Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I was waiting for more details before replying, but I’ll offer some thoughts now.
What you need to remember is that each time you touch out the system tries to calculate the fare from the current origin to the place where you’ve just touched out. So, what you ended up doing looks like it should have been:
Gatwick Airport to West Hampstead Thameslink: £7.10 (journey ended)
West Hampstead Thameslink same station exit: £7.00 (max fare will be cancelled by entry within 45 minutes)
West Hampstead Thameslink to Willesden Green: undefined (2 leg journey starting with OSI)£1.90 is a TfL-LU zone 1-2 off-peak fare with railcard which seems logical as the cheapest potential route would be via zone 1. Starting (or ending) a journey with an OSI is troublesome if the fares don’t exist publicly, or do but are not what you’d expect.
As I’ve said elsewhere, Plusbus and TfL don’t have agreements. There are a few other places where Freedom Passes and 60+ are vaild on TfL services only and Plusbus also exists. Brentwood, Cheshunt and Watford Junction spring to mind.
Plusbus is not available within zones 1-6 (apart from Elstree & Borehamwood where a significant number of buses are not TfL). If you wish to avail yourself of bus travel to the station where you travel to London then I agree that maybe a traditional ticket might be better. It’s all a matter of choice and someone who drives or walks to the train station may find that the slightly cheaper daily cap compared to a day travelcard makes contactless more worthwhile.
Hi David,
I think there is some confusion there going back to the early days when the hopper only gave you one free journey. It doesn’t matter what order the touches are, buses and trams will still be free within the hour.
As for journey history, it’s not involved. The time of the first bus/tram touch is stored separately until it times out and the next bus/tram touch gets charged and replaces it. I know this because youtubers Geoff and Hugo did 25 in 60 minutes just after the facility was introduced. Hugo in fact went on to do 27 while the actual time allowed was 70 minutes, but that has since been reduced to 62.
Hi Alan (confused of Berkshire),
That’s a great question which highlights some odd features that aren’t often seen these days, and a long standing bug just to add a further curve ball.
First thing to remember is that the system keeps track of which zones have been used for both anytime and off-peak caps. With all day caps in zones 1-6 (unless a railcard is added) this rarely makes a difference. Then there’s the oddity that for some weird reason all bus journeys are treated as off-peak. This came in years ago when weekly bus capping became a thing on Oyster, and it’s never been fixed.
So, your first bus journey added £1.75 to both caps. The tube from Hatton Cross added £3.20 to the anytime cap and set the anytime zone limit to 5. The tube from West Brompton added £1.35 to both caps and set the off-peak zone limit to 4. The 11:31 bus hit the zone 1-4 off-peak railcard cap of £8.50. The tube from Earls Court extended the off-peak zone limit to 5, and the final bus hit the daily bus cap as you said. Had you made another train journey this would have capped at the zone 1-5 off-peak cap of £10.15 (unless you went beyond zone 5).
Thanks for that challenge.
Hi,
Buses contribute to any rail cap regardless of where you board the bus (even at Bluewater). If you board the morning bus before 0930 then theoretically it should not count towards the off-peak cap, but there’s a long standing bug which means it probably will. If you try the journey, please do let me know how it goes.
That’s good actually. They state that it is valid at 0930 which is what you need to know. They are probably mainly there to deal with admin issues like renewals, lost passes, etc. Don’t worry any more, you’re fine.
The problem is that the whole journey is from Finsbury Park to East Croydon. The 0930 from London Bridge has come from Finsbury Park at 0907 and the disabled Freedom Pass is valid on that service from Finsbury Park. The next train from Finsbury Park through the core isn’t until 0922.
At the moment there is only one fare, so that’s what you’ll be charged whichever way you go. An OSI will join a journey every time, but only makes a route if one is defined for the journey being taken.
Hi Daniel,
That’s an error I’d say. It’s expecting you to travel via Upminster and Romford, which is fine if you don’t want to leave the station to walk, but there ought to be alternative fares for each of the two OSIs with the Elizabeth line, especially since it’s the same train from Barking Riverside. The one you took would be zone 4 only while the other one would be zones 3-4.
