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Easy to make a mistake when barriers left open

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MikeWh

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but my question is general because I have been at London terminals when the barriers appear to have panicked open due to crowds, causing problems for people attempting to tap out while being pushed.
There is a mechanism for auto completing journeys when events cause such crowds. TfL are quite liberal at completing journeys that might have been affected and refunds are sent to the card, or bank account if contactless, within a day.
 
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MikeWh

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Thanks, I can't really get my head around why touching out of a tram is required only some of the time.

Presumably if the Wimbledon gates are open, there is no point in touching out as the system doesn't care where you exited.
It's only required at Wimbledon because you are dumped inside the station. If the gates are open and you've arrived by tram then you don't have to touch out.
 

packermac

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The key here is that a tram is not a train. You have to touch out at the gates if you end your tram journey at Wimbledon, but you won't get charged a rail maximum fare as long as the last touch was a tram reader within 70 minutes.

When making a rail journey using PAYG you always have to touch in, even if your previous travel has left you inside the station, as is the case at Wimbledon by tram. Fortunately it's quite easy because there are clearly marked validators on platforms 9 and 10a/b; the 9 ones say use for National Rail while the 10 ones say use for tram.

The OP can't remember whether he heard pink or the assistant said pink. A convenient side effect by TfL means that a pink is treated as a touch in if no rail journey is in progress, so technically the assistant would have been right, but it's quite a trek to the pink readers at Wimbledon. P9 is much easier to use.
Wimbledon if using tram appears unique even amongst some of the more obscure Oyster regs based on some research yesterday.

https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/how-to-pay...-as-you-go/touching-in-and-out#on-this-page-3

How any non local is supposed to know this I have no idea.
 

Hadders

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How any non local is supposed to know this I have no idea.

The same way that a non local anywhere finds out. Do your research.

I was in Manchester last week and used Contactless to make a team journey, which has recently been introduced. You have to touch in and out, unlike Croydon.

I found this out because I read the posters at the tram stop before I commenced my journey.
 

AnkleBoots

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I was in Manchester last week and used Contactless to make a tram journey, which has recently been introduced. You have to touch in and out, unlike Croydon.
Interesting, I wonder what the penalty is for not doing so as many will be caught out I think.

Anyone from Blackpool, Sheffield or Edinburgh would not instinctively do this but those from Netherlands probably would.
 

Mojo

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Now this I don't understand. How does opening the barriers help deal with overcrowding if people still need to tap out and see the green light? The system can't assume all untapped cards will have exited at that station so are the authorities hoping that some people willbe pushed through untapped so they can charge them maximum or penalty fares?
Firstly, it helps because, particularly on weekends and tourist stations, a lot of customers are using paper tickets. Secondly, crowing of the scale described usually occurs at locations where there are a lot of irregular users who are slow and will often do daft things like wait for the gate to close in front of them before they tap their card, so having them remain open and staff instructing customers to keep walking helps in that regard. Finally, station staff will usually request through Oyster for Oyster/CPC customers to have their journeys autocompleted, so your final point is wrong because it will assume that untapped cards have exited.
Thanks, I can't really get my head around why touching out of a tram is required only some of the time.
It is only required at Wimbledon, because Wimbledon's Tramstop is inside the gateline of the Railway station. If you are interchanging from the Tram to NR/LU at Wimbledon you do not need to touch out, you are actually touching in to start your NR/LU journey.
Presumably if the Wimbledon gates are open, there is no point in touching out as the system doesn't care where you exited.
Correct.
 

Mojo

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Sprinter107

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I didn't really notice the signs, but then, I wasnt really looking for them. I rarely visit London, and use an oyster card even less. I just thought a tap in at the beginning and a tap out at the end of the journey, would be sufficient. But, now it's been explained, i can see the logic in that.
 

sheff1

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Just like we say always buy the correct ticket for a journey and you'll never fall foul of an RPI.

Numerous threads on here show that buying the correct ticket does not guarantee that you will not fall foul of an incompetent RPI or the like.....

indeed a new thread has been started only today where it appears someone has been forced to buy an additional ticket at Moorgate when they already held the correct ticket for their journey.
 
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packermac

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I didn't really notice the signs, but then, I wasnt really looking for them. I rarely visit London, and use an oyster card even less. I just thought a tap in at the beginning and a tap out at the end of the journey, would be sufficient. But, now it's been explained, i can see the logic in that.
Can not say I have ever noticed any signs either but then I did have a 60+ Oyster followed by a full London Freedom Pass for some years so you tend not to look at things as apart from NR services in the morning peak it is all free.
Great advantage of Oyster over Contactless is the ability to load your Railcard on it.
 
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Interesting, I wonder what the penalty is for not doing so as many will be caught out I think.

Anyone from Blackpool, Sheffield or Edinburgh would not instinctively do this but those from Netherlands probably would.

