Possible end to paper tickets in South East?

[hwl]

What does that mean? There are already common contactless fares of around £30 and have been for some time e.g. Reading to Euston Underground at £27.50.

Extension on other lines will be limited to Reading type equivalents.

Reading will stay GWML limit not Oxford as suggested above. Most are the same that diagram above, some further out some further in.

 

[FenMan]

Extension on other lines will be limited to Reading type equivalents.

Reading will stay GWML limit not Oxford as suggested above. Most are the same that diagram above, some further out some further in.

I'll be surprised if the non-interchange stations on the North Downs Line, apart from Reigate, are included in this phase. The potential for a ticketing nightmare would be significant.

 

[hwl]

I'll be surprised if the non-interchange stations on the North Downs Line, apart from Reigate, are included in this phase. The potential for a ticketing nightmare would be significant.

All of North Downs is included in the proposal (and Reading via SWR routes).
Guildford, Farnborough and Alton being the main SWR boundary outer limit stations

 

[Ken H]

I can see this being a disincentive to use the train. I look up the fare online from little puddle wick to london. Cheap fare of £20, anytime fare of £45. One is reasonable, one isnt. But then I have to trust the system to charge me the £20 fare. I would not want the hassle of trying to get my £45 back. So if there is no ticket office or TVM I would probably not go or drive. There is a big trust thing in giving the railway your card no with an open amount takeable at the end of the day.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I can see this being a disincentive to use the train. I look up the fare online from little puddle wick to london. Cheap fare of £20, anytime fare of £45. One is reasonable, one isnt. But then I have to trust the system to charge me the £20 fare. I would not want the hassle of trying to get my £45 back. So if there is no ticket office or TVM I would probably not go or drive. There is a big trust thing in giving the railway your card no with an open amount takeable at the end of the day.

This doesn't seem to bother hundreds of thousands of people a day on the Tube.

 

[Starmill]

This doesn't seem to bother hundreds of thousands of people a day on the Tube.

To be fair if you're only using LU it's very difficult to do anything that's mega expensive.

 

[Bletchleyite]

To be fair if you're only using LU it's very difficult to do anything that's mega expensive.

It is, but if you don't trust it at all surely you'll be worrying it's just going to randomly charge you an anytime single to Reading at nearly £30.

 

[JonathanH]

I'll be surprised if the non-interchange stations on the North Downs Line, apart from Reigate, are included in this phase. The potential for a ticketing nightmare would be significant.

All of North Downs is included in the proposal (and Reading via SWR routes).

It will be interesting to see how the differential fares for Reading to Gatwick direct and Reading to Gatwick via Farringdon (no gateline passed) are managed. Presumably the best that can be done is a pink reader at platforms 4-6 at Reading, as is done for journeys via the North London Line from Stratford.

Equally, something like Wokingham to London destinations is currently cheaper via Staines than going first into Reading.

Perhaps the obvious move is a separate gateline for platforms 4-6 at Reading.

 

[johncrossley]

How far are they planning to go towards Brighton? Any further than Gatwick you have separate Thameslink only fares at the moment.

 

[Starmill]

How far are they planning to go towards Brighton? Any further than Gatwick you have separate Thameslink only fares at the moment.

Even short journeys like Croydon to Gatwick Airport have Thameslink Only tickets.

 

[Alex365Dash]

Perhaps the obvious move is a separate gateline for platforms 4-6 at Reading.

Reading platforms 4-6 are also used by SWR London services, thereby not solving the problem to journeys via Clapham Junction, where there’s no gateline between Windsor line platforms and Brighton Main Line platforms.

Will be interesting to see what happens in this case.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It will be interesting to see how the differential fares for Reading to Gatwick direct and Reading to Gatwick via Farringdon (no gateline passed) are managed. Presumably the best that can be done is a pink reader at platforms 4-6 at Reading, as is done for journeys via the North London Line from Stratford.

Equally, something like Wokingham to London destinations is currently cheaper via Staines than going first into Reading.

Perhaps the obvious move is a separate gateline for platforms 4-6 at Reading.

If it's an extension of TfL's system, which it seems it is, then using TfL's system is clearly going to be the best way. That is, the more expensive route will be assumed, but if you always touch a pink reader when you see one this will ensure the cheaper route. Touching pink readers is always optional, but you are motivated to do so because it might give you a cheaper fare.

 

[Starmill]

Reading platforms 4-6 are also used by SWR London services, thereby not solving the problem to journeys via Clapham Junction, where there’s no gateline between Windsor line platforms and Brighton Main Line platforms.

