Oyster - is there enough publicity?

[RJ]

And it's not as if the zone maps are new or anything. They were around for years before Oyster came on the scene. And on the original question, I use SWT quite a lot and guards regularly make an announcement on the approach to Surbiton that it is the last stop where Oyster cards can be used. But I suppose if you are on a first stop Woking it's a different matter ....

It doesn't matter, people just want to blame somebody else/have a go at the railways!

Does anybody on here disagree that every single Oyster card has details of where the conditions of use can be found and that it is the user's decision to take heed or ignore it? Nobody else has replied to my previous post strangely enough

 

[transmanche]

Does anybody on here disagree that every single Oyster card has details of where the conditions of use can be found and that it is the user's decision to take heed or ignore it? Nobody else has replied to my previous post strangely enough

Is that what you think good customer service is?

Do you study the T&C's every time you use your debit card? Do you read the conditions of carriage every time you board a bus? Do you go online to read the local council's byelaws before visiting the park?

If an organisation providing a service starts a discussion with its paying customers by saying "you didn't check the terms and conditions", then it really has lost the plot.

 

[bakerstreet]

Is that what you think good customer service is?

Do you study the T&C's every time you use your debit card? Do you read the conditions of carriage every time you board a bus? Do you go online to read the local council's byelaws before visiting the park?

If an organisation providing a service starts a discussion with its paying customers by saying "you didn't check the terms and conditions", then it really has lost the plot.

Well said couldn't have put it better myself.

RJ - if you read my first post I was in no way having a go at the railways or railway staff.

I love the railways and highly respect the staff although I work outside of that industry.

But having more information than many other travellers thanks to this site, I also remember what it was like to just see a train and a ticket and not have a clue nor any interest in what type of ticket or what type of train I was on - the level of most passengers I would guess.

It was a genuine question based on empathy with passengers with less knowledge than me.

Please don't always assume everyone is knocking the railways. They really aren't.

 

[Greenback]

It doesn't matter, people just want to blame somebody else/have a go at the railways!

Does anybody on here disagree that every single Oyster card has details of where the conditions of use can be found and that it is the user's decision to take heed or ignore it? Nobody else has replied to my previous post strangely enough

Possibly no one has replied because it is not relevant to the original post and the question being asked? What we are debating is whether the Oyster on National Rail message is being put across well, or whether more can or should be done.

I don't live in the area but it seems to me simply from the number of threads that are on here that it is quite confusing, even for people with an interest in fares and ticketing.

The question for me, though, is really is it a lack of publicity and information, or has the product being implemented in such a way as to make the use of it unnecessarily complex?

 

[jon0844]

Found a 'Oyster not valid at this station' poster this morning, on platform 1 at Potters Bar down towards the toilets. I hope there's one on the other side, for those who may have COME from London, as against those who are already outside the zone and presumably can't have reached the platform with an Oyster in the first place!!

Nothing at Hatfield.. although I do think they had one. Now it has been replaced with a FCC ad for their book club (or whatever it was) and now one on how to use the gate.

 

[Capybara]

The original post referred to people who were 40 minutes out of London on SWT. The boundary is at Surbiton which is 25 minutes on a slow train so it wasn't a case of going one or two stops too far. The point about the maps is that they, and the concept of travel zones, have been around for years and people who use trains in London should be used by now to using them. When you buy a ticket from a to b you don't assume it is valid beyond b so why should you with an Oyster? The point about terms and conditions is a red herring. No, I don't know all the terms and conditions on my credit card, but I do know how much I can spend and when I have to repay it by and that there will be a financial penalty if I spend too much or don't repay it in time.

 

[jon0844]

I do agree, especially in this case (although 40 minutes out of London could be Welwyn Garden City, which should really become part of the London Zones IMO) but when you have a paper ticket, it says the zones clearly on it.

I accept people would know to check for this with a travelcard - or even an Oyster travelcard - and the zonal system has been around for years. If someone turns up at Hatfield with a Z1-6 paper ticket, it's PF time.

However, I am sure people assume that Oyster PAYG allows you to go wherever you want, touch in, touch out and pay the relevant charge. That's why I think some routes should have a means of paying by Oyster outside the zones.

