Gatwick to Zone2 with oyster and railcard

[mrmartin]

Seems to be a nasty "bug"/"gotcha" in Oyster systems.

I have 26-30 railcard on oyster.

Ended up going from Gatwick to LB, then North Greenwich instead of Stratford as jubilee was severe delays and with luggage was atrocious and got bus back from there.

Single fare finder shows that in the evening peak, when i travelled, a single from gatwick to lb is £5.60. However when I tapped out at North Greenwich it had charged me the 'complete' fare from £17.90 from gatwick to north Greenwich. There is an evening peak fare there and therefore no rail discount applies.

Should it charge £5.60 + £3.20 peak zone 1-2 fare instead of the £17.90 'complete' fare?

Will call oyster later but interested in people's thoughts here.

 

[higthomas]

Seems to be a nasty "bug"/"gotcha" in Oyster systems.

I have 26-30 railcard on oyster.

Ended up going from Gatwick to LB, then North Greenwich instead of Stratford as jubilee was severe delays and with luggage was atrocious and got bus back from there.

Single fare finder shows that in the evening peak, when i travelled, a single from gatwick to lb is £5.60. However when I tapped out at North Greenwich it had charged me the 'complete' fare from £17.90 from gatwick to north Greenwich. There is an evening peak fare there and therefore no rail discount applies.

Should it charge £5.60 + £3.20 peak zone 1-2 fare instead of the £17.90 'complete' fare?

Will call oyster later but interested in people's thoughts here.

Unfortunately not. It charged you the correct fare for your journey. There are a few "split ticketing" opportunities like this around (especially involving Gatwick). It is rather annoying I agree, but I guess now you'll know for next time

 

[paddington]

There is no railcard discount during TfL evening peak, which depends entirely upon the time when you touch in. So if you touched in after 1635 and before 1857 at Gatwick, then touched out at London bridge you would have been charged '£15.50.

As London Bridge is set to “continuation exit” it was combined with the tube journey for a total of £17.90.

If you touched in at Gatwick before 1635 the entire journey would be off peak, including the tube bit even if the tube bit started during the evening peak.

There is a railcard discount on the off-peak cap which wi include any journeys charged the evening peak fare.

It is usually cheaper to split at East Croydon when travelling to and from Gatwick, but to be sure of whether this would have been the case for you, you need to provide the exact times of your journey

 

[mrmartin]

That's not what single fare finder says? If you go to single fare finder and put in GAtwick to London bridge w/ NR railcard:

Peak : £15.50
Monday to Friday from 0630 to 0930.

Off Peak: £5.60
At all other times including public holidays.

The problem is the continuation fare does have an evening peak (Gatwick to North Greenwich) w/ NR railcard:

Peak: £17.90
Monday to Friday from 0630 to 0930 and from 1600 to 1900.

Off Peak: £7.20
At all other times including public holidays.

As you can see the fare basically triples for the extra bit. I'd have though Oyster would have used the cheaper 'split' fare in this case.

 

[JonathanH]

There is no railcard discount during TfL evening peak, which depends entirely upon the time when you touch in. So if you touched in after 1635 and before 1857 at Gatwick, then touched out at London bridge you would have been charged '£15.50.

There is a railcard discount for Gatwick to Zone 1 in the evening peak in line with other journeys to Zone 1 on Oyster but if someone travels on to a destination outside Zone 1, the full peak fare applies. Therefore the Oyster charge will have been £5.60 to London Bridge and effectively £12.30 to go on to North Greenwich from there.

 

[JonathanH]

As you can see the fare basically triples for the extra bit. I'd have though Oyster would have used the cheaper 'split' fare in this case.

Oyster doesn't work like that - it charges the advertised fare for the complete journey actually undertaken.

 

[mrmartin]

So, if I'd waited at LB for 10-15 mins the OSI wouldn't go into affect and the charge would be a lot less?

Edit: also I can't see how to get a service delay refund for this journey - we were over 15 minutes delayed on the jubilee part, but Oyster only allow you to do delays on TfL rail, LU or Overground. Seems they won't split the fares but will only do the refund bit on a split journey basis

 

[mrmartin]

They did refund it over the phone with no problems. Not sure why Gatwick airport isn't listed on the online form...

 

[JonathanH]

They did refund it over the phone with no problems. Not sure why Gatwick airport isn't listed on the online form...

On what grounds? It is pretty clear that £17.90 is the appropriate fare for travelling from Gatwick Airport to North Greenwich at the time the journey was made. The whole premise of Oyster is that different fares 'on the way' are irrelevant to the overall journey.

It is one of the things people are going to have to get used to as PAYG is extended further out beyond London.

