Paper One Day Travelcard changes catching out passengers using TVM's

[bicbasher]

With the abolition of off-peak Z1-2 and 1-4 one day travelcards, as I was waiting in the ticket hall for my train to keep warm, I observed a young woman who used the TVM to buy an Anytime Zone 1-3 OD Travelcard at 1400 and then realised she'd mistakenly bought that instead of the Off-Peak Z1-6 OD Travelcard which is the only cheaper paper travelcard on sale after 0930.

The London Overground gateline assistant helped as much as he could by trying to show her where the off-peak option is and then gave the reasons as "TfL are trying to get everyone onto Oyster" before telling her to wait for the ticket office to re-open so she could exchange it for the cheaper travelcard.

Are the LO TVM's set up to deliberately confuse people into buying the more expensive travelcards since Sunday?

 

[CyrusWuff]

Are the LO TVM's set up to deliberately confuse people into buying the more expensive travelcards since Sunday?

Nope. Where the Z1-2 and Z1-4 Off-Peak TCs have been abolished, they've been removed from the Fares Database, so even a "Desktop" Ticket Issuing System won't offer the Z1-6 Off-Peak unless you explicitly enter Z1-6 as the destination.

No doubt the TOCs will just blame TfL and vice versa, rather than doing anything to "fix" it...

 

[Yew]

Yaay, TFL trying to make it even more expensive for visitors to London..

 

[Tetchytyke]

The tube ticket machines list the "most popular" tickets together with their price. If someone isn't paying attention enough to notice that the Z1-6 off peak travelcard is cheaper than the Z1-4 peak then that's their lookout.

I can't remember if the Overground ticket machines are configured in the same way, but I think they are.

 

[Paul Kelly]

Might it be that the Zones 1-6 Off-Peak Travelcard had not yet become one of the "popular options", since it's only in the last few days that people (who would have previously bought a Zones 1-4) have been forced to buy it? I've no idea over what sort of time period the machines calculate the most popular options.

 

[Tetchytyke]

It always used to be: Z1-2, Z1-4 and Z1-6 were all listed.

 

[PaxVobiscum]

I just bought some off peak Day Travelcards online. I went for Zone 1-6 but the others were all advertised as being still available:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/fares-2013/28901.aspx

Adult

You need an Oyster card to:

Use pay as you go and daily price capping
Buy 7 Day, Monthly and longer period Travelcards

You do not need an Oyster card to pay cash single fares or to buy Day Travelcards.

So this is just for people using TVMs?

 

[bb21]

Why are you looking at 2013 prices?

 

[Wolfie]

I just bought some off peak Day Travelcards online. I went for Zone 1-6 but the others were all advertised as being still available:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/fares-2013/28901.aspx



So this is just for people using TVMs?

Pax

The link you give shows the TfL 2013 fares. The 2014 fares went live last Sunday (ie 19 Jan 14).

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/26385.aspx
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/fares-2014/29089.aspx

 

[PaxVobiscum]

Why are you looking at 2013 prices?

If you put "london travelcard" in to Google that's the link you get (today 21/1/14) and the Visit Britain website still appears to be selling the 2013 tickets today (I bought some on the 15th):

 

[maniacmartin]

TfL and NRE have a habit of doing this. They orphan old pages by removing the links to them, but they don't actually delete the old pages. Thus they are still available if you know the URL, and retain their search engine ranking. It's a bit annoying

 

[bb21]

I wouldn't trust google links. The 2013 page is no longer live on the TfL website but still in the background I believe (and retains their popularity rankings as maniacmartin has mentioned), so will come up in searches. The 2014 fares are here.

 

[PaxVobiscum]

RE my EDIT - I haven't actually checked out but Visit Britain still seems happy to sell me these at the old prices:

 

[bb21]

I would assume that the system they use haven't yet been updated.

 

[heart-of-wessex]

then gave the reasons as "TfL are trying to get everyone onto Oyster"

Well since I only visit for bashing, I hope they don't drive out the paper version or the Oyster won't like my journeys very much!

 

[PaxVobiscum]

I would assume that the system they use haven't yet been updated.

Assuming that someone actually managed to buy a Zone 1 & 2 off peak Day Travelcard on this website today, would the ticket be accepted by the gates I wonder?

 

[bb21]

If they managed to purchase it successfully then yes. If for some reason not, just use the manual gate

 

[Flamingo]

Well, that explains why they were not on my Avantex this morning...

I do wish somebody would tell us these things!

 

[Mojo]

That site sells the 'visitor' products; the one day version of which is merely encoded with just the validity, with the date stamped on (and written to the magnetic strip by the ticket gates). Rather like with the £3 deposit Oyster cards, it's not unfeasible that they will still be selling them to get rid of the old stock.

Many tourist firms for instance offer these as part of a package.

 

[PaxVobiscum]

That site sells the 'visitor' products; the one day version of which is merely encoded with just the validity, with the date stamped on (and written to the magnetic strip by the ticket gates). Rather like with the £3 deposit Oyster cards, it's not unfeasible that they will still be selling them to get rid of the old stock.

Many tourist firms for instance offer these as part of a package.

They look look this Zone 1-6 Day Travelcard:

 

[bicbasher]

The tube ticket machines list the "most popular" tickets together with their price. If someone isn't paying attention enough to notice that the Z1-6 off peak travelcard is cheaper than the Z1-4 peak then that's their lookout.

I can't remember if the Overground ticket machines are configured in the same way, but I think they are.

The LO TVM interface is similar to Southern where the display will show the most popular tickets, so until Saturday it'd have at my local station, something along the lines of:

LONDON TERMINALS
NEW CROSS GATE
CANADA WATER
OFF-PEAK ZONE 1-4 ONE DAY TRAVELCARD
CROYDON STATIONS

As mentioned, for any other ticket, you'd need to use the search function.

If the Anytime Z1-3 Travelcard has replaced it on the popular tickets feature, it'll catch out more passengers until people realise they need to find the Z1-6 off-peak one.