of sloppy
assumptions over the assumed routes - if so, that's a bit of a shame.
Getting on to Oyster customer service centre about this might be a
good idea, as it could increase the chances of it being dealt with.
I'd actually be tempted to write a very short letter asking why
Shepherd's Bush (LO/ WLL) to Stratford journeys are being charged like
this.

The Oyster CSC contact details are he
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/contact/4417.a...Service_Centre


*My nemesis.

Ha ha! Wrong side of the tracks... or perhaps it's simply the wrong
side of the Thames! ;-)

On 16 Feb, 17:10, wrote:

This suggests that there is something different about the Shepherds
Bushes whereby they are treated as a single station.

That may be true for oyster but it's not true for paper tickets as
I found out once. I bought a ticket from the LO machine for a
journey to Stansted Airport, which said Shepherds Bush LO
(or something to that effect, possibly "NR") and had a "+" sign.
So I then crossed the road to the tube station to get the central
line. The gate validator didn't let me in, and on showing the ticket
to the man he said that the "+" meant I could use the ticket on
the tube only if I had already got on a real train that started at
Shepherds Bush LO.

I suggested that to abide by the rules I should take a train to
West Brompton and change at Ealing Broadway to get to the
other side of the gate, to which he agreed.

The "+" sign (actually a Maltese Cross, or a dagger, or is it both or
neither?) actually denotes that the ticket can be used for cross-
London transfer by Tube between a designated list of stations, and
Shepherd's Bush is not one of them (though perhaps it should be).

The list of stations is on this page - click on the "show Station
List" link:
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/london/

To comply with the rules you would have needed to go from Shepherd's
Bush on a WLL train and interchange at Kensington Olympia or West
Brompton on to the Underground network.

I think I would have just let you through!

Interesting point about Shepherd's Bush (LO/ WLL) not being on that
list though. Perhaps it will be in the future, indeed perhaps it's
omitted from the present list because no-one was quite sure about when
the station would actually open and amending the list is a lengthy
process.

On 16 Feb, 17:17, Mizter T wrote:

Getting on to Oyster customer service centre about this might be a
good idea, as it could increase the chances of it being dealt with.
I'd actually be tempted to write a very short letter asking why
Shepherd's Bush (LO/ WLL) to Stratford journeys are being charged like
this.

The Oyster CSC contact details are hehttp://www.tfl.gov.uk/contact/4417.a...Service_Centre

Mizter T,
I emailed Customer Services last Wednesday asking them about my
forthcoming journey on the Saturday and whether I would be entitled to
the z2-6 cap if travelling from Shepherd's Bush ( nll/wll/lo) and
thereby avoiding z1. Unfortunately, it was wishful thinking that I
would get a reply by Saturday morning. However, I've sent them another
email regarding Saturday's journeys and asked if I am entitled to any
refund. Having not transgressed into z1 I personally feel that I do
have a good case, however, I fear that carefully worded rules /
conditions of travel in the Oyster fares "handbook" will conspire
against me !

regards
cs

I think I would have just let you through!

By a curious coincidence, he did leave the gate momentarily unattended
shortly after that conversation.