Hi James,
This is a somewhat complicated issue, but I’ll do my best to explain. First thing you need to be aware of is that there are no off-peak paper or e-tickets within zones 1-6, apart from the off-peak day travelcard. The travelcard says that it is not valid on trains timed to depart after 0430 and before 0930, which means that it is definitely valid on the 0930 service. The freedom pass website says that it is valid after 0930. As it doesn’t specify by how much I would say that 0930 and a fraction of a second is fine, so to all intents and purposes it is valid on a 0930 service. I’d be even more confident given that trains rarely leave London Bridge early, especially at the end of the morning peak. The freedom pass doesn’t mention trains timed to depart, so if a late running train leaves after 0930 then you are fine.
The fares quoted on the National Rail website are contactless fares which are decided by touch in time rather than the time of the train. There is a small grace period of 3 minutes at the end of the morning peak, so in theory you would be able to catch a train at 0930, but London Bridge is quite a large station so they are probably erring on the side of caution by saying you’ll be charged a peak fare. I notice that the next train is at 0931 and they claim that will be off-peak. My worry is that people will touch in in good time and end up getting charged the peak fare anyway, but that’s not relevant to your enquiry.
I hope this helps.
I’d forgotten about the Drain, but why Northern when you wanted Paddington? Just curious. And haven’t you got a 60+?
Hi Mark,
Yes, almost certainly. There are Out-of-station interchanges between each gateline at Waterloo LU, so if you came in on the Jubilee and left on the Bakerloo you will probably have triggered that.
I’m not having any problems with the app. It may be your old phone, although I’d have hoped the app wouldn’t actually work at all if the phone isn’t supported.
Hi Keith,
The default fare for Harrow and Wealdstone to Chessington North is zones 2-6, so no need to touch at Clapham Junction. If you check the fare finder on this site it tells you what zones each fare thinks you’ve used.
That’s a very odd one. I’ve not noticed it before, but I haven’t travelled completely after midnight for quite a while. I’ll give it a go in the near future.
Thanks Katherine, I’m guessing that in the grand scheme of things a days delay to applying for a card which you’ll almost certainly get early is seen as not a priority. Yes, they might get a few phone calls about it, but most people will try again a day or so later, or not even have been so quick off the mark in the first place.
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the updates both here and on the news page. I’m hopeful that TfL will sort out some automatic refunds as they did so for the other major issue from the March fare revision involving c2c.
Not excusing anyone, but I feel it might help to explain the processes involved here. With Project Oval stations the responsibility to enter the correct fares rests with the train company who set them. The fares from February were supplied to TfL last summer in readiness for the original launch. Then came the cyber security incident and everything got put on hold. In the meantime the revised fares from March were supplied to TfL where I’m pretty sure only the actual fare would have been changed. TfL (or Cubic who actually do it) require between two and three months notice of fares changes so that testing can be carried out and an inplimentation plan agreed. When the old fares went live in February it was way too late to make any changes in time for March, which is why the corrections came into effect with the (normally) minor revision in June.
I’m less clear about what should happen with customer services, but hopefully the intervention of a local MP and the Department for Transport may elicit improvements going forward.
Incidentally, I don’t think they’ve fully fixed the issue. If I attempt to buy a single ticket from Sevenoaks to Oxford Circus on the Southeastern website leaving at 1700 on Monday it will sell me an off-peak single at £11.20. But if I ask the fare finder what the PAYG fare will be it says £18.20 as the peak fare is still showing as both morning and evening. What is your understanding where the journey ends in zone 1 but beyond a London Terminal?
Cheers Michael. Not sure how I missed the cap symbol over both lines of each day. That now makes perfect sense.
Hi,
OK, there are several factors at work here. The biggest is that new fares were uploaded to the system starting from Sunday 8th June. It looks like LNWR have increased some of the daily caps. This seems to be correcting some errors.
The next thing is that it looks like the daily cap was incorrectly set for Leighton Buzzard, so your return journeys were being capped when they probably shouldn’t have been. This explains the cheap afternoon fares which always resulted in a £17.20 daily charge. You have almost certainly gained from this error.
The third thing to note is that the evening peak charging period starts at 1600. As you discovered on Monday, this increases the charge for the trip home. There is a little leeway to allow for clocks being wrong which means that it actually changes over at 1605, but if you want the off-peak fare then you need to touch in at Bank before this time. By touching in in the morning before 0630 you are actually gaining from the pre-peak that TfL operates. You wouldn’t get that with a paper ticket, so you are still winning.
Overall it looks like you were being charged the wrong fares and the wrong caps before this weekend, but you were undoubtedly winning from this error. You still win if you touch in before 0630 in the morning.