 

[kieron]

The Oyster system is complicated, and you're only told how much it has charged you after your journey. I'm sure the helpdesk staff have been trained on what to do with customers who have been charged more for a journey than they expected. I'm equally sure that they do not wish the public to know how they do it.

£17.90 does seem like a lot for this journey, particularly when a paper Gatwick-Zone U12 "Thameslink only" single only costs £15.70 (£10.35 with railcard). Oyster isn't supposed to be the expensive option.

 

[JonathanH]

The Oyster system is complicated

...and everyone thinks PAYG is simple. One fare for a given journey.

you're only told how much it has charged you after your journey

That isn't true. Consulting the single fare finder is a very important step before making a journey on Oyster.

£17.90 does seem like a lot for this journey

I agree but that is what is going to happen to train fares in the evening peak as PAYG is extended. It is pretty simple concept - a peak fare is charged for all journeys in the evening peak unless they end in Zone 1.

Gatwick Airport to New Cross Gate on Oyster costs £10.70 in the evening peak. Gatwick Airport to London Bridge costs £5.60 for a railcard holder on Oyster at the same time. I don't think you would get a refund for that difference.

Oyster isn't supposed to be the expensive option.

It isn't supposed to be expensive. The place where it is not necessarily the cheap option is specifically on the line south of Coulsdon South, where its purpose is convenience.

 

[mrmartin]

On what grounds? It is pretty clear that £17.90 is the appropriate fare for travelling from Gatwick Airport to North Greenwich at the time the journey was made. The whole premise of Oyster is that different fares 'on the way' are irrelevant to the overall journey.

It is one of the things people are going to have to get used to as PAYG is extended further out beyond London.

Because the journey was significantly delayed.

Personally, Oyster I think should not use OSIs (eg London Bridge NR -> London Bridge LU) to penalise customers like this.

If I tap out at barriers and tap in again, and there is a vastly cheaper fare (50%+ on a near £20 fare) available it should charge the lowest.

I understand 100% if you are interchanging without tapping out then it cannot figure that out and the higher fare is charged, but when you tap out and then tap in again it should split the fare if it is cheaper. You are doing two separate trips! The whole idea of oyster is that it is simple and it works out the fare combinations in your favour, not in TfLs favour.

Next time I'll use oyster to LB and get a taxi home - with two people getting charged a tenner for a zone1-2 journey it will be cheaper.

 

[MikeWh]

Because the journey was significantly delayed.

If I read you correctly it was the Jubilee line part which was delayed. Your Oyster history will show what time you touched in and out for the Underground so you should be able to claim.

Personally, Oyster I think should not use OSIs (eg London Bridge NR -> London Bridge LU) to penalise customers like this.

If I tap out at barriers and tap in again, and there is a vastly cheaper fare (50%+ on a near £20 fare) available it should charge the lowest.

The Oyster system is limited to what it can achieve while the customer touches their card on the reader. The vast majority of customers would be overcharged if they didn't allow OSIs. The decision would need to be made at the end of the journey and at that point they can't interrogate previous touches.

Next time I'll use oyster to LB and get a taxi home - with two people getting charged a tenner for a zone1-2 journey it will be cheaper.

I'm not au-fait with taxi fares, but I don't think it would be the cheapest way. You've already realised that a 20 minute wait between touches will split the journey in two. An alternative is to exit the station, touch on a bus and get straight off, then continue your journey. That will cost an extra £1.50 for avoiding the wait.

 

[MikeWh]

There's so much incorrect in this post I must pick it up.

There is no railcard discount during TfL evening peak, which depends entirely upon the time when you touch in. So if you touched in after 1635 and before 1857 at Gatwick, then touched out at London bridge you would have been charged '£15.50.

As London Bridge is set to “continuation exit” it was combined with the tube journey for a total of £17.90.

If you touched in at Gatwick before 1635 the entire journey would be off peak, including the tube bit even if the tube bit started during the evening peak.

There is a railcard discount on the off-peak cap which wi include any journeys charged the evening peak fare.

It is usually cheaper to split at East Croydon when travelling to and from Gatwick, but to be sure of whether this would have been the case for you, you need to provide the exact times of your journey

1) The railcard discount applies to off-peak fares which includes afternoon peak singles ending in zone 1 when they started outside it.
2) The afternoon peak is 1600-1900. Yes, there is 3-5 minutes grace at each end, but it complicates the message, especially when you make it 35 minutes.
3) Continuation exit is a completely different 'thing' to an out of station interchange (OSI). This is an OSI.

