Firstly, it appears that the Mayor’s ambassadors will be getting normal blue Oyster cards with an amount of PAYG credit to cover their expected travel needs.  These cards should then function as any other adult Oyster afterwards.

The other volunteers called gamesmakers will be getting a special “2012 Ceremonies Volunteer” design.  These cards will come pre-loaded with either a travelcard or an amount of PAYG credit to cover required travel.  It will not be possible to add additional credit or travelcards to these special issue Oysters and they will be deactivated (hotlisted) once they are no longer required.  They are also only valid when used alongside an official accreditation pass explaining what role the holder is performing.  They are issued by LOCOG and any problems need to be reported back to LOCOG.

The type of card (PAYG or travelcard) should be detailed in the covering letter, although they can be interrogated at any Oyster enabled ticket machine.  If they have PAYG credit then the remaining balance will also be confirmed at touch out on each journey unless it is at very old gates at some Underground stations.  As with all PAYG Oyster cards, you must touch in and out at both ends of every rail journey. If coming from outside the Oyster area on a paper ticket you will need to change trains at the station where you switch from paper to Oyster.

If they have a travelcard stored on them then they can be used on through trains from outside the travelcard area as long as NRCoC 19 is satisfied.  This states that two or more tickets can be used for one journey providing that (a) the train calls at the stations where travel switches from one ticket to another, or (b) one ticket is a season (which the travelcard is) and the other(s) are not, or (c) both tickets are zonal.  The travelcard is zonal, so if a season is available to boundary zone 6 then both tickets are zonal and the fact that they are both seasons is immaterial.  Within the zones covered by your travelcard there is no penalty for not touching in or out, so there is no need to get off the train just to touch your Oyster.

Remember also that a travelcard gives you free travel on any TfL operated bus, even those that run outside the travelcard zones.

I’ve had a couple of questions about these Oyster cards which are being supplied to volunteers who are helping visitors to London and the games during the Olympics.  As far as I can tell they are simply a travelcard covering zones 1-6 for the duration of the work as an ambassador.  There may well be special arrangements for people working at airports outside zones 1-6, but this post attempts to answer questions about the standard scenario where the work is in Central London or a games venue within zones 1-6.

If you also live within zones 1-6, or will be driving to a station within zones 1-6, then they will basically give you free travel on all rail, tube, dlr, buses and trams within the zones.  They work just like any adult Oyster card with a travelcard loaded on it.  Although you are supposed to touch in and out at each end of every rail journey, there is no penalty for not doing so within your zones.  So if the station is un-gated or the gates are open you are allowed to walk through without touching the card.  You must always touch in on a bus because the driver needs to know you have a valid travelcard on your Oyster.

The questions are arising where people live outside zones 1-6.  These are some of the things to bear in mind:

• You also get free bus travel on some TfL-operated routes outside the zones, for example the 96, 428 and 492 buses are all included all the way out to Bluewater.
• These Oyster cards are special limited use cards which will not allow PAYG credit to be added.  This means that they cannot be used on rail services in zones 7-9, Watford Junction or the Grays group of stations.  You will need to buy paper tickets to get to zone 6 as per the next point.
• If you wish to travel from outside the whole Oyster area then you will need a paper ticket to get to zone 6.  If your paper ticket is also a season ticket (valid for 7 days or more) then the train MUST call at the station where you switch from using the paper ticket to the travelcard on Oyster.  This may restrict the choice of trains somewhat, so you might make a trade-off between using the first station in zone 6 (eg Harold Wood) and one slightly further in (eg Romford) where more trains stop.  However, if your paper ticket is a day ticket (either off-peak or anytime) then there is no requirement for the train to stop where the tickets change over.
• Whether you use a season (so the train has to stop) or a day ticket, there is no need to get off the train to touch in or out.  This is because you are only using the Oyster within the zones covered so there is no penalty for not touching at either or both ends of the journey.

I hope this helps answer any questions you may have, but please do not hesitate to post a comment if there is anything else you want to know.

I’m quite surprised to learn that these cards will be hotlisted after the games so that they will no longer work.  I can’t quite understand the rationale behind this as it seems like a terrible waste of RFID technology.  Perhaps the fact that these cards will not have a deposit attached to them makes the potential for losses after the event too great.

