Question about maximum journey times and Out of Station Interchanges

[rmHawk765]

I'm planning to have my own go at what Geoff did a few years ago trying to fit as many OSIs as possible into one journey. He inadvertently ran into a 1 hour 45 minutes time limit, I believe, having done only 5 Out of Station Interchanges (OSIs).

I will be travelling on a Sunday and staying within Zones 1-4, however I will be going in and out of various zones many times as you can imagine. The reason I ask is that the TfL page (see here) on this states that 'across 11 zones' on a Sunday is given 3 hours 25 minutes, however I am confused as to what across 11 zones actually means here.

I will be changing zones over 11 times, however I will not use all 11 zones (9 regular zones + trams and out of zones), so I would like to know what time limit will apply to my journey.

Also, I want to know whether time spent transferring using OSIs actually counts towards the journey time - I'm assuming not, but I do want to be sure.

 

[pelli]

I have no insider knowledge but I would guess the system is much more rigid than you think.

In Geoff Marshall's video, he travelled from
Harrow & Wealdstone (Z5) to Kenton (Z4) on Bakerloo
Northwick Park (Z4) to Kilburn (Z2) on Metropolitan + Jubilee
Brondesbury (Z2) to West Hampstead (Z2) on Overground (Mildmay)
West Hampstead (Z2) to Finchley Road (Z2) on Jubilee
Finchley Road & Frognal (Z2) to Kentish Town West (Z2) Overground (Mildmay)
Kentish Town (Z2) to Archway (Z2/3) on Northern Line
Upper Holloway (Z2) to South Tottenham (Z3) on Overground (Suffragette)
Seven Sisters (Z3) to Walthamstow Central (Z3) on Victoria
Walthamstow Queens Road (Z3) to Wanstead Park (Z3) on Overground (Suffragette)
Forest Gate (Z3) to Manor Park (Z3/4) on TfL Rail (now Elizabeth)
Woodgrange Park (Z3/4) to Barking (Z4) on Overground (Suffragette)

At the end of the video, he checked the journey history recorded on his Oyster card at a ticket machine (which shows the last 8 "journeys"), and was shown (in reverse):
11:07 Harrow Wstn to Kentish Tn West (charge £0.00)
11:31 Harrow Wstn to Archway (charge £0.00)
11:35 Harrow Wstn to [No touch-out] (charge £3.70)
11:49 [No touch-in] to South Tottenham (charge £3.70)
12:04 Seven Sisters to Walthamstow Central (charge £0.00)
12:17 Seven Sisters to Wanstead Park (charge £0.00)
12:25 Seven Sisters to Manor Park (charge £0.00)
12:39 Seven Sisters to Barking (charge £1.00)

I interpret this to mean that whenever you touch out from the system, the system considers you to have made a journey from your first touch-in to your current touch-out location. If the you are within the maximum journey time (MJT) for this specific journey (e.g. 11:31 at Archway), then your journey is updated ("Harrow Wstn to Archway", with no additional charge since the fare to Archway is the same as that to Kentish Tn West), and can be continued later with an OSI. However, if you exceed the MJT (e.g. 11:49 at South Tottenham), then your journey is considered to have been incomplete ("Harrow Wstn to [No touch out]", with the timestamp 11:35 presumably being when a suitably defined MJT ran out), you are charged a maximum fare, and now since you're touching out you also have a second incomplete journey ("[No touch-in] to South Tottenham" at 11:49) with a second maximum fare charged, and touching further with an OSI opens a new third journey (Seven Sisters onward, eventually completed "correctly" with a £1.00 charge).

Since Oyster charging does not actually care about which zones you travel through - rather it cares about whether the pattern of OSIs and pink validators you have touched matches the pre-defined list of alternative fares and if not then it charges the main/default fare (but these fares are indeed set up to try to match what zones you are likely to have travelled through) - I would be very surprised if the Maximum Journey Time depends on anything else than the same list (or whether it depends on route taken at all - MikeWh's Oyster Fare Finder seems to imply that it doesn't). Also, I would be very surprised if the MJT clock didn't keep ticking during OSIs. This means, for your purposes, that at every touch-out in your journey, you should look at what the MJT is for a journey from your starting location to this point, and make sure that less time than that has elapsed since you touched in.

In particular, when staying within Z1-4, the longest possible journey in the database would be a 4-3-2-1-2-3-4 journey across 7 zones, putting an absolute cap of (on a Sunday) 2h40 on your MJT, regardless of how many zones you've actually travelled through. If your first touch-in is in Z1, then you will never count as having a journey longer than 1-2-3-4 which is (on a Sunday) 2h15.

The "Tram zone" on the map doesn't count as a zone, so won't add to the number of zones acrossed. Trams are charged as buses and if you use the tram then your OSI chain will be broken.

There is no "out of zones" within Z1-4 except arguably Stratford International Highspeed. There is no OSI with Southeastern Highspeed at either end so any journey between St Pancras and Stratford International will be charged as a separate journey and break the OSI chain.

 

[PeterC]

Once you have hit the MJT your next touch out SHOULD record as completing a second incomplete journey with no touch in.

BUT if you tap the card at an unbarriered station with freestanding readers it will record as starting a new journey.

