Oyster readers at Lewisham DLR/National Rail

[Jason12]

Apologies if this has already been answered on a other thread. I couldn't find one.

If travelling on Oyster and transferring between DLR and National Rail at Lewisham, what is the procedure for touching-in/out? In getting from DLR to platform 1 at Lewisham I encountered an open (entry) barrier to National Rail, but to get there I simply followed the directions from the DLR platforms and didn't touch-out. Is a touch-in necessary if the barrier is open to platform 1 and if so, where should I have touched-out?

 

[stuu]

Apologies if this has already been answered on a other thread. I couldn't find one.

If travelling on Oyster and transferring between DLR and National Rail at Lewisham, what is the procedure for touching-in/out? In getting from DLR to platform 1 at Lewisham I encountered an open (entry) barrier to National Rail, but to get there I simply followed the directions from the DLR platforms and didn't touch-out. Is a touch-in necessary if the barrier is open to platform 1 and if so, where should I have touched-out?

You don't need to touch in and out at interchanges, as long as you do at each end of the journey - lots of interchanges don't even have barriers between lines/modes. The only time it matters is if there is a route with a choice between via zone 1 and a longer route around, when you can use pink card readers to let the system know which way you have gone. Lewisham doesn't have those so it's irrelevant to your journey

 

[pelli]

In general, when interchanging at any station, you want to make sure to either not touch your card at all, or touch it both out and then in again (which will, at all reasonable locations*, be linked together as an Out-of-station interchange, so that you're still only charged for one overall journey). If you don't touch out but do touch in, then your first leg will count as an incomplete journey without a touch-out, and if you touch out but don't touch in, then the second leg will count as an incomplete journey without a touch-in.

At fully gated stations, if an interchange route involves leaving the paid area, then obviously you'll be forced to correctly touch both out an in at the two sets of barriers, but as you know at Lewisham the DLR has standalone readers instead of barriers, but the NR station does have barriers.

So at Lewisham leaving the DLR you do want to touch out, and then touch in at the NR barriers regardless of whether they are open or not. If you don't touch out at the DLR and find the NR barriers open, then you can go in without touching and you will be fine, but if you find the NR barriers closed, then you should go back to the DLR to touch out so that you can then open the NR barriers by touching in.

*One missing reasonable location is Greenwich. When interchanging between southbound DLR and eastbound NR, you "leave" the station, walking past standalone Oyster readers, onto the "street", go through a "public subway" under the tracks, and "re-enter" on the other side, passing standalone Oyster readers again, but no Out-of-station interchange is set up (presumably the logic is that there are no barriers so no touch is needed - but how is a first-time visitor supposed to know that?), so you must remember not to touch on the readers when passing them.

 

[Jason12]

Thanks, that makes sense now. I am used to touching out then in at OSIs, but it was my first interchange from DLR at Lewisham and as I could get from the DLR to the NR platform without going though an exit barrier it was odd to encounter the entry barrier there.