Confused! Tram to Train. Phipps Bridge to Wimbledon to Waterloo.

[mikey463]

Hello

So I got a big transaction come out from TFL and its due to the new journey I took. Phipps Bridge Tram to Wimbledon Station to Waterloo station.

I tapped at Phipps Bridge tram stop/staiong then changed platforms for the train at Wimbledon and then tapped out at Waterloo.

Was I suppose to tap at Wimbledon and where?

Thanks!

 

[samxool]

Yes, you needed to tap in for national rail at Wimbledon.
There are a few national rail readers along platform 9 (the Thameslink platform) opposite the tram platform.
Not super obvious, that's for sure.

 

[transportphoto]

The above poster has summarised quite well - but just for future awareness, the Tram journey is essentially treated as a bus from an Oyster point of view. When changing you don’t need to touch out of the tram, but you do need to touch in to the railways.

As with all Oyster/Contactless issues - the Oyster Helpline are typically quite helpful. It may be worth giving them a call and explaining the confusion.

 

[plugwash]

For some reason, rather than treating trams like everything else that runs on rails, TfL decided to treat them in a way similar to busses (though they still put the validators on the platforms rather than on the trams). To further add to the confusion at Wimbledon, the tram platform is inside the NR gateline. This leads to wimbledon-specific rules and behaviours.

Wimbledon – Oyster Fares Central

oysterfares.com

 

[Busaholic]

For some reason, rather than treating trams like everything else that runs on rails, TfL decided to treat them in a way similar to busses (though they still put the validators on the platforms rather than on the trams). To further add to the confusion at Wimbledon, the tram platform is inside the NR gateline. This leads to wimbledon-specific rules and behaviours.

Wimbledon – Oyster Fares Central

oysterfares.com

I'm afraid that while TfL benefit so much financially from the 'confusion' at Wimbledon (i.e. a significant proportion of passengers either don't notice or don't bother to challenge the 'overcharging') nothing will be done to alleviate the situation.

 

[Domh245]

I was caught out recently at Mitcham Junction - having been very familiar with the Wimbledon system (where tapping in on the tram validator also 'taps out' the previous regular zonal journey) I had assumed that Mitcham Junction with it's similar ungated transfer between NR and tram would also end the first journey and record a new tram journey, but not the case! You'd think that they'd be able to make the system fairly smart in terms of being able to recognise things like this, but I fear that cynically @Busaholic may be right about the incentive to not fix the problem!

 

[swt_passenger]

I was caught out recently at Mitcham Junction - having been very familiar with the Wimbledon system (where tapping in on the tram validator also 'taps out' the previous regular zonal journey) I had assumed that Mitcham Junction with it's similar ungated transfer between NR and tram would also end the first journey and record a new tram journey, but not the case! You'd think that they'd be able to make the system fairly smart in terms of being able to recognise things like this, but I fear that cynically @Busaholic may be right about the incentive to not fix the problem!

They’ll be relying on Crossrail 2 - it will fix Wimbledon by booting the trams out of the station…