Greater anglia zone boundary 6 to Hertford East not available

[RJ]

Assuming it is valid, it is still a 50% increase in cost on weekends ....

(Thought I hadn't had a response ... Oops, went straight to spam )

Here's what GA say:

"I was sorry to learn that you have been affected by the changes in the Ticketing System. I can understand your frustrations as you have been using these tickets for a long time, and any change, and certainly one that increases your costs is extremely inconvenient.

You may be aware but London Overground (LOROL) will be taking over much of this route. As such, they have introduced a new ticketing system and these changes you have experienced were made by them. I'm afraid I am unable to comment on this, and I apologise for any disappointment this causes.

If you would like to contact LOROL directly for more information, please find their contact details below: "


LOROL making the change? That's a new one....
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Have now dragged great Northern and London overground into my complaint.

Back and forth with GA, with my latest being a request for GA to introduce their own z6 to Hertford East ticket.... I wish they'd stop blaming everyone else.

Why on earth would Boundary Zone 6 to Hertford be priced by LOROL?

I had a look in the NFM21 fares data ATOC have now released. I searched for all fares for less than £10.00 from Hertford East and Hertford Stations (excluding GTR priced tickets). 100% of them are still priced by Abellio Greater Anglia. Just to make sure fares newly priced by LO were in there, I also did a search from Cheshunt and yes, fares now priced by LO are shown as such. Even in the case of Cheshunt to Boundary Zone 6 fare, it's still priced by AGA.

The problem is no closer to being fixed if Greater Anglia don't know what flows they own. Thus, I suggest you keep on at them!

 

[A1]

GA keep blaming GN for this and claim GN are bring back fares that have been removed. We know this already, but GN did not return z6to Hertford stations.

If I buy a z6 to Hertford north, is it a valid route to go from Enfield lock/turkey Street to Hertford East and then walk? It is a valid route if buying a ticket between the named stations.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
And GN are saying that GA should introduce their own boundary fare...

It appears that under the changes made at the request of another Train Operating Company in preparation for their new smartcard ticketing system. I can inform you that now boundary zone tickets should now be specifically issued to either Hertford North or Hertford East. This appears to be something that is in place for Hertford North, however, please rest assured that our senior fares and pricing manager is aware and will liaise with the other company to get this put in place.

 

[RJ]

GA keep blaming GN for this and claim GN are bring back fares that have been removed. We know this already, but GN did not return z6to Hertford stations.

If I buy a z6 to Hertford north, is it a valid route to go from Enfield lock/turkey Street to Hertford East and then walk? It is a valid route if buying a ticket between the named stations.

No. I posted a solution for those wanting BZ6 to Hertford East validity further upthread.

 

[A1]

No. I posted a solution for those wanting BZ6 to Hertford East validity further upthread.

I'm probably being thick, but can't work out the difference between that ticket and a Hertford North Z6 boundary (apart from your ticket being cheaper). Both show the walk between Hertford East and Hertford North stations.

Another possibly thick question - How can I prove a Z6 Boundary's route if an inspector wants to challenge it?

 

[RJ]

If you input say Enfield Lock to Hertford North, NRE will suggest an Enfield to Hertford East ticket. You don't need a ticket to walk to a different station once your journey by rail is complete and the rules don't provide for such an expectation.

Railway staff are trained up on fares so that should not be a concern.

It looks like the BZ6 to Hertford Stations fare was removed and supposed to be replaced with separate fares to the North and East stations.

If the fare pricing on GA's side has gone wrong and it's taking time to fix, it should be clearly communicated to staff and passengers what the interim solution is. Customer Relations should be able to advise if an Enfield Lock to HFE ticket can be used as a BZ6 ticket, or at least state when the BZ6 ticket will be available. Instead, they have come out with some misleading flannel about LOROL causing the problem. They are giving the impression that they don't know what they're doing, rather than acknowledging the issue and doing something about it.

 

[34D]

Railway staff are trained up on fares so that should not be a concern.

Ermm, are you feeling okay?

 

[A1]

If the fare pricing on GA's side has gone wrong and it's taking time to fix, it should be clearly communicated to staff and passengers what the interim solution is. Customer Relations should be able to advise if an Enfield Lock to HFE ticket can be used as a BZ6 ticket, or at least state when the BZ6 ticket will be available. Instead, they have come out with some misleading flannel about LOROL causing the problem. They are giving the impression that they don't know what they're doing, rather than acknowledging the issue and doing something about it.

