Touching in/out on Travelcard

[Mojo]

Sorry but I don't agree with this one. If you have a negative payg balance and you also have a travelcard valid for the journey you wish to make,then you have a valid ticket,as you are using the travelcard. As long as your journey is wholly within your travelcard zones,to my mind any payg balance on your card is irrelevant.

Well feel free to disagree with me all you like, but the fact is you won't be able to get through the ticket gates if you have a negative balance on your Oyster Card, even if you have a Travelcard. I know this through my experience of working on the gateline and also because it says so on the TfL website.

For National Rail:

You can use a valid Travelcard season ticket on your Oyster card provided that, where using a station with ticket gates, any pay as you go balance on your Oyster card is not in debit. Should the pay as you go balance on your Oyster card be in debit, you will need to clear the debit before you can use your Travelcard through the ticket gates.

and for TfL:

You can use the Travelcard season ticket on your Oyster card provided it is available and valid at the time you travel and any pay as you go balance on your Oyster card is not in debit. Should any pay as you go balance on your Oyster card be in debit, you must clear the debit before you use your Travelcard season ticket.

Several of tfl's policies need to be looked at as again,to my mind,they are unenforceable. For instance,you can lend your Oyster card to someone else to use if it contains payg credit,but not if it contains a travelcard. How can they enforce this? If I had a Oyster travelcard season and I lent it to,say,my brother and he made a journey with it,as long as the journey was carried out correctly how could tfl prove it wasn't his card?

I don't understand why you don't need a photocard with a Travelcard on Oyster, given they would be quite easy to check, strange they abolished the requirement.

I wouldn't say it's totally unenforceable, especially in the case of a Mr. using a ticket registered to a Mrs., or if there was some investigation going on, but it could be used against one using a stolen ticket.

 

[londonbridge]

Ok then,what if the gateline at your starting station is open and you haven't touched in? As Yorkie said,if you have a valid ticket you cannot be charged a penalty fare. If you are within your zones then your ticket is valid and,again,I believe a negative payg balance should be irrelevant if you are using a valid travelcard. If I did manage to get on a train with a valid travelcard and a negative payg balance and was threatened with prosecution or a penalty fare my response would simply be "See you in court".

 

[Daniel]

Just because a gateline is open doesn't mean you can't touch in - and the conditions of carriage state that you should do so where there is an opportunity to.

The reason you are required to touch in/out when you've got a travelcard is to ensure you have no additional fare to pay. If you enter without touching in, you're just harming yourself. If you have a Z34 and usually travel in South London, and I find you in North London, and you haven't touched in, I'd find it reasonable to submit an irregularity report, as you may well have travelled through Z12 and had an additional fare to pay. If you'd bothered touching in, it'd show where you came through.

With regards to the ticket/negative balance, Mojo has specifically stated that he is not expressing his opinion on whether or not it is correct, just that it is what you are required to do.

I personally do think that there should be a limit on your card, which when you owe that much your travelcard will stop working. If you had a Z56 and travelled through Z1234 every day, both ways, your card would deduct the appropriate fare. If your card were to simply continue working, you could end up with, for example, -£50.00 on your oyster card. By which point it'd be cheaper for the customer to buy a new card, meaning they don't need to repay the £50 - as an example. There are reasons behind everything.

 

[londonbridge]

I didn't say I disagree with Mojo,it's tfl policy that I disagree with.

 

[MikeWh]

I didn't say I disagree with Mojo,it's tfl policy that I disagree with.

Do you agree that being able to collect money that is owed is a reasonable thing to do? It's a bit like a library card. If you owe money (late fees etc) then the self service machines won't let you borrow any books automatically, you have to go to the manual desk where you will be asked to pay off the debt. Don't get me wrong, I can understand why you would want to be able to use a travelcard that you have paid for, but TfL need some way of collecting monies owed.

 

[Mojo]

Whilst I do disagree with the "you must always touch in" policy, and realise that it is actually not enforceable (except on buses) as in the same document it says that there is no penalty for not having touched in, I think not being allowed to pass through a gateline if you have a negative balance is fair as there has to be some incentive for you to pay back your money owed! I do wonder if it's a throwback to the days where for a monthly or longer Travelcard you never used to need to pay a deposit, but even so it seems a sensible policy to have even though now you need to pay a deposit.

 

[Mojo]

Whilst I do disagree with the "you must always touch in" policy, and realise that it is actually not enforceable (except on buses) as in the same document it says that there is no penalty for not having touched in, I think not being allowed to pass through a gateline if you have a negative balance is fair as there has to be some incentive for you to pay back your money owed! I do wonder if it's a throwback to the days where for a monthly or longer Travelcard you never used to need to pay a deposit, but even so it seems a sensible policy to have even though now you need to pay a deposit.

 

[RJ]

If I did manage to get on a train with a valid travelcard and a negative payg balance and was threatened with prosecution or a penalty fare my response would simply be "See you in court".

You agree to the CoC by using the Oyster Card in the first place. It's stated that it only becomes a valid means to travel if successfully validated regardless of what is or isn't loaded onto the card. You also would not get through ticket barriers if you had a negative balance.

Given that you've broken the conditions of carriage and refused to give your details/pay a PF, what do you think your chances of success would be in court? I'm assuming that you do have some knowledge/experience of how it all works?

 

[londonbridge]

I just don't think that particular condition is fair or just is my point.

 

[jon0844]

I can see why you could be asked to touch in/out even with a Travelcard if it is used to record information on your travelling patterns (not specifically to track you, but to get an idea of passenger loadings on the tube/bus/tram/rail networks), as well as how to divvy up the revenue on the buses (with individual private operators) as appropriate. Your data would (or could) help future planning on services to meet demand.

But there should be no threat of a PF if you don't touch in/out with an Oyster TC. I certainly don't touch the reader on a bendy bus, but then I've never been on a bus with revenue doing checks.

 

[Daniel]

The threat is from suspicion of irregular travel, to which you're harming your defence by not touching in/out.

It would be very hard to prosecute someone for not touching in on a bus when they have a valid season ticket.

It would be easier to highlight suspicion if you have, for example, a Z56, and usually travel between two South London stations, (or have done that day), and are found in North London without touching in. If you'd touched in at a North London station, there would be no question.

 

[jon0844]

My Oyster is now an annual Z1-3 ticket, combined with a paper Z4-6 ticket.

Therefore I might travel from Z1 to Z6, but touching out would be suicidal for me! I can only touch in, and if I go beyond my ticket validity must switch to the paper ticket.

And the split ticketing is the nonsense I have to do as I can't have a Z1-6 season and a point-to-point season from Z6 to Hatfield, as the train needs to stop at the boundary. To have a ticket all the way is not only more expensive but would force me to use a paper ticket everyday.