rmHawk765
Member
The only way a contactless expansion outside of London works effectively is if GBR gets up, does something, and we get a proper nationwide smartcard system or bank card acceptance.
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Increase of TfL Incomplete Journey Fare Trial
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Mattplans
Member
I don't think that's true. Before you could correct it from an online website in about 2 minutes, now you have to wait on a call while your claim is 'assessed' and that might include waiting in a caller queue. In what way is it not harder? If not harder, it is definitely more time consuming, and that alone will discourage many from doing it
Everytime I check the Project Oval thread I do often think it is a Pandora's Box that should've been left shut. NR ticketing very complex in some cases and it hasn't always translated best into Oyster. And of course, the lack of railcards etc. But of course 'simplifying' NR tickets is a politically attractive policy. I'm not sure any politician would argue otherwise. Free votes as far as I'm concerned, especially since many of those advocating/promising for it have no hand in the implementation.
It is really difficult. As 'Hadders' has pointed out, almost every MP in the home counties has campaigned for Contactless to be extended into their area, there are lots of anecdotes about people travelling beyond the Contactless area and expecting it to be valid, and there are also widespread calls for simplification. Project Oval embodies the railway's view of what delivers on those three matters. There is no way it could have been left shut, but, as you note, it isn't actually a panacea. This change to the incomplete journey provisions is just one illustration of that.
How would GBR deal with someone forgetting to touch in at Penzance? They could be travelling one stop or to the other end of the country.
TfL say this which I don't think has changed.
Apply for a refund
How to get a refund if you were charged a maximum fare, no longer need a ticket or credit, or your journey was delayed
tfl.gov.uk
Mattplans
Member
as per the T&RU update linked in post #13
johncrossley
Established Member
Pay as you go smartcards are already valid on long and expensive journeys so there is no need for a trial as the concept is already in operation. For example, Warblington to Huntingdon is £62.90 Anytime Day Single. GTR have a £50 "Incomplete Journey Charge".
GTR’s incomplete journey charge doubled last year when the KeyGo PAYG area expanded.
johncrossley
Established Member
What expansion?
I thought there was an expansion in the southern part, but even if there wasn’t, the incomplete journey charge doubled last year.
Mattplans
Member
Pretty rich of Southeastern to include Cannon Street in this trial when services from there don't even extend outside the Oyster zone.
Plenty of peak time services to and from Cannon Street go to fairly remote ungated stations well beyond the Oyster and Contactless zone. A fair number of ungated stations in South East London as well.
I'd imagine that data on uncompleted journeys is readily available to the revenue protection analysts.
Mattplans
Member
Right. Jonathan Burrows comes to mind!
However the vast majority of the time the services from Cannon Street will not leave London. So an increase in the maximum fare; of which you could never pay on a journey from this station, will disproportionately impact London passengers.
I note that although Tottenham Hale, London Bridge and Liverpool Street are included, the likes of Stratford, Finsbury Park and Farringdon are not included. Presumably because of the possible impact on London Underground passengers.
The existing maximum fare, proportionate to the fare scale for those stations, serves as the deterrent.
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It’s not just about Cannon Street or Southeastern.
If someone doesn’t touch in, changed en-route and ends up at Cannon Street, the system doesn’t know what they journey is. You could board at Baldock, not touch in and travel to Cannon Street with a change at London Bridge and exit at Cannon Street.
Kite159
Veteran Member
And that's probably one reason why TfL/DfT have increased the incomplete journey charge to try and reduce the number of passengers who board a peak time service at the likes of Cannon Street or Waterloo, heading towards a station which doesn't have barriers knowing the current charge for an incomplete journey is less than the actual fare, gambling on the guard not getting to them in time due to the crowding.
Only to come undone when revenue protection pop up.
Forcing people to phone rather than use the existing online system can only be justified if there is a need to capture additional data as part of the trial.
With regard to widening contactless either nationally or with multiple schemes this does require a review of on-train inspections.
The fun will come when schemes start to touch and MPs start demanding that their local station is in both schemes.
With regard to widening contactless either nationally or with multiple schemes this does require a review of on-train inspections.
The fun will come when schemes start to touch and MPs start demanding that their local station is in both schemes.
Already happening at Bidston station.
TfW PAYG - North Wales
TfW have announced that the first phase of PAYG in North Wales will launch on May 18th and will be between Wrexham and Bidston: They are also an important step in preparing for the rollout of phase one of Pay as you Go (PAYG) in North Wales this year. The first phase of the rollout, which goes...
www.railforums.co.uk
It's to create friction and to embarrass those who don't have a legitimate reason from claiming a refund. It's like with ticket refund fraud - very few people would queue up and present themselves at a ticket office to claim a dodgy refund (or a legitimate but questionable refund "I didn't use this Advance because the train was 5 min late......"), but clicking a button on Trainline disconnects them from the process.
In reality, TfL will probably accept an email. They did on the 3 times I've claimed compensation from them on paper tickets, even though the instructions say you must post in your ticket.
£50 will cover almost any journey done on GTR. The numbers doing Warblington to Huntingdon will be insignificant, and the numbers doing that journey and realising the cheapest way is to use KeyGo and not tap in will be on the order of zero.
and as soon as it is known that fare-dodging is taken on the chin, why would anyone buy a ticket, or the right ticket?