A floating touch out followed by a floating touch in is fixable through your contactless account. A pair of touch ins isn't and the help desk are unlikely to even understand the issue

 

[rmHawk765]

I interpret this to mean that whenever you touch out from the system, the system considers you to have made a journey from your first touch-in to your current touch-out location. If the you are within the maximum journey time (MJT) for this specific journey (e.g. 11:31 at Archway), then your journey is updated ("Harrow Wstn to Archway", with no additional charge since the fare to Archway is the same as that to Kentish Tn West), and can be continued later with an OSI. However, if you exceed the MJT (e.g. 11:49 at South Tottenham), then your journey is considered to have been incomplete ("Harrow Wstn to [No touch out]", with the timestamp 11:35 presumably being when a suitably defined MJT ran out), you are charged a maximum fare, and now since you're touching out you also have a second incomplete journey ("[No touch-in] to South Tottenham" at 11:49) with a second maximum fare charged, and touching further with an OSI opens a new third journey (Seven Sisters onward, eventually completed "correctly" with a £1.00 charge).

Yes, OSIs do not count as a break in the journey. This is why the OSIs here are practically irrelevant - really what I'm asking is what exactly the MJT will be for my journey. I plan to do far more stations than Geoff did - I obviously do not know whether that will actually be possible, however I will do some more checks to try and confirm the maximum time for it.

The "Tram zone" on the map doesn't count as a zone, so won't add to the number of zones acrossed. Trams are charged as buses and if you use the tram then your OSI chain will be broken.

There is no "out of zones" within Z1-4 except arguably Stratford International Highspeed. There is no OSI with Southeastern Highspeed at either end so any journey between St Pancras and Stratford International will be charged as a separate journey and break the OSI chain.

I know this, hence why it confused me why the time limit specifically for 'across' 11 zones, whatever that actually means, is listed.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I know this, hence why it confused me why the time limit specifically for 'across' 11 zones, whatever that actually means, is listed.

Remember that the system is designed for simple point to point journeys, and is therefore 'clunky' for any deviations from it.

The 'across 11 zones' means the zones you'd go through in a direct journey, i.e. 6-5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5-6, e.g. Epping to West Ruislip. Don't touch anywhere en-route and that's the maximum journey time.

OSIs complicate things as they continue the journey, they treat you as having started way back at the beginning. The clock continues running during an OSI.

My understanding is that when you touch out following an OSI, it looks back to where you started and determines the maximum journey time for that particular journey to your current location, based on the direct route and the time of day. If the maximum journey time has been exceeded it charges the maximum fare.

Take Epping to West Ruislip. If you do an OSI in zone 1, when you touch out it will check if you are in the maximum journey time for a 6-5-4-3-2-1 journey, i.e. 2h25. If you then do a second OSI in, say, zone 3, it will check if you are in the maximum journey time for where you are. This might be a 6-5-4-3-2-1-2-3 journey, i.e. 2h50, but depending on location it might be alternatively be a 6-5-4-3 journey, i.e. 2h0.

The system isn't clever enough to see you went 4-3-2-3-4-3-4-3-2-1-2 and apply the 11 zone limit, if that's what you're asking.

 

[rmHawk765]

Take Epping to West Ruislip. If you do an OSI in zone 1, when you touch out it will check if you are in the maximum journey time for a 6-5-4-3-2-1 journey, i.e. 2h25. If you then do a second OSI in, say, zone 3, it will check if you are in the maximum journey time for a 6-5-4-3-2-1-2-3 journey, i.e. 2h50.

Oh I see. So if I do a 6-5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5-6 journey with OSIs, will it understand that I've crossed 11 zones?

 

[yorkie]

Also, I want to know whether time spent transferring using OSIs actually counts towards the journey time - I'm assuming not, but I do want to be sure.

The journey time is measured from the time you first tap in, at the very start of your journey, up to the last time you tap out, at the very end of your journey.

The journey time includes all time spent during your journey, regardless of how much of that time is spent moving or stationary.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Oh I see. So if I do a 6-5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5-6 journey with OSIs, will it understand that I've crossed 11 zones?

If you do lots of convoluted OSIs then no, probably not. The system is old and simply isn’t designed for this sort of thing.

As an example, if you take 2h30 to do 6-5-4-3-2-1 then you will be charged a maximum fare, even if you have overall managed to do 6-5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5-6 in 3h10.

 

[rmHawk765]

If you do lots of convoluted OSIs then no, probably not. The system is old and simply isn’t designed for this sort of thing.

As an example, if you take 2h30 to do 6-5-4-3-2-1 then you will be charged a maximum fare, even if you have overall managed to do 6-5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5-6 in 3h10.

Oh ok, I see.
Ultimately I think I'm just gonna have to give it a shot and see - the info publicly available is just too vague to plan everything completely accurately.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Ultimately I think I'm just gonna have to give it a shot and see - the info publicly available is just too vague to plan everything completely accurately.

When you touch out, the system counts back to your origin for the journey, until you hit the time limit. If you chain several OSIs together then your origin is way back at the start. The time limit is for the journey from the origin to where your touch out is, based on the zones you would travel through on a direct journey. If you are outside the time limit then you get charged a maximum fare, sometimes two.

The system really isn't designed for riding around on convoluted routes. The standard advice for people riding around all day is to buy a paper Travelcard or, at the very least, make sure you touch in on a bus to break an OSI. I know you want to test the OSIs so the standard advice doesn't apply.