We should be encouraging the use of Oyster (or another smartcard system) as it makes travel much easier, and would give people peace of mind at being charged for what they actually do, as against what they might intend to do. No queuing, no asking for advice or learning how to use a TVM - just touch the card on a reader.

Of course, don't read the threads about all the issues with Oyster and billing (but for the sake of argument, let's assume it works as designed!)

Until we have Oyster in use further out, the TOCs should make it easier to know where you can use your Oyster card - and that would seem to be on the trains themselves, with posters/route maps and PIS announcements.

 

[philjo]

Found a 'Oyster not valid at this station' poster this morning, on platform 1 at Potters Bar down towards the toilets. I hope there's one on the other side, for those who may have COME from London, as against those who are already outside the zone and presumably can't have reached the platform with an Oyster in the first place!!

There used to be one down by the ticket barriers as you come off platforms 3-4. I can't remember if is still there - will have a look tonight.

Stations like Potters Bar cause confusion as it is outside the travelcard zones but the majority of buses calling at the station are operated for TfL so they accept Oyster & travelcards for at least part of the journey (main exception is 84 towards St Albans as it becomes a commercial/HCC funded service after Potters Bar). Stations like this should be prioritized for acceptance of Oyster even if it charges the same fares as present for being outside the zones - it would still make it much simpler for the occasional passenger to avoid being inadvertently outside the zones. I don;t know if they have change this but some of the multi-mode online journey planners used to tell you to change from train to bus at Potters Bar (or vv) without mentioning anything about being outside the travelcard zones for the rail services.

The thing with Potters Bar is that it is about the same distance from Kings Cross as Elstree & Borehamwood is from St Pancras. Elstree & Borehamwood is in zone 6 whereas Potters Bar it outside the zones. Both stations are in Hertfordshire & served by a mixture of TfL & HCC funded bus services.

 

[MikeWh]

The original post referred to people who were 40 minutes out of London on SWT. The boundary is at Surbiton which is 25 minutes on a slow train so it wasn't a case of going one or two stops too far. The point about the maps is that they, and the concept of travel zones, have been around for years and people who use trains in London should be used by now to using them. When you buy a ticket from a to b you don't assume it is valid beyond b so why should you with an Oyster? The point about terms and conditions is a red herring. No, I don't know all the terms and conditions on my credit card, but I do know how much I can spend and when I have to repay it by and that there will be a financial penalty if I spend too much or don't repay it in time.

But the additional confusion with SWT is that there are smartcard readers at stations beyond London, like Woking for instance, for the SWT smartcard scheme. So you've seen the readers there, they look like the readers on the gateline at Waterloo* so you naturally think it'll be ok. That is why there needs to be more publicity at Waterloo than other terminal stations.

* I don't know how similar the readers are, but a visitor to my site asked a question about when they'd be able to use Oyster at Woking because they had seen the readers installed there. To me that means they must be pretty similar.

 

[cuccir]

Until we have Oyster in use further out, the TOCs should make it easier to know where you can use your Oyster card - and that would seem to be on the trains themselves, with posters/route maps and PIS announcements.

Though as someone has pointed out, there would probably always be a boundary. If it was extended (say) hypothetically to Peterborough or Stevenage there'd be complaints that it wasn't valid on East Coast trains beyond these stations. Increasing range of validity might work on some routes, but far from all of them.

The question of what might count as decent information is the issue here. For RJ and a few others, the existence of info somewhere and instructions as to how to obtain is adequate. For others, this is inadequate. I'd suggest that:

* All platforms from which Oyster Card-valid services leave ought to have a version of this map, perhaps with tube lines removed for simplification. I'd also add the first non-Oyster station onto this map for each route

* All electronic departure boards should have a line inserted between the last Oyster and first non-Oyster station along the lines of * Oyster Boundary Here *

* Perhaps a small Oyster logo could be placed onto the signs at Oyster-Valid stations?

I don't know London so well so I can't comment on the anomalies between bus and train boundaries, but clearly the less of these differences there are the better.

 

[jon0844]

Though as someone has pointed out, there would probably always be a boundary. If it was extended (say) hypothetically to Peterborough or Stevenage there'd be complaints that it wasn't valid on East Coast trains beyond these stations. Increasing range of validity might work on some routes, but far from all of them.