What would GBR have done better in this case - Project Oval? The issues and trade-offs are the same.
The issue would be still the same.
What should be the incomplete journey charge in a nationwide system?
Should it be the most expensive single (i.e
Lockerbie-Newquay) at £320.80, should it be the average of fares paid in the previous year, should it be a flat fee…
Most people don’t have £100+ to give, even temporarily, for stuff like that. A nationwide PAYG that isn’t a GPS based one is unrealistic
I meant to suggest not going overboard with new measures, not ditching all current efforts.
What is your suggestion? Hire 100,000 new staff and legalise chopping off of hands of anyone caught fare dodging to get the number of dodgers to 0? Never to accept a tradeoff?
A big reason why I'm against increased PAYG. I don't want live GPS tracking with a mobile phone to be more-or-less a requirement of travel on public transport.
Mattplans
Member
This is probably more of a risk at the Underground/XR stations you can reach by connecting at Farringdon, Finsbury Park and Stratford than it is at Cannon Street.
Agreed, but that doesn't mean Cannon Street is immune from the issue.
As always let's look at the Netherlands for an example. Depending on the type of card and if the start or end is missing, it's ether a flat €20 or the maximum possible single (€33.30 2nd class, €59.94 1st class, €46.62 weekend 1st). For reference the penalty fare is €70 + fare due, with a €20 reduction for paying immediately on-board.
This has been happening for a couple of years, e.g. people touching in at Cardiff Central and out at London Paddington. A lot of people won't ever get an on train ticket check on those services.
Could a UK-wide contactless scheme work?
As always let's look at the Netherlands for an example. Depending on the type of card and if the start or end is missing, it's ether a flat €20 or the maximum possible single (€33.30 2nd class, €59.94 1st class, €46.62 weekend 1st). For reference the penalty fare is €70 + fare due, with a €20...
www.railforums.co.uk
Created a new threads with my thoughts on GB-wide PAYG
TravelDream
Member
- Joined
- 7 Aug 2016
- Messages
- 1,158
Stansted Airport gateline has to be one of the most interesting in the country for the general cluelessness of passengers. Worse than Gatwick or Heathrow by some measure.
Before contactless acceptance, every train would have multiple passengers expecting to tap out. The signs at Liverpool Street and Tottenham Hale being there, but unfair on the passengers, especially foreign, IMO.
The gateline is manned most of the day generally aligned to the ticket office hours 0630-0000 every day. So you're only talking the 10-15 trains or so per day where they are open. Though they can be incredibly busy trains - especially the first few trains of the day into the airport and the last train in (shockingly busy from what I've seen)/ last train out.
This discussion seems to envisage that all the general travelling public spend their leisure hours doing an accountant's reconciliation between all their journeys and details on some website. I suppose you might expect this from zealots on this site, who probably like to record the locomotive number of each trip as well, but out in the general world not at all.
I just asked a few, quite competent, people around the office what they do with contactless, or their children's Zip cards, and none of them had any idea where to even start - this included not knowing such was available in the first place., or even there was an 'incomplete journey charge'. In Oyster days you used to notice the money disappearing quicker than expected, with contactless not so.
I think all of my 'incomplete' issues have been down to railway-side problems. Gates all open because the fire alarm has gone off - if you don't come back later through the same station it does so. Touch out not recorded, at station with gates where it's impossible to do so. Tower Hill exit was long an issue for this, and if you then went to the DLR at Tower gateway and touched in it recorded that as an Exit from the Underground journey, and when you got to Canary Wharf and touched out said Enter and started another journey, now incomplete. Any reasonable programming would realise that touching in at Victoria, and then out 20 minutes later at Tower Gateway DLR, was impossible, but of course has not been bothered with.
I just asked a few, quite competent, people around the office what they do with contactless, or their children's Zip cards, and none of them had any idea where to even start - this included not knowing such was available in the first place., or even there was an 'incomplete journey charge'. In Oyster days you used to notice the money disappearing quicker than expected, with contactless not so.
I think all of my 'incomplete' issues have been down to railway-side problems. Gates all open because the fire alarm has gone off - if you don't come back later through the same station it does so. Touch out not recorded, at station with gates where it's impossible to do so. Tower Hill exit was long an issue for this, and if you then went to the DLR at Tower gateway and touched in it recorded that as an Exit from the Underground journey, and when you got to Canary Wharf and touched out said Enter and started another journey, now incomplete. Any reasonable programming would realise that touching in at Victoria, and then out 20 minutes later at Tower Gateway DLR, was impossible, but of course has not been bothered with.
I wouldn’t say this is universally true. Most people I knew when working in London would notice if they were overcharged, either because they would take a look over their statement every few weeks, or they banked with a bank that notifies you for every transaction. It’s pretty clear when you have attracted a maximum fare from the journey amount.
I would argue it’s pretty irresponsible not to check your bank statement quickly fairly regularly regardless of TfL.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
They probably won't, but a sensible person should be keeping half an eye on their bank account or credit card statements and should see if something is out of the ordinary. If you were expecting to pay £15 and TfL have taken £35 you should notice that something has gone wrong, even if you don't know what or don't understand the technicalities.
If people aren't routinely checking their statements then that's on them, really.
If it is a genuine trial then there needs to be some sort of control, I suppose.