Enfield Lock to Hertford East is their communicated alternative (They keep telling me to use that ticket, I keep responding and pointing out the 50% fare increase)

Anyway, thanks for the clarification regarding the Z6 to Hertford Nth fare vs Bayford. Makes sense now I think about it.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
GN refuse to reinstate the old Z6 to Hertford Stations, GA refuse to implement a Z6 Boundary to Hertford East ticket.

It's a damn shame there is no way of challenging this. London TravelWatch can't do anything really, and the TOCs should not be allowed to remove a ticket overnight causing a 50% increase.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Hrm...A quick look at frehistory.info shows that Boundary Zone <x> - Hertford Stations flows existed in NFM64. Might be worth whacking in an FOI request to the DfT to see if the relevant approvals were given prior to their removal.

 

[A1]

Hrm...A quick look at frehistory.info shows that Boundary Zone <x> - Hertford Stations flows existed in NFM64. Might be worth whacking in an FOI request to the DfT to see if the relevant approvals were given prior to their removal.

Yep, appears they were removed from NFM21, and the introduction date of that (17 May) makes sense as that's when I first encountered the fare not available. FOI is a good idea

 

[A1]

Have had a response to my FOI. In summary...

Ga and gnr were authorised to introduce new fares to their respective stations.
Not authorised to remove Hertford stns fares.

Looks like this fare may be returning shortly.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Have now gone back to gnr asking when they'll reintroduce this fare... If they don't comply, passenger focus I think.

 

[garnon]

I successfully purchased a Zone 6 - Hertford stations return ticket from Charing Cross this morning.

Looks like its back...a fine result !!

 

[CyrusWuff]

Showing on my TIS as well, but still no sign of London Terminals - Hertford Stations alas.

 

[greatkingrat]

Showing on my TIS as well, but still no sign of London Terminals - Hertford Stations alas.

London Terminals - Hertford Stations was re-added several weeks ago, so am not sure why your TIS isn't picking it up.

 

[CyrusWuff]

London Terminals - Hertford Stations was re-added several weeks ago, so am not sure why your TIS isn't picking it up.

Just jad a look again and it's still showing explicit Hertford East and Hertford North fares...unless you use Zone U1 or U12 as the origin. I'll have to prod someone.

 

[A1]

I successfully purchased a Zone 6 - Hertford stations return ticket from Charing Cross this morning.

Looks like its back...a fine result !!

Oh great news. Hadn't seen it on brfares (have been checking daily). And yes, I'm also chuffed about it all.

 

[Paul Kelly]

Hadn't seen it on brfares (have been checking daily).

BR Fares is only updated three times a year (after each official fares change date in January, May and September).

 

[A1]

What price are you seeing on your machines? I checked a London overground machine on the weekend and swear it was returning £3.60 with gold card discount.

If so, that's still a 70p increase that I don't believe has been allowed by DFT....

 

[47421]

Passengers have reported seeing oyster readers being installed on Hertford East line stations and queried if oyster is coming. GA twitter advised 1048 23 July that oyster is coming to Hertford East in September

Is that correct? Oyster to Hertford East was a franchise commitment back in 2010 but never implemented supposedly because DfT changed their mind because of the problem of integrating with Hertford North fares.

Anyone know what the latest thinking is on this?

 

[Envy123]

Passengers have reported seeing oyster readers being installed on Hertford East line stations and queried if oyster is coming. GA twitter advised 1048 23 July that oyster is coming to Hertford East in September

Is that correct? Oyster to Hertford East was a franchise commitment back in 2010 but never implemented supposedly because DfT changed their mind because of the problem of integrating with Hertford North fares.

Anyone know what the latest thinking is on this?

As far as I've seen on other threads regarding Oyster extensions, the Dft was initially worried that ITSO would be incompatible with Oyster readers but now it doesn't seem to be the case, so they're happy to go ahead.

 

[jon0844]

Great news, especially as I assume that confirms it will come on the GN route too.. but how far out? Hertford North and WGC at most? Surely not out to Hitchin and Letchworth or wherever the Key is being set up?

Now we've seen that you can use Oyster on SET from St Pancras to Stratford International soon, I assume they won't be extending or creating new zones as such, so how will they be doing it?

 

[A1]

While the fare is back, my battles continue.

Gnr claim black and blue that this fare removal was asked for by aga. Yes they own the route, but they were just following aga request.

I don't believe this. Why is it important? Well I've requested an ex gratia payment for the time I've had to waste getting them to reinstate the fare including my additional costs for this route due to their mistake. After original fob off (go see aga, who previously refused to refund the difference), the latest offer is just the fare difference as it is all the fault of aga and they were not responsible.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable. My estimation is that I have spent around 8 hours trying to get this mistake sorted.

