Notice of Intention to Prosecute. Cant Sleep

[MikeWh]

Some further clarification on the issue at Finsbury Park. I made an almost identical journey to this one earlier in the week. I touched out at the validator at the top of the spiral staircase from the Victoria line platforms. It beeped once, showed a green light and displayed "Exit", my balance and £1 deduction in brackets. £1 was all I needed to cap for the day so was correct. 11 minutes later I touched in again at the validator at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the Kings Cross bound platforms (1/2 IIRC). It beeped once again, showed a green light ... so far so good ... and repeated the same Exit message with the same balance and the same £1 deduction message. The green light and the single beep would be all that 99% of passengers would want to see/hear, especially if they are in a hurry, or tired, etc etc. I then ran up the stairs because my train was just arriving. I spent the short journey to Kings Cross composing myself in case there were gates and RPIs because I knew I might get a penalty fare. When I got there the gates were open and un-manned (whew). I touched out anyway (out of curiosity) and yet again it beeped once, showed a green light, the same balance again and the same £1 deduction! I then needed to wait 20+ minutes before continuing because I couldn't risk a circular journey had OSIs joined my entire journey together. I spent some of the time at an LUL POM where I examined my journey history. It showed three journeys, two from Crayford to Finsbury Park at no charge and finally Crayford to Kings Cross charging £1. I've requested an email statement which I'm sure will only show one journey, but it hasn't arrived yet. However, my online journey history does show all three touches out. Here's an extract:

 

I spent quite a while discussing this issue with a supervisor on the Oyster helpdesk on Thursday. He said that the issue at Finsbury Park is well known and TfL RPIs would certainly take it into consideration. He also suggested that FCC RPIs ought to be aware of the situation.

Edited March 20, 2011 by MikeWh

[Wriggler7]

All very fascinating stuff. An issue that I have a curiosity about is: Is it possible to somehow 'fry' the chip in an oyster card? Let us suppose that a passenger has touched in correctly, but by the time he finishes his journey, the Oyster has 'died'? Is it susceptable to any form of microwave or magnetic interferance? We all know that an electromagnetic pulse following nuclear detonation will damage chips, I rather doubt that I will ever have to defend a passenger who's Oyster was damaged in that way, but is there anything else that will do it?

 

I must confess that my knowledge of electronic engineering ceased to be current around about when Tessler started work, so the effect of, for example, a 'knife arch' or a 'passenger scanning' entry position at an airport on an embedded chip in an Oyster is a bit beyond me.

[Mistralee]

All very fascinating stuff. An issue that I have a curiosity about is: Is it possible to somehow 'fry' the chip in an oyster card? Let us suppose that a passenger has touched in correctly, but by the time he finishes his journey, the Oyster has 'died'? Is it susceptable to any form of microwave or magnetic interferance? We all know that an electromagnetic pulse following nuclear detonation will damage chips, I rather doubt that I will ever have to defend a passenger who's Oyster was damaged in that way, but is there anything else that will do it?

 

I must confess that my knowledge of electronic engineering ceased to be current around about when Tessler started work, so the effect of, for example, a 'knife arch' or a 'passenger scanning' entry position at an airport on an embedded chip in an Oyster is a bit beyond me.

 

I've been told by a tfl rpi that keeping your Oyster card near your mobile phone could temporarily do something like this but that eventually it would go back to normal. It would be interesting to know if anything had more lasting effects.

[The Urbanite]

Would it have any bearing on the case if the RPI breached byelaws himself in getting my information? e.g. He refused to show me ID, only wrote down his first name and ID number.

 

As a member of revenue staff I'm only obliged to show my badge - this consists of my photograph, collector ID and some necessary legal wording. As a general employee I'm obliged to wear a name badge which shows only my first name, so it sounds like the RPI has played by the rules.

 

I agree with MikeWh with regards to doubling back. I've read the TfLCoC and Oyster on NRCoU. It is forbidden to leave the system without touching out when using PAYG. Both say that you need not touch out unless you're going out of the system so it can be deduced that doubling back is permitted so long as you stay within the station. Besides, the vector law AC + CB = AB applies if C only has standing validators and you are not at C for long enough for the readers to consider AC as completed. However the routing has zero impact on AB's cost or time limit. You could do AC - CD - DE - EF - FB and the system will continue to consider your journey to be AB unless you exceed the maximum time limit of AD, AE or AF, in which case it will charge an uncompleted Entry at A and an unstarted Exit at D, E or F. Unfortunately the system doesn't automatically split journeys to prevent this happening.

 

I'm not too sure on the physical properties of the Oyster Card. I had a 16+ Zip Card until recently which was validated on average 25-30 times a day, it never "fried" though. It stopped working numerous times, namely due to loading multiple discounts at the same time (16+ FTE, NR Railcard) and was showing "Table Error" messages when validating, apparently it's all been fixed now if the Getting around with discounts leaflet is anything to go by. The things are pretty durable, I imagine exposure to extreme temperatures and strong magnetic fields and of course bending could damage them however.

[Grotesque]

Besides, the vector law AC + CB = AB applies if C only has standing validators and you are not at C for long enough for the readers to consider AC as completed. However the routing has zero impact on AB's cost or time limit. You could do AC - CD - DE - EF - FB

 

Nice one. Couldn't have put it any clearer myself.

[SRPO]

Would it have any bearing on the case if the RPI breached byelaws himself in getting my information? e.g. He refused to show me ID, only wrote down his first name and ID number.

 

The requirement for ID is:

 

An authorised person who is exercising any power conferred on him by any of these Byelaws shall produce a form of identification when requested to do so and such identification shall state the name of his employer and shall contain a means of identifying the authorised person.

 

If the person is wearing a name badge then it is deemed that the ID has already been produced before the request is made & therefore byelaw 20(3) is complied with.

As the person wrote down his first name & ID number for you I would suggest that he has gone beyond what is actually required.

[The Urbanite]

Nice one. Couldn't have put it any clearer myself.

 

Point taken. It's impossible to explain both accurately and succinctly.

 

For simplicity, there's a geneal rule with Oyster - the price and time limit between two stations, regardless of the route taken, is fixed. The price and time limit varies according to the time you travel.

 

For anyone wishing to know a little more, the price and time limit between two stations, regardless of the route taken, is fixed. This includes if an Out of Station Interchange was made during the journey. If you make a journey via a circuituous route, or one which involves numerous OSIs, you will be charged for two incomplete journeys.

 

Neither of those statements is 100% accurate, but how does one explain accurately without going into the intricacies of OSIs, Entry/Exit Charges, NR/TfL/Through fare fares structures, time limit formulae, continuation entries/exits, peak/off peak fares, "against flow" fares, 'Not London' route validators and so on? Some RPIs who (understandably) don't understand how Oyster works will just Penalty Fare/prosecute customers just to be on the safe side. I've certainly been on both sides of the fence. It's not appropriate to make RPIs have a degree in Oyster technology to carry out their job - but a modicum of common sense and discretion should surely be applied when dealing with customers with an Oyster Card.

 

I don't wish to deviate from the topic too much - it's deeply upsetting that an RPI's lack of knowledge/discretion can lead to a customer getting a criminal record. TfL know that customers erroneously validate en route at interchange stations. They've addressed this by programming the system to disregard validations it deems to have been made at an intermediate stage of a journey. Given the error would have been corrected upon validation at Harringay, is Mistralee actually in violation of Byelaw 18, objectively speaking?