On 3 July, 17:06, Mizter T wrote:
On Jul 3, 4:40*pm, "solar penguin"
wrote:

Martin Petrov wrote:
This morning I had to travel to Leyton to Ilford and needless to say,
given I haven't bought a paper ticket in London for YEARS due to
always having a monthly or annual travelcard and auto top up on my
Oystercard, it never crossed my mind that I'd have to buy a ticket to
cover me for the stretch outside of zone 3 to Ilford.

Given that Oyster is still completely useless on most journeys, I'm
amazed that you've managed to go "for YEARS" without needing a paper
ticket. *Were you stuck indoors for most of that time?

"Oyster is still completely useless on most journeys" - total
balderdash, it's completely useful for an untold number of journeys
around London.

The OP said it was useless for most journeys. Can you use it for Leeds
- Manchester? No, of course not.

Even restricting it to journeys in London, can you use it for a taxi
from Euston to Kings Cross? Or to walk across Westminster bridge? Ride
through Hyde Park?

However Oyster PAYG might be useless for most of the
journeys that you want to do - but don't use yourself as the basis for
everyone else!

Oyster PAYG is a very restrictive system for people who's journeys
aren't completely covered. It's also very complicated in engineering
works. If your bus terminates short, or if your train runs over a
person and you have to continue your journey elswhere, or even a
simple rail-replacement DLR trip -- Epping to Cutty Sark, change at
Stratford (touch in/out?), then at Poplar onto a bus (touch in|out?),
then at Mudchute onto the DLR, and then out at Cutty Sark.

When there's disruption, you're told tickets are accepted on buses and
trains, but you'll find that it costs a fortune with oyster.

The fundamental problem is that your oyster PAYG journey doesn't
involve you buying a ticket for a journey, it involves a complex
system of charging and refunding at several points throughout the
journey. If all goes to plan, it's great. If it breaks, it's a hastle.
Even with the exceptionally high cost of a paper ticket, it's often
worthwhile just buying a single, or a ODTC, rather than take the
stress of oyster.

On 3 July, 20:01, "solar penguin"
wrote:
Mizter T wrote:

No - you stated "for now Overground is completely useless for most
journeys" - absolutely *no* qualifier about your statement only
applying south of the river. Given that LO is incredibly useful to a
good number of people - *that is a fact* - then I just pointing that
out.

I'm not denying it it's useful for the journeys that just happen to be
made by those people.

But I suspect that if you were to calculate the shortest journey between
every possible start point and every possible end point in the London
area, then LO would be no use at all for most (i.e. over 50%) of them,
because it doesn't penetrate south London (as well several large chunks
of north outer London).

(However, I'm willing to admit I'm wrong if anyone has actually done
such a culculation and found otherwise.)



What you appear to be saying is that it's useless for most of *your*
journeys - which is fine, although one could say that puts you in the
same 'blinkered Londoner' bracket that you were trying to shove Martin
into earlier on.

No, I'm definitely talking about all possible journeys as calculated
above.



I'm not interested in placing blame with this organisation or that
one. I'm only describing the situation on the ground. That's all

No, you're interested in blowing off steam. And why not place blame -
it seems to be the root cause of why you're getting so steamed up
after all.

I'm not getting steamed up, just stating facts. *I'd forgotten how much
the Oyster enthusiasts in these groups hate being reminded of simple
facts.

You can't simply look at the tickets and see how many you've got
left. Instead you have to mess about with your online balance and
stuff. That's annoying.

I agree that's a definite downside with smartcard ticketing, no doubt.
As I said in my reply to Martin, perhaps one day there will be
smartcards that offer a visual display of what your balance is and/or
when your season ticket is due to expire.

Like I said, I'm interested in facts about the real situation on the
ground, not hypotheical future speculation that might never happen.



As for fraud, I've never seen those fake Savers tickets that
everyone keeps taliing about. And now they've gone, I'll never have
the chance to get someone come up to me in a pub and sell me a
dozen bus tickets for only a quid!

Point proven!

What point? *Being forced to obey the rules is a lot _less_ convenient
than being allowed to break them.

