On 24 Mar, 22:54, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:
wrote:
Reading between the lines I got the impression that Ken's point was
his normal one - that FGW et al enjoy collecting penalty fares (and
excess ticketing values) from travellers far too much to reform their
ticketing practices without a serious kick up the arse.
Although why he felt that a letter to the Daily Mail (which appears to
be the original source) was a good way of getting this across is
beyond me. They're hardly his biggest fans.

The article is at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...y-rail-fare-fi...

Where I don't understand this is that Paddington is hardly some obscure
suburban station with a solitary ticket machine that's easily vandalised.
Livingstone was in the same situation as many others - gets there late
because of tube delays and bad personal time management and though he could
wing it. If the barrier staff and inspectors aren't singing from the same
hymn sheet then he'd have a point, but to turn it into a rant about TOCs not
taking up Oyster doesn't make for the best. It's fairly typical
Livingstone - ignore the very real technical and logistical problems, some
of which TfL didn't have, call the companies greedy for needing more time,
and completely ignore the fact that his own obsession with Oyster has caused
problems for passengers by forcing up non-Oyster fares when Oyster is not
yet usuable for everyone.

It highlights the problem with the current policy of not allowing
remote issue from self-service ticket machines. Somewhere like
Paddington should have a machine that reads a season ticket, sees that
it is valid to a station somewhere down the line and then allows issue
of a ticket issued at West Drayton or Boundary Zone 6 (or any other
location). All too often, someone who can pass through the barriers
at the London terminal with a ticket not valid for their full journey
will get away with not buying the extension.

I appreciate that there is a risk that someone would buy a ticket from
London to Ealing and another from Twyford to Reading but that is what
on-train inspection of tickets is about (when the conductor can pass
through the train). If someone was that determined, they could buy
two short range singles in advance online anyway.

Jonathan