£17.90 does seem like a lot for this journey, particularly when a paper Gatwick-Zone U12 "Thameslink only" single only costs £15.70 (£10.35 with railcard). Oyster isn't supposed to be the expensive option.

Oyster has no concept of operators. As far as Gatwick is concerned Oyster is a convenience. GTR make no assertion that it will be cheapest, or even the same.

 

[bb21]

2) The afternoon peak is 1600-1900. Yes, there is 3-5 minutes grace at each end, but it complicates the message, especially when you make it 35 minutes.

It is also quite irresponsible to give such advice on the forum without any disclaimer as anyone going on that advice, touching in a couple of minutes outside the official window and running into a gateline with clocks a couple of minutes out of sync, will be charged the peak fare with no recourse to any refund for the difference.

I'm glad you challenged this, amongst other things, as I was about to do the same.

 

[mrmartin]

If I read you correctly it was the Jubilee line part which was delayed. Your Oyster history will show what time you touched in and out for the Underground so you should be able to claim.

Yes, but the online claim form doesn't have Gatwick airport on it. You have to phone up unless I'm not seeing it.

The Oyster system is limited to what it can achieve while the customer touches their card on the reader. The vast majority of customers would be overcharged if they didn't allow OSIs. The decision would need to be made at the end of the journey and at that point they can't interrogate previous touches.

Ok fair enough. Could be solved with the changeover to backend processing though surely? Alternatively it could be automatically credited in the evening. It wont just be Railcard users who get clobbered with this, but it's much more extreme for those of us with one.

I'm not au-fait with taxi fares, but I don't think it would be the cheapest way. You've already realised that a 20 minute wait between touches will split the journey in two. An alternative is to exit the station, touch on a bus and get straight off, then continue your journey. That will cost an extra £1.50 for avoiding the wait.

Ok. Interesting. Didn't realise bus would stop the OSI like that. Thought it was just a timer.

To reiterate, my concern is about OSIs (which are not transparently displayed imo by TfL), not oyster in general. I actually looked up single fare finder journey for this and decided to use oyster while I was getting to Gatwick. But I only looked to London bridge as was tapping out there to start with. Which was cheaper than paper tickets slightly.

With interchange like this calculus now gets much more confusing as need to find out OSI time for the interchange and wait (or get on bus). Again if it was 50p difference then it wouldn't concern me but nearly £10 is quite a fare.

 

[talldave]

.....
With interchange like this calculus now gets much more confusing as need to find out OSI time for the interchange and wait (or get on bus). Again if it was 50p difference then it wouldn't concern me but nearly £10 is quite a fare.

Get two Oyster cards?

 

[pelli]

You've already realised that a 20 minute wait between touches will split the journey in two. An alternative is to exit the station, touch on a bus and get straight off, then continue your journey. That will cost an extra £1.50 for avoiding the wait.

Alternatively, could one pop in and out again at one of the gatelines to break the OSI (potentially free of charge)? I see from your website that London Bridge has OSIs set LU<->NR as well as NR<->NR between the different concourses, so if you tap out and in again at the same gateline (either London Underground or National Rail) that should ensure a new journey gets started?

So:

A1. Gatwick NR in
A2. London Bridge NR out
B1. London Bridge NR in, starts a new journey
B2. London Bridge NR out
B3. London Bridge LU in, OSI continues previous journey
B4. North Greenwich LU out

Does this get you charged for a journey A from Gatwick NR to London Bridge NR (£5.60) plus a journey B from London Bridge NR to North Greenwich LU (£2.90)? (Oyster PAYG railcard prices.) Perhaps same-station-exit logic will complicate things, but I imagine that would at most remove B1 and B2 from consideration and record journey B as starting from London Bridge LU instead for the same price?

If this works, then make sure you don't get it wrong like this ...

C1. Gatwick NR in
C2. London Bridge NR out
C3. London Bridge LU in, OSI continues previous journey
C4. London Bridge LU out
D1. London Bridge LU in, starts a new journey
D2. Northern Greenwich LU out

... as this would get you charged for a journey C from Gatwick NR to London Bridge LU (£7.20) plus a journey D form London Bridge LU to North Greenwich LU (£2.90), which costs £1.60 more due to the higher fare from Gatwick to London Bridge LU rather than NR.

 

[akm]

Could be solved with the changeover to backend processing though surely?

The back office processing for contactless will already get this right (split OSIs where doing so gives a lower fare), so when Oyster moves to using that then Oyster users will benefit. However, it doesn't do railcards yet.