Will be interesting to see what happens in this case.

I imagine there are already people using contactless for Reading to Clapham Junction and similar journeys even though it's not permitted to do so using the SWR services. The price is less than the price for going to London Paddington too.

If it's an extension of TfL's system, which it seems it is, then using TfL's system is clearly going to be the best way. That is, the more expensive route will be assumed, but if you always touch a pink reader when you see one this will ensure the cheaper route.

Would your suggestion be a pink reader onboard all of GWR's trains that can work on the North Downs line then?

 

[Ken H]

This doesn't seem to bother hundreds of thousands of people a day on the Tube.

Not silly money like some of the national rail journeys being talked about here.

 

[BayPaul]

Reading platforms 4-6 are also used by SWR London services, thereby not solving the problem to journeys via Clapham Junction, where there’s no gateline between Windsor line platforms and Brighton Main Line platforms.

Will be interesting to see what happens in this case.

As far as I'm aware, TfL don't currently look at timetables when deciding what fare to charge, but I can't see that it would be impossible to do so - i.e. it charges you for the cheapest route it would have been possible to do in the time from touch in to touch out.
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There hasn't been a lot of discussion about how two together, groupsave and similar discounts could be applied. Again, just thinking aloud, it would seem possible to link several cards together in your online account, and then if both cards make the same journey (touching in and out at the same stations within 10 mins of each other for example) the discounts would be automatically applied by the back end.

 

[Horizon22]

If it's an extension of TfL's system, which it seems it is, then using TfL's system is clearly going to be the best way. That is, the more expensive route will be assumed, but if you always touch a pink reader when you see one this will ensure the cheaper route. Touching pink readers is always optional, but you are motivated to do so because it might give you a cheaper fare.

Not sure how that could work at Reading when you could get to a London terminal by two means without changing - just that one (Waterloo) is a lot slower. Where exactly would the link reader be?

Reading is an odd case but not the only one - Cambridge and Orpington are others off the top of my head.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not sure how that could work at Reading when you could get to a London terminal by two means without changing - just that one (Waterloo) is a lot slower. Where exactly would the link reader be?

It would know which London terminal you went to, and therefore which route you took, by which London terminal (or Crossrail station) you touched out at.

 

[Horizon22]

It would know which London terminal you went to, and therefore which route you took, by which London terminal (or Crossrail station) you touched out at.

Fine, but that will require a complete revamping of the London Terminals concept.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Fine, but that will require a complete revamping of the London Terminals concept.

Why? It's just a backoffice calculation.

 

[BayPaul]

If it's an extension of TfL's system, which it seems it is, then using TfL's system is clearly going to be the best way. That is, the more expensive route will be assumed, but if you always touch a pink reader when you see one this will ensure the cheaper route. Touching pink readers is always optional, but you are motivated to do so because it might give you a cheaper fare.

It will be interesting to see how the differential fares for Reading to Gatwick direct and Reading to Gatwick via Farringdon (no gateline passed) are managed. Presumably the best that can be done is a pink reader at platforms 4-6 at Reading, as is done for journeys via the North London Line from Stratford.

In a case like this, I would be very surprised if the fare is not just set at the lowest sensible option (which I believe is the GWR direct service), and if you take a different route that doesn't pass through barriers then you are not penalised. That would be consistent with the way it tends to work on TfL routes like this at the moment I believe.

Fine, but that will require a complete revamping of the London Terminals concept.

I think that PAYG effectively makes the London Terminals concept redundant anyway, other than for setting prices. You are charged for the journey you made, to the terminal you went to. It may be that going to a different terminal would have been the same price (so effectively you have bought a London Terminals single ticket), or it may have been a different price (like tickets from Reading to Waterloo could be cheaper than to Paddington)

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think that PAYG effectively makes the London Terminals concept redundant anyway, other than for setting prices. You are charged for the journey you made, to the terminal you went to. It may be that going to a different terminal would have been the same price (so effectively you have bought a London Terminals single ticket), or it may have been a different price (like tickets from Reading to Waterloo could be cheaper than to Paddington)

Yes, true. The whole point of "X Terminals"/"X Stations" is to offer you flexibility in which you arrive at and leave from, primarily for return tickets. Single fare pricing makes it vastly less important (because you just buy it once you know, and almost nobody will change their mind mid journey outside of disruption when flexibility is offered anyway), and PAYG renders it completely redundant because you're charged based on what you did.

London has continued with a zonal system, but that is also effectively redundant, because you can just be charged based on point to point fares based on where you touched in/out. The Dutch system by contrast is kilometric, they got rid of zones.

