£137.20 for travel between Zones 4 and 7 for a week on Oyster

[bb21]

... according to Labour, but how did they get to such a ridiculous figure?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29919075

London Oyster users 'charged more' to travel in capital

Oyster card users are paying up to £107 more to travel each week on London's transport network compared with contactless card users, research shows.

London Assembly Member Val Shawcross said a discrepancy had arisen between pay as you go (PAYG) Oyster cards and contactless bank cards.

While Transport for London (TfL) has introduced weekly caps on contactless cards, only daily caps apply on Oyster.

TfL said: "The same fares apply to both contactless and Oyster."

Analysis from the Labour party found passengers using PAYG fares travelling between zones 4 and 7 during peak-time seven days a week would pay £137.20.

Passengers travelling between the same zones but using contactless would spend £29.40.

Similarly, commuting through zones 1-4 on a seven-day basis would cost PAYG commuters £74.20 while contactless payment users would be charged £45.

...

Peak LU fare between Zones 4 and 7 is £2.70, and "only" £4.70 cash fare, so it would only cost a total of £65.80 even on cash fare for a week, for two journeys a day.

More political spin or have Labour sunk to a new low by lying outright? :roll:

 

[Via Bank]

They took the figure for the peak daily cap and multiplied it by seven.

The only way you could possibly hit anything near this cap, on some bizarre week where Saturday and Sunday count as days with peak hours, would be to make at least five journeys during the peaks.

 

[ASharpe]

What would the most expensive fare be for such a journey on the most expensive rail route in London where TfL don't set prices?

Could that push someone in to the cap with a return?

 

[bb21]

They took the figure for the peak daily cap and multiplied it by seven.

The only way you could possibly hit anything near this cap, on some bizarre week where Saturday and Sunday count as days with peak hours, would be to make at least five journeys during the peaks.

Oh, the invisible passenger that in all likelihood doesn't exist.

What would the most expensive fare be for such a journey on the most expensive rail route in London where TfL don't set prices?

Could that push someone in to the cap with a return?

Not just for a return journey each day. Several journeys are required at least.

 

[WelshBluebird]

The point is still a valid one though isn't it? Contactless has weekly capping but Oyster doesn't? Of course with Oyster you can buy a 7 day travelcard (which you can't on Contactless) but surely Oyster should be able to handle it automatically like the system does for Contactless aswell?

 

[duncanp]

The Labour Party didn't check their facts (no surprise there then) and the BBC (Biased Broadcasting Corporation) just re-printed party political propaganda masquerading as "research" without questioning it. (as objective journalists are should do)

Anyone with an Oyster Card who needs to make unlimited journeys in Zones 4 - 7 over a period of 7 consecutive days, including at peak times, would buy a travelcard for £29.

Similarly for Zones 1 - 4, oyster card users can load a 7 day travelcard for £45.

 

[Jonny]

... according to Labour, but how did they get to such a ridiculous figure?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29919075



Peak LU fare between Zones 4 and 7 is £2.70, and "only" £4.70 cash fare, so it would only cost a total of £65.80 even on cash fare for a week, for two journeys a day.

More political spin or have Labour sunk to a new low by lying outright? :roll:

Labour are the masters of spin although I wouldn't put it past them to lie. They seem to have taken not telling the whole truth to a whole new level. Seven days worth of capping presented as an actual cost is the sort of spin they are capable of.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The Labour Party didn't check their facts (no surprise there then) and the BBC (Biased Broadcasting Corporation) just re-printed party political propaganda masquerading as "research" without questioning it. (as objective journalists are should do)

Anyone with an Oyster Card who needs to make unlimited journeys in Zones 4 - 7 over a period of 7 consecutive days, including at peak times, would buy a travelcard for £29.

Similarly for Zones 1 - 4, oyster card users can load a 7 day travelcard for £45.

Which Labour have conveniently overlooked. You would think there was an election coming...

 

[Clip]

The point is still a valid one though isn't it? Contactless has weekly capping but Oyster doesn't? Of course with Oyster you can buy a 7 day travelcard (which you can't on Contactless) but surely Oyster should be able to handle it automatically like the system does for Contactless aswell?

