Yellow Oyster Machines at Woolwich Arsenal

DynamicSpirit · 24 Feb 2020

Woolwich Arsenal has for a long time had yellow Oyster machines sited at the interfaces between the national rail platforms and the DLR concourse. Does anyone know what the purpose of these are? Should they be there?

Since the yellow readers are for touching in/out at the beginning/end of your journey, the logical place to put them is at the station entrances and exits. But these machines are not located on any normal path between the platform and the station exits: The only reason anyone would walk past those machines is if they are interchanging between national rail and DLR - and as far as I'm aware there is no legitimate reason for anyone to touch in/out when doing that.

And worse - I've just discovered that a friend of mine has routinely been touching her (unregistered) card on those readers when changing from National Rail to DLR because she believed that she was supposed to (because the readers were there) - as well as correctly touching in and out at the start and end of each journey. Although I haven't yet checked, my suspicion is that this will mean she will have been incorrectly charged a lot more than she should have been for those journeys (presumably, a fare to Woolwich Arsenal when she touches her card on those machines and then a maximum 'no touch-in' fare 20 minutes or so later when she actually touches out at the end of her journey.

RailUK Forums

Class800 · 24 Feb 2020

Maybe for changing from a paper ticket journey on national rail (e.g. Chatham to Woolwich) to Oyster on DLR?

swt_passenger · 24 Feb 2020

DynamicSpirit said:
Woolwich Arsenal has for a long time had yellow Oyster machines sited at the interfaces between the national rail platforms and the DLR concourse. Does anyone know what the purpose of these are? Should they be there?

Since the yellow readers are for touching in/out at the beginning/end of your journey, the logical place to put them is at the station entrances and exits. But these machines are not located on any normal path between the platform and the station exits: The only reason anyone would walk past those machines is if they are interchanging between national rail and DLR - and as far as I'm aware there is no legitimate reason for anyone to touch in/out when doing that.

And worse - I've just discovered that a friend of mine has routinely been touching her (unregistered) card on those readers when changing from National Rail to DLR because she believed that she was supposed to (because the readers were there) - as well as correctly touching in and out at the start and end of each journey. Although I haven't yet checked, my suspicion is that this will mean she will have been incorrectly charged a lot more than she should have been for those journeys (presumably, a fare to Woolwich Arsenal when she touches her card on those machines and then a maximum 'no touch-in' fare 20 minutes or so later when she actually touches out at the end of her journey.

I think the system ought to be able to deal with the extra touches as what are known as “continuation” exits. No doubt one of the Oyster gurus such as MikeWh can explain better in due course.

Clip · 24 Feb 2020

Class800 said:
Maybe for changing from a paper ticket journey on national rail (e.g. Chatham to Woolwich) to Oyster on DLR?

This. You can also find them at stations like stratford for the very same reason

PeterC · 24 Feb 2020

Class800 said:
Maybe for changing from a paper ticket journey on national rail (e.g. Chatham to Woolwich) to Oyster on DLR?

Exactly

hkstudent · 24 Feb 2020

Class800 said:
Maybe for changing from a paper ticket journey on national rail (e.g. Chatham to Woolwich) to Oyster on DLR?

Yes, it is. That's similar to Wimbledon, Moorgate, Richmond and more, where it is for interchange between National Rail and TfL services.

MikeWh · 24 Feb 2020

Clip said:
This. You can also find them at stations like stratford for the very same reason

swt_passenger said:
I think the system ought to be able to deal with the extra touches as what are known as “continuation” exits. No doubt one of the Oyster gurus such as MikeWh can explain better in due course.

The system ought to be able to deal with extra touches, but, Woolwich Arsenal isn't on the list of continuation exit stations. I'll see what I can find out, possibly by trying it myself.

hkstudent said:
Yes, it is. That's similar to Wimbledon, Moorgate, Richmond and more, where it is for interchange between National Rail and TfL services.

Well it's similar to Wimbledon and Stratford, but they both have continuation exit. Moorgate only has yellow validators at a temporary exit as far as I know. Richmond only has pink validators which won't end a journey.

DynamicSpirit · 24 Feb 2020

Class800 said:
Maybe for changing from a paper ticket journey on national rail (e.g. Chatham to Woolwich) to Oyster on DLR?

Ah yes, that would be a legitimate reason to have those readers there.

DynamicSpirit · 24 Feb 2020

MikeWh said:
The system ought to be able to deal with extra touches, but, Woolwich Arsenal isn't on the list of continuation exit stations. I'll see what I can find out, possibly by trying it myself.

I wasn't aware of the existence of continuation exits. Just did a bit of Googling. Interesting, thanks.

