Oyster to St. Albans updates

[EcsWhyZee]

In November of last year DAfT announced that oyster would extend as far as Luton Airport Parkway on Thameslink in “early 2019”.

It now being May I would say we are somewhat past “early 2019” and yet I cannot find any additional information online.

Does anyone have any additional information?

Thanks
D

 

[Clip]

Theres a thread on the March extensions here https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/march-2019-oyster-extensions-confirmed.177646/

 

[swt_passenger]

I never saw a DfT press release about this, but the BBC article reporting this was very ambiguous. It started out by listing all the proposed extensions (including Luton Airport Parkway) and that they would be in “early 2019”. The next paragraph seemed to walk back on that, and said that Luton AP would be “later in the year”...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-46397470

Our main thread about Mar 2019 extensions included this:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...tensions-confirmed.177646/page-6#post-3945088

...which supports the view that Luton AP was never early 2019, and the BBC misreported what was happening.

It’s possible this discussion would be better moved to the existing thread...

 

[EcsWhyZee]

Totally happy for mods to move this thread if they deem that to be the correct course of action. Did the early 2019 schemes actually get finished yet?

 

[MikeWh]

Totally happy for mods to move this thread if they deem that to be the correct course of action. Did the early 2019 schemes actually get finished yet?

Epsom and Hertford North have both come online. Welwyn GC and Luton AP are still to do. It seems almost certain that both will be contactless only beyond Radlet and Potters Bar. This may be one of the reasons for the delay.

 

[EcsWhyZee]

Interesting. Thanks for your response.

What is the benefit (and to whom) of being contactless only?

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

What is the benefit (and to whom) of being contactless only?

To TfL and GTR, of being able to set higher and more granular fares than they would able to set if they limited themselves to using an existing Oyster Zone. Oyster simply isn't capable of dealing with this many Zones in the way that the TOCs want it to (without drastically changing the pricing structure outside the London Zones in the same way the introduction of Oyster was accompanied by a change to the structure within the London Zones).

The poor passenger of course ends up being the loser.

 

[MikeWh]

What is the benefit (and to whom) of being contactless only?

I'm not sure it's as straightforward as FTLO suggests. The issue isn't so much the price of the single fares, but the price of the weekly travelcard. GTR could easily put the Welwyn GC extension in the same zone(s) as Hertford North, but that would mean that a travelcard was valid to both destinations. That's already true for Hertford East/North, but neither GTR nor TfL seem keen to publicise the fact.

So the TOC is the beneficiary, but TfL to an extent, and the customer definitely, are the losers. I have serious misgivings about allowing clearly Oyster-like transactions for contactless which are invalid on Oyster. Publicity is going to be key or there will be a raft of penalty fares issued which will damage the reputation of Oyster, TfL and the TOC.

 

[Hadders]

I have serious misgivings about allowing clearly Oyster-like transactions for contactless which are invalid on Oyster. Publicity is going to be key or there will be a raft of penalty fares issued which will damage the reputation of Oyster, TfL and the TOC.

Sounds like an Oyster Extension Permit farce....