Travelling out of Boundary on a Travelcard held on an Oyster card

[dlj83]

I have a zone 1-3 travel card and have bought from the ticket machine a "boundary zone 3 to Rochester"

The ticket inspector on the train said I needed to provide proof that I had a travel card on my card because they couldn't check Oyster cards.

He said I've been "let off this time" but short of keeping the card receipt with my Oyster what do I do.

I've made this journey lots in the past 6 months and I'm worried that it's not valid,

 

[Hadders]

It's up to the train company to provide their staff with appropriate equipment to enable them to see what's stored on an Oyster er card.

The onus is not on the passenger to provide proof.

 

[MikeWh]

Hadders is absolutely right. And given that half of Southeastern's services accept Oyster their inspectors really ought to be able to check. Indeed the train you were on would have almost certainly have stopped within the Oyster area so they really ought to have had equipment.

 

[matt_world2004]

I have had similar issues with contactless cards on South Eastern, I was told by a southeastern RPI to log into my contactless account on my phone to prove I had touched in. The contactless card wasn't even linked to my online account at the time. This was when CC first came out about 2014 time.

 

[MikeWh]

I have had similar issues with contactless cards on South Eastern, I was told by a southeastern RPI to log into my contactless account on my phone to prove I had touched in. The contactless card wasn't even linked to my online account at the time. This was when CC first came out about 2014 time.

At risk of going off-topic, how did that one work out?

 

[londonbridge]

I used to commute from Clapham Junction to Surbiton on SWT from 2008-09, whenever I got checked I showed my Oyster and the inspector generally just nodded and moved on, or sometimes asked if I was going to Surbiton (I used to get a fast Alton train where Surbiton was the first stop). Was never asked to prove what was on my card.

 

[Antman]

As these ticketing situations must have been considered by the train company, all that can be concluded is poorly trained staff make things up as they go along. Is that a surprise?

 

[RJ]

As these ticketing situations must have been considered by the train company, all that can be concluded is poorly trained staff make things up as they go along. Is that a surprise?

The handheld readers which have been around since day dot, plus the handheld charging machines now in vogue are what is required to check smartcards. If the ticket inspector isn't provided with this equipment then they should know better than to start any dialogue with smartcard holders - though some are either trying to catch out those who admit to not validating or just like to create drama with the passengers!

 

[yorkie]

I have a zone 1-3 travel card and have bought from the ticket machine a "boundary zone 3 to Rochester"

The ticket inspector on the train said I needed to provide proof that I had a travel card on my card because they couldn't check Oyster cards.

He said I've been "let off this time" but short of keeping the card receipt with my Oyster what do I do.

I've made this journey lots in the past 6 months and I'm worried that it's not valid,

The ticket inspector (was this the Guard?) either made that up themselves, or was given incorrect information from a colleague.

There is no such requirement; if the company wishes for its staff to be able to verify if a Travelcard is held then they need to provide them with appropriate equipment to do the job.

Please do write to Southeastern, so they can ensure their staff are given appropriate advice and training in future. Let us know what they say.

 

[Antman]

Please do write to Southeastern, so they can ensure their staff are given appropriate advice and training in future.

As it would seem unlikely their staff were not given the appropriate training in the past, perhaps the issue is the correct application of that knowledge by their staff.

Perhaps there ought to be regular tests and those who fail withdrawn from that role until they are up to standard.

 

[RJ]

As it would seem unlikely their staff were not given the appropriate training in the past, perhaps the issue is the correct application of that knowledge by their staff.

Perhaps there ought to be regular tests and those who fail withdrawn from that role until they are up to standard.

You're on a hiding to nowhere with that one. Often with customer facing roles on the railways, employee performance monitoring is centred less around technical capability and more around intrinsic things like people actually turning up for work, on time.

Not much point complaining about conduct - it usually takes several weeks before any manager will get round to reading the complaint. If they haven't got a million and one other things to do, it'll most likely be binned as it would have been long forgotten about/denied/there'll be no way to prove it happened - and that's before factoring in the union's involvement in any disciplinary matter, often making the process a waste of time. Also with revenue staff, complaints are plentiful and often spurious which also contributes to them going to the bottom of the priority list.

 

[Antman]

You're on a hiding to nowhere with that one. Often with customer facing roles on the railways, employee performance monitoring is centred less around technical capability and more around intrinsic things like people actually turning up for work, on time.

Not much point complaining about conduct - it usually takes several weeks before any manager will get round to reading the complaint. If they haven't got a million and one other things to do, it'll most likely be binned as it would have been long forgotten about/denied/there'll be no way to prove it happened - and that's before factoring in the union's involvement in any disciplinary matter, often making the process a waste of time. Also with revenue staff, complaints are plentiful and often spurious which also contributes to them going to the bottom of the priority list.

So it doesn't matter how terrible they are at their job, provided they turn up for work.

That is setting the bar low.

 

[Regeff]

A couple of years ago a (perfectly polite) conductor to told me that he and his Southeastern colleagues never bothered to check Oyster cards because all their card reader did was give a green light if the card was valid but didn't give them any other information about the card (starting zone etc.).

 

[matt_world2004]

At risk of going off-topic, how did that one work out?

I told them I didn't have an online account and they told me that next time I am checked to have an online account. Thing is the online account doesn't show up the touch in to hours later.

 

[Joe Paxton]

I told them I didn't have an online account and they told me that next time I am checked to have an online account. Thing is the online account doesn't show up the touch in to hours later.

Presume you mean "until hours later".

That's not necessarily the case - it can show up quite quickly, like within 10 or 15 minutes.

Nonetheless the RPI was talking utter nonsense. There's zero requirement to have an account, zero requirement to have a smartphone, and even if you were to have both there's zero requirement to login and check it on demand.

 

[MikeWh]

^^^What he said!

I hope SE staff are a bit better trained now.

 

[PeterC]

This sounds very familiar, I had to double check the OP to see if it was recent. I am sure that there have been posts on this topic before.