For my friend, I think we are now not going to find out whether or not she has been overcharged. She tried to register her Oyster card online so we could get her journey history. That didn't work - the system refused to register her card, so we phoned up the TfL helpline. The helpline proceeded to ask some security questions, one of which was to identify a particular journey she had made 3 weeks ago. After some time struggling and failing to remember where she might have travelled to on that day, she basically said, forget it, it's too hard to register.

MikeWh · 24 Feb 2020

3 weeks old seems a bit harsh. Usually it asks for the details of the last journey when registering online.

The good news is that Woolwich Arsenal validators are set for continuation exit.

DynamicSpirit · 24 Feb 2020

MikeWh said:
3 weeks old seems a bit harsh. Usually it asks for the details of the last journey when registering online.

The good news is that Woolwich Arsenal validators are set for continuation exit.

Yes I thought asking about a journey 3 weeks ago seemed pretty tough. A commuter or someone who makes that same journey every week would probably be able to figure out the answer, but anyone else would stand very little chance.

Still, good news about the validators. Thanks for checking. That means my friend has probably paid the correct fares.

paddington · 25 Feb 2020

Does continuation exit operate in both directions, or in other words does "continuation entry" also happen at standalone readers which are set to apply continuation exit? As the OP's friend was doing this in both directions.

MikeWh · 25 Feb 2020

paddington said:
Does continuation exit operate in both directions, or in other words does "continuation entry" also happen at standalone readers which are set to apply continuation exit? As the OP's friend was doing this in both directions.

Where a continuation exit validator is touched in mid journey (ie not the beginning or the end) then the effect is the same. The journey is kept potentially open until the next exit within maximum journey time from the original entry. If the validator is touched just prior to exit at the same station then exiting through the gates closes the journey properly. If it's touched just after entry (hopefully not a common occurance) then a same station exit will be recorded, but the continuation exit feature will allow travel to the intended destination.

Continuation entry is a feature of a few gates (eg Finsbury Park NR) where someone in the system finds themselves unexpectedly needing to go through gates. It works, but the balance displayed is that including the entry charge deduction so can sometimes appear negative.

superjohn · 25 Feb 2020

How does it work if a passenger touches a continuation exit reader mid journey and then ends the journey at a stand-alone reader, as they might well do if changing to the DLR? If the journey was completed at a barrier that would create a definite exit for the system. A stand-alone reader could be an exit of the original journey or the entry for a new one. How would the system know?

MikeWh · 25 Feb 2020

superjohn said:
How would the system know?

If it's within maximum journey time from the original entry station then it will be an exit, otherwise it'll be an entry.

DynamicSpirit · 25 Feb 2020

superjohn said:
How does it work if a passenger touches a continuation exit reader mid journey and then ends the journey at a stand-alone reader, as they might well do if changing to the DLR? If the journey was completed at a barrier that would create a definite exit for the system. A stand-alone reader could be an exit of the original journey or the entry for a new one. How would the system know?

The same will be true in many cases for people travelling in the opposite direction and changing from DLR to National Rail: Plumstead, Belvedere, Erith, Slade Green, Woolwich Dockyard, etc. all have standalone readers, so I'm fairly sure @MikeWh 's answer would apply in those cases too.

swt_passenger · 25 Feb 2020

MikeWh said:
3 weeks old seems a bit harsh. Usually it asks for the details of the last journey when registering online.

The good news is that Woolwich Arsenal validators are set for continuation exit.

Thanks for checking Mike. I was going by general knowledge of how they work, I hadn’t realised you might have a list of stations on your site...

sprunt · 25 Feb 2020

MikeWh said:
Moorgate only has yellow validators at a temporary exit as far as I know.

Moorgate has - or had, it's been a few months since I used it - yellow validators at the bottom of the escalators leading from the NR platforms. And possibly at the other exits from those platforms, I don't know.

MikeWh · 25 Feb 2020

sprunt said:
Moorgate has - or had, it's been a few months since I used it - yellow validators at the bottom of the escalators leading from the NR platforms. And possibly at the other exits from those platforms, I don't know.

Thanks, I stand corrected on that one.

MikeWh · 25 Feb 2020

swt_passenger said:
Thanks for checking Mike. I was going by general knowledge of how they work, I hadn’t realised you might have a list of stations on your site...

It was a leisurely late evening jaunt to Canning Town and back. When the DLR first opened to Woolwich there were pink validators between the down NR platform and the DLR. This was apparently an error and they were changed to yellow. I don't remember any validators at the end of the bridge over the NR platforms back then, but there are some there now. I've put in a new FOI request for an up to date list because Woolwich Arsenal definitely wasn't on the last response I had.

Yellow Oyster Machines at Woolwich Arsenal

Established Member

RailUK Forums

Established Member

Veteran Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Member

Established Member

Member

Established Member

Established Member

Veteran Member

Member

Established Member

Established Member