 

[MikeWh]

Alternatively, could one pop in and out again at one of the gatelines to break the OSI (potentially free of charge)? I see from your website that London Bridge has OSIs set LU<->NR as well as NR<->NR between the different concourses, so if you tap out and in again at the same gateline (either London Underground or National Rail) that should ensure a new journey gets started?

So:

A1. Gatwick NR in
A2. London Bridge NR out
B1. London Bridge NR in, starts a new journey
B2. London Bridge NR out
B3. London Bridge LU in, OSI continues previous journey
B4. North Greenwich LU out

Does this get you charged for a journey A from Gatwick NR to London Bridge NR (£5.60) plus a journey B from London Bridge NR to North Greenwich LU (£2.90)? (Oyster PAYG railcard prices.) Perhaps same-station-exit logic will complicate things, but I imagine that would at most remove B1 and B2 from consideration and record journey B as starting from London Bridge LU instead for the same price?

If this works, then make sure you don't get it wrong like this ...

C1. Gatwick NR in
C2. London Bridge NR out
C3. London Bridge LU in, OSI continues previous journey
C4. London Bridge LU out
D1. London Bridge LU in, starts a new journey
D2. Northern Greenwich LU out

... as this would get you charged for a journey C from Gatwick NR to London Bridge LU (£7.20) plus a journey D form London Bridge LU to North Greenwich LU (£2.90), which costs £1.60 more due to the higher fare from Gatwick to London Bridge LU rather than NR.

Yes, they would both work. I'm wary of recommending these moves in many cases because the results can be unexpected. In particular, I'm not sure why London Bridge NR to North Greenwich LU is set as a TfL-LU fare. Your C/D example illustrates that there will often be a cost which can sometimes wipe out the savings, although in this particular example it's still beneficial.

 

[MikeWh]

The back office processing for contactless will already get this right (split OSIs where doing so gives a lower fare), so when Oyster moves to using that then Oyster users will benefit.

Not true. Contactless will split OSIs when doing so removes a here-here journey. It won't split a valid journey just because the constituent parts would be cheaper.

 

[akm]

Not true. Contactless will split OSIs when doing so removes a here-here journey. It won't split a valid journey just because the constituent parts would be cheaper.

Ah, right you are

 

[hkstudent]

Yes, they would both work. I'm wary of recommending these moves in many cases because the results can be unexpected. In particular, I'm not sure why London Bridge NR to North Greenwich LU is set as a TfL-LU fare. Your C/D example illustrates that there will often be a cost which can sometimes wipe out the savings, although in this particular example it's still beneficial.

I am thinking the system may assume the traveller may travel to New Cross NR on Southeastern then change for London Overground and Jubilee Line. No gates in between.
Another one would be to Greenwich NR then DLR to Canning Town then Jubilee Line to North Greenwich. No gates as well.

This also applies to journey from DLR (Lewisham - Cutty Sark) to DLR Woolwich Arsenal, be charged a NR fare rather than TfL fare.

 

[MikeWh]

I am thinking the system may assume the traveller may travel to New Cross NR on Southeastern then change for London Overground and Jubilee Line. No gates in between.
Another one would be to Greenwich NR then DLR to Canning Town then Jubilee Line to North Greenwich. No gates as well.

Both those routes would normally result in a mixed NR+LU fare which would be much higher.

This also applies to journey from DLR (Lewisham - Cutty Sark) to DLR Woolwich Arsenal, be charged a NR fare rather than TfL fare.

In this case the most likely route will be NR from Greenwich to Woolwich Arsenal so the NR fare is correct. As the journey is outside zone 1 there is no addition for using DLR as well as NR.

 

[Skimpot flyer]

Next time I'll use oyster to LB and get a taxi home - with two people getting charged a tenner for a zone1-2 journey it will be cheaper.

Or...
You could forfeit your small discount on the Zone1-2 fare(s), use contactless for the tube journey and obtain a huge saving on the 'through' Oyster fare ? No need to skulk around London Bridge for 20 minutes, either...

 

[Gerald Fiennes]

Breaking the OSI is the best thing to do for all of these kinds of journeys. I do it a lot, ie out, then in, then out at the same gateline and no gateline staff never raise an eyebrow (nor do they, to be fair, when obvious fare avoidance takes place eg. tailgating...).

More generally, the complete failure of TfL and National Rail ever to agree a common fares structure/policy in the London area since Oysterisation began in 2006 is very frustrating: there are major differences on peak/off-peak hours, capping and child fare (to name but a few). Mike W-H does what he can with his website to provide accurate information on all this but the way Oyster has been superimposed on the card-based system has created loads of anomalies. Fun for forum readers to attempt to find, but rubbish for the poor old public trying to make sense of all this... no wonder rail has a poor reputation on fares.