That reminds me of another advantage of paper tickects. *If I want to go
somewhere in North London, I can get a Z2-6 ODTC, change to the tube at
Balham or Vauxhall, and travel through Z1 knowing the chance of an
on-train ticket inspection is pretty much zero. *When Oyster PAYG
becomes standard, I won't be able to do that any more. *

On the other hand, someone travelling from, say, Harrow and Wealdstone
to South Hampstead can go via Euston with their Oyster card, not touch
at Euston and then only be charged Z2-4 without any risk of being
termed a fare evader.

On 4 July, 19:53, Jonathan Harris wrote:
On 3 July, 20:01, "solar penguin"


That reminds me of another advantage of paper tickects. *If I want to go
somewhere in North London, I can get a Z2-6 ODTC, change to the tube at
Balham or Vauxhall, and travel through Z1 knowing the chance of an
on-train ticket inspection is pretty much zero. *When Oyster PAYG
becomes standard, I won't be able to do that any more. *

On the other hand, someone travelling from, say, Harrow and Wealdstone
to South Hampstead can go via Euston with their Oyster card, not touch
at Euston and then only be charged Z2-4 without any risk of being
termed a fare evader.

Anyone doing Harrow to Vauxhall via zone 1 with a 2 - 4 travelcard IS
a fare-evader, not just termed. Complaining that Oyster stops one
evading a fare is a bit silly.

On Sat, 4 Jul 2009 12:31:04 -0700 (PDT), MIG
wrote:

Anyone doing Harrow to Vauxhall via zone 1 with a 2 - 4 travelcard IS
a fare-evader, not just termed. Complaining that Oyster stops one
evading a fare is a bit silly.

With Oyster PAYG it's not necessarily silly. With PAYG, it only
matters where you enter and leave the system. Some journeys are
assumed to go via Zone 1 and some are not, and this has no bearing on
which way you actually go - there are examples where you'd be charged
for a Zone 1 journey even if you didn't as well as the other way
around.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On 5 July, 15:05, (Neil Williams)
wrote:
On Sat, 4 Jul 2009 12:31:04 -0700 (PDT), MIG

wrote:
Anyone doing Harrow to Vauxhall via zone 1 with a 2 - 4 travelcard IS
a fare-evader, not just termed. *Complaining that Oyster stops one
evading a fare is a bit silly.

With Oyster PAYG it's not necessarily silly. *With PAYG, it only
matters where you enter and leave the system. *Some journeys are
assumed to go via Zone 1 and some are not, and this has no bearing on
which way you actually go - there are examples where you'd be charged
for a Zone 1 journey even if you didn't as well as the other way
around.

Of course, but the poster was complaining that Oyster was stopping his
preferred practice of evading a fare, for a journey that would be via
zone 1 on Oyster and required travelling through a zone for which is
travelcard was not valid.

On Fri, Jul 03, 2009 at 06:23:09PM +0100, solar penguin wrote:

I haven't got it in for LO. I'm just stating the fact that untill the
ELLX is finished, the LO is useless for nearly all journeys south of the
river. That is a fact.

Of course, once the ELLX *is* finished it'll still be useless for nearly
all journeys south of the river. To expect any one line to be useful
for nearly all journeys would be really rather silly.

--
David Cantrell | Hero of the Information Age

"There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza."
"WHAT MAKES YOU SAY THERE IS A HOLE IN YOUR BUCKET?"

On 6 July, 10:11, David Cantrell wrote:
On Fri, Jul 03, 2009 at 06:23:09PM +0100, solar penguin wrote:
I haven't got it in for LO. *I'm just stating the fact that untill the
ELLX is finished, the LO is useless for nearly all journeys south of the
river. *That is a fact.

Of course, once the ELLX *is* finished it'll still be useless for nearly
all journeys south of the river. *To expect any one line to be useful
for nearly all journeys would be really rather silly.


As someone who makes many journeys that involve south London, I have
found the Eccles branch entirely useless. Never used it. I felt I
had to say it.

On Fri, Jul 03, 2009 at 09:27:00PM +0100, solar penguin wrote:

Still I suppose there must be people who find Travelcard seasons useful
for their journeys. But if my experience is anything like typical,
there can't be that many of them.