Fortunately I had an Oyster card with just £2.50 on it which was enough for a zone 1-2 tube journey, but not a lot more.  I touched in at the Praed Street entrance and it confirmed my balance and said Entry.  So far so good.  I then followed the signs for the Hammersmith and City line and sure enough they led me to the gateline at the exit to The Lawn on Paddington NR station.  As I touched out the system told me I’d spent £4.60 and had a balance of -£2.10.  Undetered I made my way to platforms 15 and 16.  At the next gate it confirmed my balance at -£2.10 and beeped with a green light.  Ignoring the negative balance I caught the next train to Whitechapel and went to touch out.  Nervously I placed the card on the reader, fearing the worst.  I needn’t have worried though, the system told me that my balance was 50p and I’d spent £2.00 on the journey.  Magic!

So, what are the conclusions.  On the plus-side it confirms that in the majority of cases you are not overcharged.  There are two issues which cloud the picture though.  If you take longer than 2 minutes to walk between Praed Street and The Lawn the charge becomes £2 which is not refunded.  It does count towards the daily cap, so you still may not be overcharged, but there is a chance you might.  Also, if you take longer than 45 minutes to get between The Lawn and the H&C gateline then the whole £4.60 (or £6.90 in the peak) will remain deducted and not count towards the daily cap.  Ouch!

There are a number of things that TfL could do to alleviate this issue:

1. Train their staff (and the Paddington FGW/NR staff) to properly explain what has happened.  If the charge was a full £4.60 or £6.90 then they can re-assure passengers that it will be corrected at the next touch out.  If the charge was £2.00 then they can suggest visiting the Underground ticket office for a refund if the passenger won’t reach the cap.
2. Change the programming so that the second entry cancels the charge before displaying the balance.  This would re-assure passengers sooner that there isn’t a problem.
3. Longer term I believe that there should be a new facility at stations like Paddington and Waterloo where a touch out at a different gateline from the touch in incurs no charge as long as it happens within, say 5 minutes.  This could also happen when people use the platforms at Blackfriars NR as a bridge across the river.  There is a precedent where walking through Southwark station from Waterloo East to the street or vice versa does not incur a charge.

Hopefully the result of this story in the media will be some positive changes to the Oyster system, but I can’t help feeling sad that the lack of a clear explanation to the reporters has resulted in a very negative story which could damage the reputation of Oyster.

I’ve had reports of this happening at Marylebone, Tower Hill, Stratford, Lewisham, and most recently Blackfriars NR where my 16-year old son had an issue which put him at the mercy of Southeastern RPIs later on in the day.  I sent TfL a FOI request to try and work out what was going on, but all they can say is that it’s probably emergency OSIs which by default allow re-entry and continuation of journey.  The trouble is that in some of these cases there was no obvious emergency to justify an EOSI.

I have fed back a response to the FOI request saying that it is very worrying when unexpected behaviour ends up with a penalty fare being issued.  I will also be following up my son’s experience with the helpdesk trying to find out exactly what went wrong.

They are still collecting feedback and actively responding to it.  There are even some features which are already earmarked for a future version, including more detail about how the charges are calculated, ability to sort and/or filter journeys, download to a PDF file and request a statement via email – presumably instantaneous rather than the current 2-3 day delay.

Perhaps the most useful addition is left to a single line at the bottom of the future improvements list.  It says “Option to request adjustments to some pay as you go charges”.  If this reduces the need to call the helpdesk to resolve issues then it will be a very worthwhile addition.  I’ll be watching this one very closely.

The journey history page on this site will be updated shortly once I’ve had a chance to grab screen prints.

Dear Helpdesk,

A visitor to my website has stumbled across a gap in the fares table for some journeys in North London.  If you travel from any of Canonbury, Dalston Junction, Haggerston, Hoxton, Dalston Kingsland,  Hackney Central, Homerton or Hackney Wick to Northern Line stations north of Mornington Crescent via either Camden Road/Town or Kentish Town/West then you will be erroneously charged as if you had gone via zone 1 (Highbury & Islington and Euston).  If you travel from either Stratford or Highbury & Islington you are correctly offered an avoiding zone 1 fare if you use either of the above OSIs.

I’d be grateful if you could confirm when this anomaly can be corrected by and whether there is anything that any passengers affected by the issue can do to redress the overcharge.

Kind Regards,

Mike,
www.oyster-rail.org.uk