But you simply would put on a weekly if you had yoru oyster and were doing that sort of travelling so its a none issue isnt it?

 

[Deerfold]

The Labour Party didn't check their facts (no surprise there then) and the BBC (Biased Broadcasting Corporation) just re-printed party political propaganda masquerading as "research" without questioning it. (as objective journalists are should do)

Anyone with an Oyster Card who needs to make unlimited journeys in Zones 4 - 7 over a period of 7 consecutive days, including at peak times, would buy a travelcard for £29.

Similarly for Zones 1 - 4, oyster card users can load a 7 day travelcard for £45.

To be fair, the BBC has also printed TfL's response which makes the same points you do which seems less biased than you imply.

 

[button_boxer]

Weekly caps work on contactless because the reconciliation is all done off-line in the back office systems, with access to the full journey history for the whole week. On Oyster the card itself is the master record, and any decisions on what amounts to charge/refund must be made in real time by each reader as it talks to the card, and without a connection to the central database. I assume the decision involves either more journey history data than the card will be able to store or too many permutations for the reader to be able to work it all out within the half second it has available to it.

 

[Tetchytyke]

In fairness, Val Shawcross usually knows what she is talking about and does her research properly, even if you don't agree with the point she is making.

the BBC (Biased Broadcasting Corporation)

*yawn*

Anyone with an Oyster Card who needs to make unlimited journeys in Zones 4 - 7 over a period of 7 consecutive days, including at peak times, would buy a travelcard for £29.

Would, could or should?

The point, if you'd been paying attention, is that Contactless users will have a weekly cap applied but Oyster users will not. Oyster users are penalised if they didn't buy a Travelcard in advance, for whatever reason, but Contactless users are not. Rightly or wrongly Val Shawcross argues that this is overcharging Oyster users.

I think it is overcharging Oyster users, and is a deliberate TfL policy to "encourage" people off an Oyster system which costs them a fortune to operate.

Labour are the masters of spin although I wouldn't put it past them to lie. They seem to have taken not telling the whole truth to a whole new level. Seven days worth of capping presented as an actual cost is the sort of spin they are capable of.

Of course it is spin, but how exactly is it "not telling the truth"? If you hit the daily cap each day on Contactless it will be converted to the weekly cap, and you will be charged less. If you hit the daily cap each day on Oyster it will not be converted to the weekly cap, so you will pay more if you use Oyster.

The Travelcard is an option, but only if you can predict your usage for the week and buy the product in advance. You can't realise halfway through the week that you're going to need a week's travel and retrospectively buy a week Travelcard.

 

[Deerfold]

In fairness, Val Shawcross usually knows what she is talking about and does her research properly, even if you don't agree with the point she is making.

It seems to have been fairly poor analysis if it didn't account for Saturday and Sunday not being peak days even if we accept that people are buzzing about all day every day with their PAYG Oyster.

 

[Tetchytyke]

It seems to have been fairly poor analysis if it didn't account for Saturday and Sunday not being peak days

Yeah, it's definitely a little disingenuous, but I think the basic point they're pushing for is that Oyster has the same caps as Contactless. Seems reasonable.

 

[Greenback]

It's very reasonable that the cap for Oyster and contactless cards should be the same, but th epoint has been made in a poor, and ham fisted manner!

 

[Deerfold]

Yeah, it's definitely a little disingenuous, but I think the basic point they're pushing for is that Oyster has the same caps as Contactless. Seems reasonable.

The basic point is fine. Using incorrect figures (which are easily proven to be incorrect) is less impressive and plays into the hands of anyone wanting to disagree.

 

[Via Bank]

The point, if you'd been paying attention, is that Contactless users will have a weekly cap applied but Oyster users will not. Oyster users are penalised if they didn't buy a Travelcard in advance, for whatever reason, but Contactless users are not. Rightly or wrongly Val Shawcross argues that this is overcharging Oyster users.

I think it is overcharging Oyster users, and is a deliberate TfL policy to "encourage" people off an Oyster system which costs them a fortune to operate.