You're nothing like typical.

The vast majority of people who use train + tube/bus use a travelcard
season ticket. Even when Oyster works properly on trains, they'll still
do so because even if PAYG gets capped at the same price as a one day
travelcard, a monthly travelcard is still cheaper.

I presume that most people who use tube + bus do too.

Incidentally, am I correct in thinking that when Saint Ken originally
introduced Travelcards, they worked across the London rail network from
day one?

--
David Cantrell | Cake Smuggler Extraordinaire

There are many different types of sausages. The best are
from the north of England. The wurst are from Germany.
-- seen in alt.2eggs...

On Jul 8, 11:41 am, David Cantrell wrote:

On Fri, Jul 03, 2009 at 09:27:00PM +0100, solar penguin wrote:
Still I suppose there must be people who find Travelcard seasons useful
for their journeys. But if my experience is anything like typical,
there can't be that many of them.

You're nothing like typical.

The vast majority of people who use train + tube/bus use a travelcard
season ticket. Even when Oyster works properly on trains, they'll still
do so because even if PAYG gets capped at the same price as a one day
travelcard, a monthly travelcard is still cheaper.

I presume that most people who use tube + bus do too.

Your comments are however predicated on...

(a) people using a train + Tube/bus combo - solar penguin's comments,
whilst being ridiculous, do nonetheless highlight that there are many
people both within and outside of London for whom a point-to-point
rail-only season ticket makes sense (and it might even be the case
that a rail-only season plus two Oyster PAYG bus or Tube zone journeys
is cheaper than buying an inclusive Travelcard)

(b) people having routine travel patterns - i.e. a regular commute -
as lots of people don't have such regular daily travel patterns (even
for those that do then Oyster PAYG can still work out cheaper if the
commute is just by Tube, or possibly could be a Tube one way and a bus
back home of v.v.).

I do however agree with your broad point - season Travelcards are
highly likely to make sense for someone that uses a train + Tube/bus
combo on a near daily basis, i.e. for a commute.

And given that Oyster PAYG fares for NR-only journeys don't look
likely to be any cheaper than the current NR (paper) single fares,
then there won't be an exodus away from those holding rail-only
seasons over to using Oyster PAYG in a similar way to what happened
with *some* Tube commuters when Oyster PAYG was introduced, where
there was a move away from having a season Travelcard towards just
using Oyster PAYG (though the potential savings on offer vary
depending upon the journey, and need to be weighed up against the
flexibility that one gets with a season Travelcard).


Incidentally, am I correct in thinking that when Saint Ken originally
introduced Travelcards, they worked across the London rail network from
day one?

No. Originally in the early 80's there came the "Travelcard", which
was only valid on LT, i.e. Tubes and buses. This had quite amazingly
not existed beforehand (I think there may have been some potential
legal issues with such a ticket).

Then a bit later came the "Capitalcard" was introduced as an
additional product - this could also be used on British Rail (as then
was).

Later still, the old LT-only Travelcard was withdrawn and the
Capitalcard product was renamed the Travelcard - i.e. the 'new'
Travelcard - and was valid on Tubes, buses and trains (i.e. BR/
Network SouthEast). From this date onwards, Travelcards were the only
game in town.

(Well, at least until LT grew exasperated in trying to persuade BR/NSE
to introduce a 'peak' version of the one-day Travelcard, so they
introduced the LT-only "LT Card" as a one-day ticket that could be
used in the peak - but couldn't be used at all on BR. Of course the
TOCs eventually relented and introduced the peak one-day Travelcard -
now known as the Anytime Day Travelcard - some time in the late 90's
or early noughties.)

One of the problems with bringing BR into the multi-modal ticketing
fold in the early 80's was that BR was of course controlled by central
government - whilst LT was controlled by the GLC, led by one 'Red'
Ken. Hand in glove co-operation was therefore not a given!

Incidentally, it should be noted that season and one-day versions of
the Travelcard and Capitalcard were introduced at different times, and
the outboundary Capitalcard - i.e. valid from origin stations outside
of London - came after the introduction of the inboundary Capitalcard.
One day I'll try and gather all the relevant dates together!