New Met Timetable Commencing 11th Dec 2011

To which I would say that a lack of communication and consultation results in exaxctly this situation occurring. Is this a surprise to LUL? Why?

A completely unnecessary and self-inflicted waste of everyone's time and money. That is why I call into question management competence over this.

In fact, no organisation has to answer vexatious requests. However, queries about when and how and on what basis decisions were made are not vexatious. They are why we have FOI.

You're exaggerating. I also pay taxes and fares, so let's just say I paid for it and leave it at that.

As I mentioned in another thread, TFL wastes loads of money on silly things. I think the money it has to spend on FOI requests pales into insignificance.

Totally agree, but I don't think that LU are the only people who get away with scamming their customers

Look at the PPM figures for this bunch of cowboys over the last 3 periods, disgraceful !!!

www.londonmidland.com/your-journey/performance/

No peak trains = no peak fares. Simple.

One for the lawyers (and bengley) here. If the advert was for a Saturday timetable, then no peak vs off-peak, times or fares etc.etc.,(just a weekday with less trains) , but if the advert was for a Saturday SERVICE it includes all the restrictions and benefits of a Saturday service and peak fares cannot be charged (legally). At least, that's the legal position down here - a Saturday SERVICE is being run all week and all terms and conditions are those for a Saturday including no peak fares, and Senior Citizens cards all day.

Depending on the EXACT wording of the advert bengley may well have a claim for a refund of the excess fare charged.

The timetable doesn't matter, what does is text which is associated with the fare. For Oyster the following text goes with the Oyster PAYG Peak fare:



There is no mention of the timetable here and as it is not a public holiday, the peak fare will be charged.

what looks to have happened its been described as a saturday timetable operating on a normal weekday.really it should be stated normal weekday fares apply too.

thats the problem with this pay&go "smart" travel you don't find out problems' until someone arrives at the gate and misunderstandings arise,i wouldn't trust that oyster if i was going to use the pink terminal several times on some of those journeys bypassing central london.

with a paper ticket it would have been noticed earlier.someone with a season ticket it makes no difference.the stress of the journey and that on top.

bengley

You have fallen into my trap i'm afraid. I used to enjoy a Fast service at the Weekend ( Off peak or On it was a Fast service). This has been taken away , as it's now a sorry excuse for a Weekend service.

This was decided by someone who has no clear understanding of the needs of the Commuter who works the Christmas Week. God helps us.

ETA : Making every train an "All Stations " from Baker Street will not help anyone who wants to go to the top end of the Met . We have only 2 TPH . Its not Rocket Science , is it. ?

Of course there is a peak demand, this is shown by other TOCs running an enhanced Saturday service. This demand is just not sufficient to run the complete peak timetable.

This can clearly be seen from Chiltern running extra trains via Amersham, over their normal Saturday service, during the peak this week. With this being the case, why should be Met run their full timetable as well?

The point you are missing is that there is also leisure demand which can be kept off the peak trains by keeping the peak fares.



No need to be insulting.

Hardly insulting! Perhaps Christmas has also affected some peoples' sense of humour too!

But if a Saturday service is advertised, then it is not unreasonable to assume that the Saturday rules should apply.

It's a bit like how local councils routinely fleece money from car drivers who park their cars on a yellow line on a Bank Holday Monday, who assume that it is covered by the same regulations as a Sunday. OK, so it's not actually a Sunday, but you see the point. Even more so when some councils actually do class the bank holiday as a Sunday in respect of parking regulations.

TFL is exploiting a technicality here.

Of course.

I often stick up for TFL when friends and family say how bad it is, and will often explain how well they deal with things, and just how well it runs most of the time.

Sometimes, passengers (I refuse to use the patronising term "customer") deserve all they get, and I have little sympathy, i.e. when someone listening to an Ipod misses an announcement about a train being diverted.

However, in the case of the Saturday service vs Peak fare, I am amazed that people are even attempting to defend this. It's misleading, pure and simple.

Well no offence was intended. Clearly I've hit a bit of a raw nerve, but if I worried whether everything I ever said would offend someone, I probably would end up not ever speaking again. But I'm sorry to hear that you went through a bad personal situation.

Maybe they should charge less when there is engineering work on, but that's another debate altogether.

I'm aware of the purpose behind peak fares, and have no problem with them per se. However, if they intend to charge them on these days between Christmas and New Year, then they should either:

Make that clear

or

Don't operate a Saturday service.

Of course, one of the issues is that nowadays, the early Saturday service is much better than it was a few years ago, so probably can cater for the minimal extra demand on these few days,

I didn't ignore your comment about the extra Chiltern services but merely forgot to respond to it. Yes, they may well be providing extra services, but other parts of the Underground which do not share tracks with a TOC won't benefit from such a service. So all they get is the standard Saturday service with Monday to Friday restrictions.

Fair enough, although maybe they could have drawn more attention to it and mentioned it in the same part of the leaflet where the Saturday service is advertised.

It still defies common sense though, and even if TFL don't intend it to be confusing, the end result definitely is!