I did think that as I wrote, but wonder if Intercity trains (especially if branded/advertised as such) would generally be accepted as not being part of the system - given fares are usually higher, you might want to reserve seats, get advance tickets, first class and so on.

On the same token, smartcards don't currently let an Oyster card holder pay to use first class at all. Imagine a reader by the first class compartment that debited £5 for you to upgrade onboard! A nice moneyspinner for the TOCs perhaps?!

There are definitely issues to address, and Oyster can't extend to the whole country - but smartcards should be introduced. It will have to mean changes in ticketing and pricing, and no doubt there will have to be a crossover period. Discounts for smartcard/PAYG travel may well encourage people to change.

There will need to be protections for certain routes/season tickets and a load of problems to work out. It won't be fun, it will be messy and there will be upset passengers - but I do believe it will definitely happen one day.

One problem with long distance travel on a smartcard is that you may not have a spare £200-300 credit on your card, which means there will need to be some system to allow for payments to be made by debit/credit card, or from your bank account. There will also need to be some security, as a 'paywave' card only currently allows wireless payments of £15. Nobody would want to lose their smartcard and be charged for a FC ALR!

 

[button_boxer]

One problem with long distance travel on a smartcard is that you may not have a spare £200-300 credit on your card, which means there will need to be some system to allow for payments to be made by debit/credit card, or from your bank account. There will also need to be some security, as a 'paywave' card only currently allows wireless payments of £15. Nobody would want to lose their smartcard and be charged for a FC ALR!

I don't think it'll ever be possible to have a fully PAYG system across the whole country. Compatible systems in the various urban areas that have sensible zonal or distance-based fares would be nice so you can have one credit balance and use it in the London zones, within the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, etc. but for long distance journeys we'll still be buying individual tickets. Given Oyster lets you pick up travelcards and refunds at the gateline I don't see why this shouldn't be possible on an ITSO system too - I buy a ticket from Derby to London online and enter my smartcard number, then the ticket picks up onto my card as I touch in at Derby.

 

[jon0844]

I think a future system will mix many elements together, so you could buy a ticket from a TVM and pay by card/cash and then load the ticket on a smartcard which doesn't contain any actual money.

There will be NFC enabled mobile phones, where you could buy the ticket you want from an app, debit your bank account after entering a PIN (or drawing a security code, finger print or whatever) and the phone then gets the ticket loaded on to it (and, it won't need the phone to be powered after that point in case the battery dies).

People will still want paper tickets I'm sure, but like London Underground, they'd probably have to pay more and we'd seek to get rid of as much paper usage as possible.

 

[RJ]

Is that what you think good customer service is?

Do you study the T&C's every time you use your debit card? Do you read the conditions of carriage every time you board a bus? Do you go online to read the local council's byelaws before visiting the park?

If an organisation providing a service starts a discussion with its paying customers by saying "you didn't check the terms and conditions", then it really has lost the plot.

No, why do I need to?

Would you turn up in a shop which doesn't accept debit cards and expect them to let you have the shopping for free if you didn't have any other means to pay?

 

[LexyBoy]

Maybe a better analogy:
- Punter goes to shop and rents something, putting a deposit on using their Visa card with the balance to be paid when they return it (amount depending on how long they kept it for)
- Comes back a couple of weeks later:
"Nah mate, can't pay for that on your Visa, we only accept them for loans of less than a week"
"OK, I'll pay by cash then..." (NB not "oh well, I expect to get it for free then")
*rings up bill*
"Can I get my deposit back then?"
"Nah mate, told you Visa ain't valid"
"But no-one told me..."
"Should of read the terms and conditions innit?"


But aside from tedious analogies, it's very easy to see how this happens. For someone living in London (especially centrally), they are so used to Oyster and it being their ticket to anywhere in London. Now that it's accepted on NR, it's only natural to expect to be able to travel to your destination on it - at least at stations like Waterloo where many trains are entirely metro/suburban services.

Of course there are chancers (though you'd have to be going quite a way for the Oyster maximum charge to be cheaper than the correct ticket), but having clearer publicity would only make it easier to spot them!

