Great Oyster News

It is of course subject to the tocs agreeing to it. I believe swt are the only toc to embrace oyster pre-pay to date. Also, the tocs might be getting the equipment for nothing, but they will have to pay for the installation and ongoing maintenance of equipment. I believe this is a good move, but tocs, ever ready to reduce costs, might well reduce staffing, both to reduce expenditure, and close ticket offices [as has happened on lul] as oyster card take-up increases.

An intresting point of this development is whether lul staff cards will be allowed onto nr [currently limited to certain routes] within zones 1-6. I know we will be allowed to travel on the routes operated at present by silverlink, at the end of 2007.

It's certainly about time this happened. I'm sure that TfL will force the TOCs to go Oyster. As an occasional user of NR, it is a pain to have to buy a seperate, and often more expensive paper ticket for a joint tube/NR journey.

And doubtless more manual gates being kicked off their hinges!!!! ;D

The public always assume the gates are the problem, rather than the oyster card they are holding. Instead of placing it flat on the reader like they have been told many a time, they rub it around in circles like they are making a cuppa, or hold it three feet above the reader so it cant be read. Is it reallly that hard to swipe in and out.?? ;D

It will be allowed on silverlink (well certain parts anyway) as it will come under TfL's umbrella - of which you are a staff member. LUL (indeed TfL) employees are not staff members of the TOC's - so i'm a little puzzled by your comment. The only facillity all rail staff have "cross companies" is the priv scheme.

Viz: forcing TOC's to take oyster pre-pay

On the new the other day, Ken said something along the lines of "Well we've asked them to take Oyster, and if they don't they won't get their franchise renewed." Which is probably good, because Ken always gets things his way [look at the new late-running balls].

Yep. In order to be eligible for the 16/17 discount entitlement you have to have a photocard and then you'll be issued with a Oyster card that has the discount entitlement on it.

As you're only travelling on the weekends, then the price capping is just for you as you wont have to pay more than the price of a One Day Travelcard.

Zones 1-4 off peak capping is £2 (which was the old price of an Child Rate off peak One Day Travelcard!)

I hope this helps.

It'll still be £2 off peak on a a weekday.

Yep, price capping is all Pre Pay stuff. Basically, when you use Pre Pay, you get charged for every Single fare journey you make. The price capping lark was simply introduced to stop people from paying more than the price of a one day travelcard.

You need to touch in and out at the start/end of every journey. If you were to do what you mentioned above (ie get on a train at any given station and simply turn around and return to the origin station), you *should* leave the platforms and validate your oyster at the station you alight at. If you don't do so, you're not paying the fare that you should! For example, if you started your journey at King's Cross N/B Vic and went up to Walthamstow Central, then back to King's Cross, you would need to go upstairs and validate your card at Walthamstow. If you did not do so, your card would be invalid on the return journey and you *could* be charged a penalty fare (if you were extremely unlucky).

Just the four, eh?

From what you say about the folks you have to deal with on a daily basis I would have thought that about fourteen would have been more appropriate

Right ....... I need someone to explain this to me simply [maybe talking slower is helpful? ]

I got the 16 / 17 photocard today, and an oyster card. I made it start from 5th June, and its a weekly travelcard (I believe), anyway, it's definitely for a week. It now has £20.50 on it, I believe.

So, does this mean that it starts on 5th June, and is only for a week and the money goes then, OR, is it that it starts on 5th June, and is there until I use the money.

Is there also a way that I can just simply use the card as like a pay-as-you-go type system, where I can just use it any time, and the money stays on the card?

But what are the rules if someone has a travelcard, and is "wandering" around the tube. If the ticket inspectors know your starting station is in your paid for Zones, and you are stopped in your paid for Zones, then do they have a case to penalty fare you for taking an indirect route or backtracking?

Travelcards on an Oyster are like tickets. You pay the one-off fare, and you can travel say from Arnos (where you tap in), to Waterloo, to Leytonstone, to Amersham and back to Arnos, and even without tapping out, it wouldn't matter as the ticket inspector should just read it as a travelcard. However, you must of course have a valid travelcard to travel through the zones, e.g. 1 - 4 - 1, will require a 1 - 4 travelcard.

As for back-tracking, AFAIK, its timed. They don't expect you to return to the station you came from within 5 minutes so after the 5 minutes, or whatever it is, is up, you can tap out, even if you haven't left the station.

With pre-pay. Its worked out via zones. E.G. If you tap in at Arnos, travel to Waterloo, Leytonstone, Amersham etc, and then tap out at Arnos 4 hours later, you are charged for a journey from zone 4 to zone 4. LU don't lose out this way because even people who are spending the day on the tube, will at some point surface, and therefore have to touch out. However, you can lose out as if you wanted to go from say Arnos to Southgate, 1 station, you'd still pay for zone 4 to zone 4.

If you don't tap out, Oyster remembers it, so the next time you tap in, your tapping out from the journey before hand. So fare evasion with an Oyster Card is covered. And if you never to tap out for that journey, well, they know where you live!!!