Or, because the Oyster system as stands is physically incapable of doing weekly capping, because it requires the balance calculation to be done on the back-end, rather than at the gateline and then stored on the card.

The work is being done, and it should come online sometime in 2015 (basically it involves the Oyster card itself being reduced to a token and all the calculation happening on the back office. See here.) Of course it's taking longer than the CPC system, because the Oyster technology is ancient.

There's not much TfL could've done here—would it have been fair to delay CPC capping until capping was ready for Oyster-branded cards (be they the existing cards or new Oyster-branded tokens)? I'd argue not.

 

[bb21]

I agree. There is a firm plan to introduce weekly capping on Oyster and they are working towards implementing it so saying that they are deliberately overcharging people in order to shift them onto Contactless is pure cynicism (imo, but you are entitled to it). I would like to see the proof backing that claim.

I also think this point, the way Labour are putting it through, is a non-existent one. The figures are wrong as already pointed out that no one will be paying the peak cap at weekends, and I would be extremely surprised if there were even a single person out there who pays seven consecutive maximum daily caps without knowing that he would be travelling a lot in advance between Zones 4 and 7. Peak cap is £19.60 and weekly cap (also 7-Day Travelcard) is £29.40, so only one peak cap plus four single journeys (or seven off-peak journeys) would make the Travelcard more economical.

So, yes. This is a non-issue.

If Labour wanted to make a specific point about weekly cap not being available on Oyster currently, then they should just say so, rather than trying for the dramatic effect with examples, which they could not be bothered to get right, or at least that is the impression they are giving. It is not exactly rocket science. By doing the latter they came across as both incompetent and lazy. It is also quite clear they had no real interest in the reasons behind why it is not available and contacting TfL to find out, instead choosing to spout junk from their gob to score cheap political points. This is in no way an attempt to help the passengers.

Disappointed.

How about these politicians spend their time doing something actually worthwhile for the electorate, such as campaigning to bring back the non-Zone 1 caps? Now that would be something that helps the passengers.

 

[swt_passenger]

It is also quite clear they had no real interest in the reasons behind why it is not available and contacting TfL to find out, instead choosing to spout junk from their gob to score cheap political points.

Speaking of trying to score cheap political points, I noticed that last weekend Caroline Pigeon had a go at TfL because the District Line (and therefore Tower Hill station) happened to be closed for engineering work, on the same weekend the 'poppy display' at the Tower of London was occurring.

Presumably Ms Pigeon had a better crystal ball than Big Bad Boris (who as we know plans all engineering work when he isn't busy designing fare payment systems), and she must have known years in advance about the expected popularity of the event at the Tower.

 

[simple simon]

I see this as part of a ploy to get people to switch from Oyster to contactless, and to force those who do not have bank accounts to get a bank account.

The aim being to reduce the numbers of people using Oyster to a level where its easier and cheaper to migrate the system to the same back office technology that contactless uses.

Of course this would mean that we'd all need to replace our existing Oyster cards, as they wont work with the new system. This will negate TfL promotional comments about Oystercards never expiring which they tell overseas visitors as being a reason to buy one for future visits.

Assuming that ride-at-will Travelcards can be made to work with contactless so will passengers start needing to always touch in / out at each end of their journey? Even when making boundary zone / split fare journeys (which alas are not possible with payg)?

It will be a nuisance if the answer is "yes" as many a time I've not touched in / out when passing through open stations knowing full well that having paid the correct fare for my journey so I wont be financially penalised.

During events such as "steam on the met" I've also been able to stay "inside" the fares paid area without worrying about journey time limits.

Simon

 

[mrmartin]

Annoyingly, you can't put railcards on CPC. I wonder what the capping arrangement would be for that?

 

[swt_passenger]

Annoyingly, you can't put railcards on CPC. I wonder what the capping arrangement would be for that?

If they were to add railcard capping it would have to be done in the back office processing, and there'd need to be a watertight way of associating the railcard with the registered account, but only that one user. No good if all your mates can present the same railcard later...

Doesn't seem an insurmountable problem, but there'd probably have to be a visit to a staffed position for them to sight the railcard?