SWR to withdraw public access to Guildford Station Footbridge

[Oldgaloot]

Use Bridge Pass to access Guildford Station, train to Clapham Junction, then touch into the TfL system to carry on journey, only paying for the section from Clapham to X.

Sorry. I'm a bit dense. Touch into the TfL system with what?

 

[Haywain]

Sorry. I'm a bit dense. Touch into the TfL system with what?

An Oyster card, perhaps, or a contactless payment card.

 

[Sultan]

I thought pink Oyster Card Readers were only used to tell the system that you have travelled from A to B via the station where the pink reader is located (usually to avoid zone 1). I didn't think it was for starting a journey (having always exited at Clapham myself to touch back in on a yellow reader). Maybe I've been wrong all these years (wouldn't surprise me) but didn't want to take the chance of being charged more because of it (or worse, a penalty fare). Happy to be corrected.

 

[takno]

I thought pink Oyster Card Readers were only used to tell the system that you have travelled from A to B via the station where the pink reader is located (usually to avoid zone 1). I didn't think it was for starting a journey (having always exited at Clapham myself to touch back in on a yellow reader). Maybe I've been wrong all these years (wouldn't surprise me) but didn't want to take the chance of being charged more because of it (or worse, a penalty fare). Happy to be corrected.

You're correct about the pink ones. There is apparently a yellow reader inside the boundary at Clapham Junction, although it's right by the gates, so I always tend to just go out and back in again. All of this kind of depends on the idea that users are willing to get off at Clapham and are making a journey which can be completed on Oyster and is noticeably cheaper from Clapham, and that the the gates can't successfully detect and ignore a touch-and-no-exit, which seems a stretch tbh

 

[infobleep]

I thought pink Oyster Card Readers were only used to tell the system that you have travelled from A to B via the station where the pink reader is located (usually to avoid zone 1). I didn't think it was for starting a journey (having always exited at Clapham myself to touch back in on a yellow reader). Maybe I've been wrong all these years (wouldn't surprise me) but didn't want to take the chance of being charged more because of it (or worse, a penalty fare). Happy to be corrected.

Platform 17 has yellow readers so no need to exit and reenter. I have used them myself when switching from a paper ticket to Oyster.

 

[Kite159]

I thought pink Oyster Card Readers were only used to tell the system that you have travelled from A to B via the station where the pink reader is located (usually to avoid zone 1). I didn't think it was for starting a journey (having always exited at Clapham myself to touch back in on a yellow reader). Maybe I've been wrong all these years (wouldn't surprise me) but didn't want to take the chance of being charged more because of it (or worse, a penalty fare). Happy to be corrected.

You can start a journey using a pink reader but can't finish one.

 

[Sultan]

Platform 17 has yellow readers so no need to exit and reenter. I have used them myself when switching from a paper ticket to Oyster.

That'll be why I haven't spotted it before. I tend to flit between platform 8 and 1. Too far to walk to 17!

 

[Oldgaloot]

I'm still on this Guildford bridge pass thing. I've arrived at Clapham without a ticket and go to one of the exits at Grant Road, St John's Hill or Brighton Yard. If I tap the contactless card from my bank on a yellow reader at one of the exit gates (not having tapped in anywhere) what will the gate do?

 

[Haywain]

I'm still on this Guildford bridge pass thing. I've arrived at Clapham without a ticket and go to one of the exits at Grant Road, St John's Hill or Brighton Yard. If I tap the contactless card from my bank on a yellow reader at one of the exit gates (not having tapped in anywhere) what will the gate do?

It will open and let you out, and subsequently charge you an incomplete journey fare.

 

[Oldgaloot]

This is getting to sound less straightforward and more expensive than people thought. What it seems to come down to is unless you vault over the gates at Clapham your free journey with your Guildford station bridge pass will wind up costing you.

 

[Recessio]

This is getting to sound less straightforward and more expensive than people thought. What it seems to come down to is unless you vault over the gates at Clapham your free journey with your Guildford station bridge pass will wind up costing you.

That's true with Oyster and TfL Contactless. As I said earlier though, I think you can get through with an SWR Smartcard without paying. Lean over and touch "in", then touch out and exit as normal.