 

[hwl]

How far are they planning to go towards Brighton? Any further than Gatwick you have separate Thameslink only fares at the moment.

Brighton

 

[Haywain]

Brighton

I think Cambridge was mentioned but what about the Peterborough line?

 

[paul1609]

This doesn't seem to bother hundreds of thousands of people a day on the Tube.

We already have Keygo on GTR over an area from Warblington to Bexhill on the coastway up to Foxton on the Cambridge line, Huntingdon on the Peterborough Line, Bedford, and Harrow on the WCML. It also does Govia Bus routes in Surrey and Sussex.
It can't take much to transfer those fares to contactless. My experiences have been limited of it so far but they also been spot on so far.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Even if sillies occur, it's fairly easy to have an IT system sanity check and correct them. If for some reason a touch in at Paddington, then a touch out at Reading, then 10 minutes later a touch in at Ealing Broadway, then it's obvious that something has gone wrong. If you're willing to give passengers the lowest possibility in such situations (and automatically log it to find out why) - i.e. in this case that they did not in fact go to Reading but Ealing Broadway - then nobody will really be upset.

One thing that would also help, though it's a new tech one, would be to have a display on any gatelines/readers showing whether a touch in at that point would be peak or off peak. That does require standardising what constitutes peak, but that would be a good thing in the SE anyway.

 

[JonathanH]

It can't take much to transfer those fares to contactless.

It isn't the TfL structure though which is all based on single fares and concentric caps which assume everyone making multiple journeys travels into London Zone 1.

If the TfL model is enacted, you would imagine it easier to align keygo to Contactless than the other way round.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It isn't the TfL structure though which is all based on single fares and concentric caps which assume everyone making multiple journeys travels into London Zone 1.

If the TfL model is enacted, you would imagine it easier to align keygo to Contactless than the other way round.

I don't know how TfL have implemented it, but I don't doubt that somewhere in it is a table of station pairs against zones crossed by that journey so as to work it out, you'd just effectively be adding more "zones".

 

[FenMan]

Yes, true. The whole point of "X Terminals"/"X Stations" is to offer you flexibility in which you arrive at and leave from, primarily for return tickets. Single fare pricing makes it vastly less important (because you just buy it once you know, and almost nobody will change their mind mid journey outside of disruption when flexibility is offered anyway), and PAYG renders it completely redundant because you're charged based on what you did.

London has continued with a zonal system, but that is also effectively redundant, because you can just be charged based on point to point fares based on where you touched in/out. The Dutch system by contrast is kilometric, they got rid of zones.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of fares from stations beyond Paddington to destinations beyond Reading (using permitted routes) valid for travel during the peak where the through fares are lower than the price of GWR's peak fares between Reading and Paddington. There may be trouble ahead.

Coming back to the non-interchange North Downs Line stations - AFAIK none have yellow or pink readers excepting (possibly) the handful of stations served by the SWR services between Wokingham - Reading and Aldershot South Junction - Guildford, plus Reigate.

My local station, Blackwater, has an ITSO button on the home screen of the TVMs, but the reliability of these machines is poor, so it would be optimistic to rely on them alone. Sandhurst doesn't have a TVM (and likely never will, due to its location) while Farnborough North does not have an accessible TVM for passengers arriving on Platform 1 via the cycle path from Frimley Green. Determining the correct fares for many journeys to/from NDL stations could be "interesting" unless pink readers are installed at all NDL interchange stations.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of fares from stations beyond Paddington to destinations beyond Reading (using permitted routes) valid for travel during the peak where the through fares are lower than the price of GWR's peak fares between Reading and Paddington. There may be trouble ahead.

On my other PC I'm presently working on a database which has a table with 2 million records in it. Querying those records on an indexed key pair takes a fraction of a second.

Technology has caught up, you know!

 

[JonathanH]

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of fares from stations beyond Paddington to destinations beyond Reading (using permitted routes) valid for travel during the peak where the through fares are lower than the price of GWR's peak fares between Reading and Paddington. There may be trouble ahead.

You can see why a change of fare structure to one based simply on where people touch in and touch out might be attractive to the DfT and rail operators.

Sandhurst doesn't have a TVM (and likely never will, due to its location)

I seem to recall that it did once have one but it didn't last long due to vandalism.

Determining the correct fares for many journeys to/from NDL stations could be "interesting" unless pink readers are installed at all NDL interchange stations.

Presumably this sort of planning will be part of the work covered by the tender to implement the system.