 

[Envy123]

Great news, especially as I assume that confirms it will come on the GN route too.. but how far out? Hertford North and WGC at most? Surely not out to Hitchin and Letchworth or wherever the Key is being set up?

Now we've seen that you can use Oyster on SET from St Pancras to Stratford International soon, I assume they won't be extending or creating new zones as such, so how will they be doing it?

The franchise commitments said up to and including WGC and Hertford North, which will cover both metro services, so I'd suspect that Hitchin and Letchworth would not be part of it.

Some passengers may be complaining about Watton-at-Stone and Stevenage not being a part of Oyster, though.

 

[Matt E Raffles]

Passengers have reported seeing oyster readers being installed on Hertford East line stations and queried if oyster is coming. GA twitter advised 1048 23 July that oyster is coming to Hertford East in September

Is that correct? Oyster to Hertford East was a franchise commitment back in 2010 but never implemented supposedly because DfT changed their mind because of the problem of integrating with Hertford North fares.

Anyone know what the latest thinking is on this?

The Hertfordshire Mercury website has an article about this today, with a quote from AGA's Commercial Director:

http://www.hertfordshiremercury.co....East-Ware-St/story-27471416-detail/story.html

 

[jon0844]

Our local paper, the Welwyn Hatfield Times will likely do a story a few weeks after Oyster has been introduced...

 

[Aictos]

Great news, especially as I assume that confirms it will come on the GN route too.. but how far out? Hertford North and WGC at most? Surely not out to Hitchin and Letchworth or wherever the Key is being set up?

Now we've seen that you can use Oyster on SET from St Pancras to Stratford International soon, I assume they won't be extending or creating new zones as such, so how will they be doing it?

Below is the official requirement from the DfT's Govia Thameslink Franchise Agreement document which is freely available via searching on Google:

Extension of Zonal Fares 11.2

The Franchise shall use reasonable endeavours to extend Oyster PAYG to those areas bounded by and including the Stations located at Epsom, Gatwick Airport, Luton Airport Parkway, Welwyn Garden City and Hertford North by 30 September 2015 provided that the Franchisee and the Secretary of State agree that the terms of such introduction are not detrimental to the overall commercial position of the Franchise.

So that being said it's obvious that Welwyn Garden City and Hertford North will be the boundary on the Great Northern which is good news for these who use Oyster.

I do wonder though why Oyster PAYG cannot be added to the Key?

 

[Hadders]

Back to Stratford International, I assume railcard discounts are given when using Oyster PAYG.

 

[Be3G]

Now we've seen that you can use Oyster on SET from St Pancras to Stratford International soon, I assume they won't be extending or creating new zones as such, so how will they be doing it?

Thinking about it, it's maybe not surprising that they won't be creating new zones for the purposes of capping on these routes because there is no equivalent paper product – as we all know, an outboundary travelcard only provides one return journey up to the edge of zone 6. We can also see from the addition of ex-WAGN routes to London Overground that the traditional Oyster fares model is gradually disintegrating in to multiple sets of different special fares.

So perhaps the way the new extensions will work is that there'll be non-cappable fares devised from each ‘new’ station to boundary zone 6 such that the combination of two of those fares plus a zone 1–6 cap is the equivalent of an outboundary travelcard. All journeys in the extended areas would be individually charged with no capping (just like the Air Line), so if you make more than one return journey outside the travelcard area then you keep paying for those extra journeys.

 

[jon0844]

Yes I think that will be the case, which will still be fine for me as I get the convenience of Oyster (and all the added benefits like changing my mind on travel arrangements, staying on to another station, travelling from A to B to C, and so on, without any risk of ever being penalised).

I do hope it comes to the stations to WGC this September or soon after, as it seems like the Key is only marginally more convenient than paper tickets for non-season ticket holders.

 

[MikeWh]

Back to Stratford International, I assume railcard discounts are given when using Oyster PAYG.

That's a good question. It hasn't been mentioned, but it should be possible to do it. There'll be uproar if it isn't done.

 

[CyrusWuff]

What price are you seeing on your machines? I checked a London overground machine on the weekend and swear it was returning £3.60 with gold card discount.

If so, that's still a 70p increase that I don't believe has been allowed by DFT....

Getting £2.90 Super Off-Peak Single, £3.70 Off-Peak Day Return and £3.95 Anytime Day Return, which are all the same as the fares explicitly to Hertford North. London Terminals fares have reappeared too.