Also the bridge pass can (and is) used to get to unbarriered stations for free, and there's a lot in proximity to Guildford.

Either way I think it's sensible to get rid of the bridge pass.

 

[Haywain]

What it seems to come down to is unless you vault over the gates at Clapham your free journey with your Guildford station bridge pass will wind up costing you.

Really? At peak time a single from Guildford to Waterloo will cost £16.10. Using a bridge pass and touching in at Clapham Junction would appear to take that down to £3.50.

 

[Oldgaloot]

I'm sure you're right, but where do you get your incomplete journey fare of £3.50 from?

 

[miklcct]

I'm sure you're right, but where do you get your incomplete journey fare of £3.50 from?

The fare is the peak contactless fare from Clapham Junction to Waterloo.

 

[Haywain]

I'm sure you're right, but where do you get your incomplete journey fare of £3.50 from?

Nothing to do with incomplete journeys - it is how much it would cost to get to Waterloo.

 

[Oldgaloot]

From yesterday:

I'm still on this Guildford bridge pass thing. I've arrived at Clapham without a ticket and go to one of the exits at Grant Road, St John's Hill or Brighton Yard. If I tap the contactless card from my bank on a yellow reader at one of the exit gates (not having tapped in anywhere) what will the gate do?

It will open and let you out, and subsequently charge you an incomplete journey fare.

The reply is yours, Haywain, but now you're saying something different. If I'm missing your point pls let me know.

 

[Haywain]

The reply is yours, Haywain, but now you're saying something different. If I'm missing your point pls let me know.

Alternatively, you could try reading all of the post.

 

[Oldgaloot]

The post in its totality reads:

"It will open and let you out, and subsequently charge you an incomplete journey fare."

I just don't understand how that is £3.50. Is that an incomplete journey fare?

 

[Haywain]

The post in its totality reads:

"It will open and let you out, and subsequently charge you an incomplete journey fare."

I just don't understand how that is £3.50. Is that an incomplete journey fare?

Where does that post say anything about £3.50?

 

[Oldgaloot]

That post doesn't. But on Friday at 21.23 you said:

"Really? At peak time a single from Guildford to Waterloo will cost £16.10. Using a bridge pass and touching in at Clapham Junction would appear to take that down to £3.50."

Am I still missing your point?

I don't wish to be going to and fro on this.

What I've been trying to do was to establish just how easy it is, having travelled to Clapham Junction using a bridge pass to board the train, to get out of the station. I'm still not 100% clear. But given the existence of the barriers at the three exits (I've only used Grant Road but have never seen fewer than two prople on duty there) I don't think this would be straightforward.

SWR in their notes to editors on this subject published by the Guildford Dragon say:

"The November 2022 study monitored the use of test-specific bridge passes and also counted the number of pedestrians passing in and out of the station.

Across the 25 days of the study, the number of bridge passes were compared to the number of pedestrians counted. Data was collected between 0600 and 2200, Monday to Saturday, and between 0930 and 1730 on Sundays.

A total of 1,787 bridge passes were lost, an average of 71 per day. Each pass has a nominal value of £5 and across 25 days this led to a loss of £8,900. On an annual basis this would equate to around £130,000.

If fare evaders travelled from Guildford to Clapham Junction, which would normally cost £12.10, this would be £21,600 in 25 days, or around £316,000 per year. If fare evaders travelled to Portsmouth, which would normally cost £23.60, this would be £42,200 in 25 days, or around £616,000 per year (2022 prices)."

You'll see that SWR also use the example of Portsmouth for their revenue loss but, as we've established earlier in this thread, Portsmouth also has barriers leaving fare evaders with the same problem of leaving the station.

it's all rather short on fact. Even the "nominal" value of the bridge pass sounds rather high. £5? The crucial word in the paragraph about fare evasion is "if". Quite a big "if", I'd have thought.

 

[boiledbeans2]

"The November 2022 study monitored the use of test-specific bridge passes and also counted the number of pedestrians passing in and out of the station.
[...]
A total of 1,787 bridge passes were lost, an average of 71 per day.

Those are interesting figures. 71 passes were lost per day. That's maybe why for the last year or so, they no longer have bridge passes, and you just tell the barrier staff that you'd like to get to the other side.