According to the website, 4.60 if you tap in but not out, in line with the maximum fare on the network. I assume this is because they have zonal fares, so this all makes sense since the system knows where your destination is - and also in line with other networks such as London, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc.
 

plugwash

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I didn't really notice the signs, but then, I wasnt really looking for them. I rarely visit London, and use an oyster card even less. I just thought a tap in at the beginning and a tap out at the end of the journey, would be sufficient. But, now it's been explained, i can see the logic in that.
What puzzles me is why did TFL choose to make oyster for trams work like oyster for busses rather than like oyster for train/tube/dlr?
 

packermac

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What puzzles me is why did TFL choose to make oyster for trams work like oyster for busses rather than like oyster for train/tube/dlr?
I would guess because it would be impossible to "gate" tram stops. People would just walk across the road to avoid them.
 

Hadders

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Trams have a flat fare structure, unlike trains.

Also if they were priced as per trains then there’d be a need fornthrough ticketing from every other station in the country!
 

Failed Unit

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I have had issues with the barriers at WGC even when they are not left open.

Tap in, gate opens, but the tap in isn't recorded. Luckily the local RPIs all know about this and when they catch up with you on the train they don't take action once you explain your journey. I had one catch me on the return, niether of my taps on the incoming were recorded and the one on the return wasn't. (Gate open at Kings Cross)

Most of my "incomplete" journeys are down to this fault. GTR say they know about the issue (it may be fixed now) but it does put me off using keyGo. I will now only use it if there is a long queue at the ticket machines and I will miss my preferred train if I queue.
 

timstours

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Bath christmas market causes horrendous queues at both the out and in gateline to the point of people missing trains and becoming a safety issue ,same i have noticed at birmingham new st and i told the staff there the same
 

sprunt

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I don't see how there can possibly be a "scam" with TfL encouraging GTR to act in a way that somehow increases TfL revenue by leaving GTR gatelines unstaffed. I don't know where you got that idea from, but it seems totally implausible to me, and I see no evidence of this.

I agree that this isn't a scam, but it seems it could be that as GTR don't get any revenue, they don't see any benefit to themself in protecting it by paying people to man the gatelines and having them operational. Does anyone know what the franchising agreement says about this? I know it had revenue protection requirements including the installation of gatelines on some stations served by Moorgate services.
 

island

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The lesson is to never use Oyster

Anyone with a contactless card will only ever get charged a maximum fare and will never face penalty fares or prosecution unless they have a card that is blacklisted

It is completely unfair to have such a harsh regime for oyster users (where one mistake can be penalised) when this does not apply to contactless users.
Actually, contactless card users and Oyster pay as you go users are treated the same if they haven't touched in on a bus.
 

smsm1

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I've had worse... At Ipswich I've had the wide barrier open (manual checking of tickets that don't work in the barriers, and the flip flop wide gate being slow), and the gateline staff tell me to just go straight through, yet I needed to tap my smart card on the barriers to load and/or activate the ticket on the smart card.
 

smsm1

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boxy is talking about stations where you can't use Oyster or contactless so the only point of those barriers is to check the validity of paper tickets
Could also be smart card or mobile tickets, not just paper tickets.
 

AnkleBoots

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Actually, contactless card users and Oyster pay as you go users are treated the same if they haven't touched in on a bus.
As seen on the Channel 5 series.. It's just a bit worrying that if it's noisy and the machine screen is obscured/dirty, you can be left unsure whether your tap actually worked. They should really issue paper receipts.
 

Hadders

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As seen on the Channel 5 series.. It's just a bit worrying that if it's noisy and the machine screen is obscured/dirty, you can be left unsure whether your tap actually worked. They should really issue paper receipts.

Paper receipts? Are you serious? How’s that going to work at a busy station?
 

AnkleBoots

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Paper receipts? Are you serious? How’s that going to work at a busy station?
I meant buses really, as the barriers opening at rail/tube stations give reassurance that the tap was accepted.

Buses in the rest of the country seem to issue paper receipts OK.
 

MikeWh

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As seen on the Channel 5 series.. It's just a bit worrying that if it's noisy and the machine screen is obscured/dirty, you can be left unsure whether your tap actually worked. They should really issue paper receipts.
On a bus you won't be charged again if you touch twice, even two different readers if it's a bus that has more than one.
Paper receipts? Are you serious? How’s that going to work at a busy station?
I think @AnkleBoots was referring to buses rather than trains.
 

Hadders

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I think @AnkleBoots was referring to buses rather than trains.

Ah ok, but even so we ought to be moving away from paper receipts.

I’d say stations with standalone validators are as much of an issue than buses though.
 

AnkleBoots

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Yes.. I remember the story of the woman who paid her bus fare with an iphone, the battery died and she got a £600 fine as she hadn't been able to prove she had a ticket. (possibly there was more to it than that)
 

MikeWh

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Buses in the rest of the country seem to issue paper receipts OK.
The difference I think is what is being paid for. I used buses in Bath recently and they offer contactless as a method of payment instead of cash. They still need to give you a ticket.

In London your touch is not necessarily going to result in a charge, or be the amount you get charged when all your travel is aggregated at the end of the day.
 

AnkleBoots

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The buses in Bogota (of all places!) have an Oyster-like system (not issuing tickets/receipts), but there is a metal barrier on the bus (similar to how our train station pay toilets used to be) which only opens once you have paid. A good idea for able-bodied adults but not for others, perhaps.
 
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