Oyster PAYG when lines are closed

Thank you, Dave. She left before your helpful reply. £1.50 would have been the Oyster single fare deducted (PAYG) from St James’s Park to Paddington. So, I’ll stand correction, but it looks as though Oyster is currently unable to accommodate the effect of engineering re-routings, (e.g. also see TfL’s Hangar Lane/Park Royal recommendation above, or the suggestion that “tickets are available on local bus services” when a section of railway is out of action – does the diverted passenger not touch in on the bus?).

Just a personal comment. London’s conveyance-dependent charging structures are so confusing. I cannot understand why, in common with many other major European cities, London has not integrated its bus, tram, rapid transit and rail fares, charging the same rate for the same journey regardless of conveyance. Also, with a notional supplementary fare zone 10 - cf. Mascot, Domestic Terminal, and International Terminal on the Macarthur East Hills line in Sydney - even your HEx service could be integrated into a metropolitan zonal fare system.

Thanks again for your help.

T

If the advertised it widely, you'll end up with people trying to use the service on a non-enabled day! resulting in a lot of bother for the Hex Staff!

Posters of what all of the following customers should do?:

- Pre-pay Oystercard users
- Paper ticket holders
- Season ticket holders (with and without prepay)

If they are there, they certainly aren't prominent, as I and many other passengers are totally bemused at where to touch in/out and just use common judgement.

And then the whole thing screws up, and because it's so complex and fiddly it is invariably the user who gets the blame! Then the only way of getting anything done is to ring up a <insert adjective o fyour choice> helpline...

It's a bit cheeky of them to not accept Oyster, and only allow travelcards, when they are trying to get people to use Oyster by hiking up paper fares...

Thanks for everyone’s responses – enlightening and confusing by turns.

My girlfriend is aircrew and uses T3 (until the big change later this year).

Like many transport workers, like some of you here, she gets paid no more for working Sats, Suns, holidays, whatever. I’m sure that’s the case of many service industry workers, who are Oyster PAYG users at LHR too.

She (and I) accept the need to upgrade highways, rail, dig drains when there is less traffic. So Sats, Suns and holidays are the best days for that. But she, you, they should not have to pay a financial penalty in addition to the time penalty incurred for doing their/your transport job.

At Christmas in the UK it was horrendous. Frankfurt, Zürich, Paris, Berlin, San Francisco and Sydney fine. She forewent her chance (one of five a year) to get a public holiday supplement, because getting to LHR in time to fly would have cost her twice as much as she would have made.

Nowhere on the engineering diversion leaflets does it say how Oyster PAYG passengers should travel without being penalized. As said above, not thought through.

To Hex Dave’s point about his company’s service.

Overall – to get passengers on to the trains, it all starts at the station. Hypothesis: Piccadilly Line w/e engineering work sometime after T5 opens.

BAA T5 ticket clerk, “It costs £15.50 to get to Paddington, but if you’ve got an OysterCard, you can get to any Central London tube station for 10% of that.”

I think not. But there may well be a case in UK consumer protection law to be answered in the future. Views?

T

One hour! Wise move! ;D ;D

Every 6 mins! The advertised service is every 10..... I would have said every 8-20 mins ;D ;D ;D ;D

Hindisght shows you may be right SS Sttg. But we required and made best efforts to obtain advanced information. None of the posters at Victoria, Gloucester Road, and St James’s Park made any mention as to how PAYG passengers were to be charged the correct fare to LHR on those days. The staff we asked and 7222-1234 didn’t know. One colleague told my girlfriend to buy the £4 ticket and claim back the difference.

You may have overlooked TfL’s Hangar Lane/Park Royal interchange suggestion above. How does that work for a single PAYG journey?

There is no mention on any engineering diversion leaflet as to how PAYG passengers are to make sure they pay/are charged the correct fare during disruptions – like last nights Piccadilly line breakdown at King’s Cross when passengers were told they could use their “ticket” on suburban rail services to Finsbury Park and continue their journeys from there.

Looking at “Your guide to fares and tickets” there are references to “Oyster and cash single fares” and separately to “tickets”. And no information as to how to react in case of journey disruptions.

Maybe legally, TfL is probably not required to provide Oyster, but as a common carrier must provide physical tickets on demand. Perhaps Oyster represents a discount, not an obligation on TfL.

T

My understanding was that if the interchange is shown as such on the tube map then it counts as a single journey. E.g. if your journey involves changing between the sub-surface and deep level lines at King's Cross you have to pass through two sets of ticket barriers, however, you would be charged for a single journey.
In this case of Park Royal to Hanger Lane, this isn't shown on the map as an interchange so I think you would be charged for two journeys.

Interesting points Chris

I downloaded TfL's conditions of carriage, and while it looks like my assumpton was wrong, that an Oyster PAYG 'fare' is not a ticket, (it is), I was unable to find a reference to a 15 minutes? rule. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place which probably also apples to my being unable to find a list of 'Logical Interchange points'

I think this applies to places like Hammersmith, but with the new gate lines at St Pancras, I'm not sure about the Sub-Surface/Tube interchange, but I think it would apply to passengers allighting from FCC services in the new Midland Road Station.

Anyone got an official, published list, which includes the new Overground/Underground interchange points like you mentioned?

The Hangar Lane/Park Royal suggestion is TfL's.

I've notice that £4 is always deducted from my PAYG Oyster on entering the Underground and the ballance 'corrected' at the end of the journey.

Hex Dave, I think passengers who turn up at the BAA TO at LHR T5 asking to get to say Liverpool Street or Canary Wharf are going to be confused.

T

That's to do with the maximum cash fare business. £4 is deducted at the start of your journey so that if you don't touch out at the end of your journey, £4 is what you will pay. Similarly if you don't touch in at the start of your journey then £4 will be deducted when you touch out at the end of your journey.

There is, of course, the whole issue when lines are closed and there is a replacement bus service. If you are going from Green Park to Heathrow and the line is suspended between Hammersmith and Acton Town, do you touch out at Hammersmith and then touch in again at Acton Town, after having used the replacement bus service? I have received conflicting advice on this. Some say touch in and touch out, and that your fare will be adjusted autmomatically. This assumes that the Oyster system can be programmed for such eventualities (can it?). I have also heard people told to walk through the barriers at Hammersmith and again at Acton Town, and then touch out normally at Heathrow. Of course, you then run the risk of your journey taking more than 2 hours, and getting charged £8 for the privilege!

That's good to hear!

It was the 16:50ish departure from Heathrow. There was a last minute platform change announced, and of course the station has no platform number signs that I could see, so guessing we had to go to the other platform was the only option. Got to Paddington ca. 17:25 after leaving late and being constantly held up on the main line. But hey, it was a free ride so I can't complain.