Making it clear where Oyster is and isn't valid is just good customer service - it's not about having a go at the railways, it's about accepting that people (especially in cities like London) use public transport, including the railways, frequently and see it as a way to get from A to B rather than being a contract being entered into with various T&Cs associated. Which is how it should be.

 

[Greenback]

No, why do I need to?

Would you turn up in a shop which doesn't accept debit cards and expect them to let you have the shopping for free if you didn't have any other means to pay?

It would not be good service if the lack of card payment facilities was not made clear to purchasers without them having to stand in line to ask.

My local Spar shop makes it very clear that debit cards can only be used for purchases of £5 or more. I don't have to read through a myriad of terms and conditions to find out!

No business can be complacent about customer service. Or perhaps the railway companies can, as for the majority of journeys ther eis no realistic alternative.

 

[island]

c2c has posters up on its trains clearly specifying the Oyster PAYG limits. Shouldn't be hard for SWT etc. to do.

 

[londonbridge]

If you look at timetable boards in stations,under the station name,where appropriate,it says "This station is in travelcard zone 1(2,3,4,5,6). Maybe,where appropriate,it should also say "Oyster is not valid at this station".

 

[MikeWh]

c2c has posters up on its trains clearly specifying the Oyster PAYG limits. Shouldn't be hard for SWT etc. to do.

Agreed, but C2C has more need than most as Oyster is available beyond the travelcard boundary on their services.

 

[Fred26]

c2c has posters up on its trains clearly specifying the Oyster PAYG limits. Shouldn't be hard for SWT etc. to do.

Indeed - they also have PA announcements on the trains.

I like Oyster and I love the idea of it... but it cannot work alongside staff. One has to go and the antiquated staff is always the answer. Ask the staff in Harringay booking office how busy they are (you might need them to put that book down first). I do wonder if we'll see the closure of most ticket offices inside the zones, but instead replaced by platform/customer service staff. (I doubt that'll happen though).
I'm pro-staff, being one myself, but I also use an Oyster (FCC negotiate a HUGE discount for their staff on LU, LO, DLR and Tramlink). Oyster is great for the passenger who travels every day, but, even as TOC staff (and I'm a very confident traveller), I sometimes need to talk to a member of staff and a help point simply isn't good enough.

 

[island]

c2c has posters up on its trains clearly specifying the Oyster PAYG limits. Shouldn't be hard for SWT etc. to do.

Indeed - they also have PA announcements on the trains.

Which are wrong, in that they don't take account of the extension of the PAYG zone to Grays!

 

[swt_passenger]

If you look at timetable boards in stations,under the station name,where appropriate,it says "This station is in travelcard zone 1(2,3,4,5,6). Maybe,where appropriate,it should also say "Oyster is not valid at this station".

SWT's stations within the London zones have (or are getting) the zone number added next to the name on the platform 'name boards'- that's a big hint which zone you're in...

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Surbiton_station_signage_2010.JPG

 

[jon0844]

That's a good idea.

It's great, from a customer point of view, that the information can vary so much based on what TOC/station you travel from. You'd hope that TfL and ATOC could ensure complete and utter consistency throughout the zonal areas, and beyond, to make it impossible to go wrong!

 

[Mojo]

I was reading about a case at the Parking and Traffic Appeals service today and thought of this thread. The case was Bladon v City of Westminster. Basically, Mr Bladon parked his car on a square, part of which was in the City of Westminster and part of which was in the London Borough of Camden. He then bought a ticket from a Camden machine, but was parked in Westminster, and received a PCN from Westminster City Council. It was found by the adjudicator that technically whilst under the full regulations and terms, both councils had done their bit (and, indeed the initial adjudicator turned down the appeal), the PCN was eventually quashed.

What's this got to do with the railways? Not much, at first glance. Of course, in areas where parking enforcement has been decriminalised, things have to be chased up through the civil courts. The lower burden of proof required vs criminal (and lack of resources to deal with trivial matters like this) mean there is an independent appeals service, which is something we don't have on the railways. If railway fare evasion cases were decriminalised, such a system may well exist. Could it come to the same conclusion? Who knows. However, it goes to show that in all cases it's not just okay to say ''it's in the terms and conditions.''