Anyway, I think the lack of footbridge access wouldn't deter the hard-core fare dodger, who dodges fares from Guildford all the way to Clapham. There is an easy plan B - spend an additional 15 mins and walk over to London Road.

 

[Haywain]

Am I still missing your point?

Yes, comprehensively. Try reading the two posts completely independently of each other. Or just ignore both of them and forget you ever saw them.

 

[higthomas]

There is an easy plan B - spend an additional 15 mins and walk over to London Road.

Or spend an additional £1.75 on a child single to open the barriers.

 

[ivorytoast28]

What I've been trying to do was to establish just how easy it is, having travelled to Clapham Junction using a bridge pass to board the train, to get out of the station. I'm still not 100% clear. But given the existence of the barriers at the three exits (I've only used Grant Road but have never seen fewer than two prople on duty there) I don't think this would be straightforward.

There are yellow readers inside the station at Clapham Junction. You do not need to leave clapham junction. The other week I used a paper ticket to clapham junction, and then tapped in with my debit card to use the london overground - this is very common. Hundreds of people turn up at Clapham Junction on paper tickets every single day to change onto the tfl system, they're not paying minimum fares etc, they're tapping in on the visible yellow readers. So if you can get to clapham junction from Guildford with a bridge pass then it you can just pay the tfl contactless fare - personally I think that is a big if, ticket inspections are pretty regular on the fast line from Guildford

 

[infobleep]

Tonight I passes the back entrance of Guildford Station after 23:00 and it was unmanned with the barriers open. No idea about the front as I wasn't passing that way.

 

[Meerkat]

Tonight I passes the back entrance of Guildford Station after 23:00 and it was unmanned with the barriers open. No idea about the front as I wasn't passing that way.

In the past the main barriers have been manned and the back entrance open.
Locals would know what to do…….
Just done some Google measuring and the footbridge route is slightly longer to the town centre (will the redevelopment make the station entrance line up with the river footbridge better?), and will definitely take longer once you have been through two lots of barriers, up/down stairs, and slalomed around passengers walking randomly!
The station really doesn’t need non-passengers getting in the way - when the morning NDL trains get in from Reading direction the footbridge and subway are swamped.
Guildford is chaotic in the peaks as it is very much a two way commuter station - hordes come in as well as out, plus those changing between the NDL and SWR.

 

[Oldgaloot]

The footbridge route may well be slightly longer but when it's raining cats and dogs the shelter of the bridge is welcome. And you don't need to be a rocket scientist to avoid peak travel periods.

Everyone here will no doubt recall the know-it-all bloke who paid out £43,000 to avoid prosecution for fare dodging by exploiting the Oyster card loophole, but lost his job and was banned from working in the city for life.

Man avoids prosecution after paying back £43,000-worth of train fares

Commuter exploited Oyster card loophole, paying only £7.20 for travel between East Sussex and London Bridge over five years

www.theguardian.com

It's a bit of a cautionary tale!

 

[Meerkat]

The footbridge route may well be slightly longer but when it's raining cats and dogs the shelter of the bridge is welcome. And you don't need to be a rocket scientist to avoid peak travel periods.

Those creating the peak struggle to avoid them and even off peak you have to go through two barriers, and off peak passengers are the worst for random slow walking obstruction!
They should have put a new non-rail passenger bridge in the redevelopment spec - arent the council trying to get people using the river footbridge route to reduce Bridge Street pavement congestion?! And the businesses in the development would welcome through foot traffic.

 

[markle]

Deleted

 

[Fazaar1889]

We looked at moving to Guildford a few years ago. One of the biggest factors for us against moving there was that most of the houses within walking distance of the train station were on the west side of the station, and the walk to the town centre on the east side of the station was generally quite unpleasant (congested roads, narrow pavements, one way system, underpasses etc). It's a real shame how the redevelopment of the station missed an opportunity to put in permanent non-paying footbridge - and rather shows how car-centric a lot of planning in the area still is.

I'm surprised that at a minimum SWR haven't created a mechanism for holders of The Touch smartcard to be able to use that to pass through the station barriers and use the footbridge for free. It's at least far less open to abuse than the current pass system.

The redevelopment is limited only to the actually station building site rather than the platforms as well unfortunately. Would have been great to add another bridge