From today, Oyster Cards are acceptable on what I refer to as 'British Rail' trains ie choos-choos that aren't part of the Underground (including London Overground) network or DLR or Croydon Tramlink.
Previously, if one held a season ticket one could use it for a train journey as long as one remained in Zone. But as soon as one goes outside Zone, it is technically fare-dodging with a penalty fare - or prosecution. Prosecution is no joke for such an offence, which on a morality scale must rank far below parking on a double yellow line. But has to be declared, even when spent, for some employments.
I recognise that my situation is fairly unusual but not so freakish as to be worth disregarding. Where I live is in Zone 2. Technically, my road is the Zone boundary, which really used to matter when Zones applied to buses, but thankfully Ken Livingstone had the good sense to do away with that.
I live in that part of the Inner City without London Underground. Habitually, I travel into town from Brixton Tube. To get there is half an hour's walk, back is longer because it's up-hill, so, naturally, I tend to get the bus. Late at night I come home via Clapham Common, because of the door-to-door bus and related matters. Clapham South is also about half an hour's walk, and the one infrequent bus still requires a walk home up an incline which is a pain in the wrong shoes or carrying shopping.
My nearest station is Streatham Hill, where ex-BR trains run to and from Victoria via Clapham Junction and also to West Croydon.
I work in the Westminster area so every week or two I end up going home via Victoria, taking in a trip to M&S, Boots, Smiths, Whittards etc . Often, depending on the time, it would be most convenient to jump on a Southern train to Streatham Hill, avoiding the congestion of Victoria Underground, and having a door-to-door bus, or a much shorter walk.
What deters me from doing this is the need to buy a ticket. Not so much the cost as the inconvenience. The majority of people buying tickets from the ticket machine are visitors or infrequent travellers and it's a right pain having to wait behind people who can't work out how the ticket machines work - they aren't intuitive, and I can't really complain, remembering my struggles with one on the S-Bahn in Berlin. So 'hopping on' a train doesn't work.
Working part-time I tend to use the Oyster PAYG with Auto-top up, which caps my daily expenditure, debits my Oyster and then, when the balance falls below £5 credits it with a further £20 direct from my bank account. It works for me - on London Underground and London Buses, as well as on Croydon Tramlink were I to use that.
When I heard that Oyster was going to be extended to trains I was delighted. All my transport dilemmas solved. At Victoria, armed only with an Oyster PAYG, I can hop on the train to Streatham Hill and be home in a satisfying 25 minutes. EPIC WIN, as da kidz on t'interwebz say.
Except, it doesn't work like that.
In order to get that train I will need to get an Oyster Extension Permit, from a source that already sells Oyster Cards, so, presumably not a Southern Ticket machine. Having thought about this, of course I should get one now, so that next time I'm minded to jump on a train, I'm pre-armed. And with a newsagent just a few doors away I have no excuse.
However, you can only get one at a time, so every time I finish a train journey I have to remember to buy another OEP. This is easy if I'm not carrying loads of shopping and the newsagent is open, but realistically, who can remember the next morning? I can't even remember to sew a button back on my coat once I get home!
One of my most recent use of trains was back in September. We caught the train from Streatham Hill to Barnes Bridge, cycled to Richmond and caught another train. It's easy for Jimmy, he's one of those Pushy Pensioners who can go anywhere on their Freedom Pass, but I'm in the unfortunate position of being aged between 16 and 60!
This wasn't a straightforward return journey, and in any case, we didn't know when we set out where we'd end up - if the weather had been better we would probably have got to Kingston. So, each time required buying a ticket. At the time, Streatham Hill had a temporary entrance on a different road from the ticket office; it can be a pain abandoning the bike at Richmond to buy a ticket at something past five.
I have to admit that in the grand scheme these aren't major inconveniences, but surely, in this day and age, the authorities should be removing unnecessary obstacles to travel by Public Transport. Don't lecture me about the 'pointlessness' of having a bike and getting the train - it's the ability to do that that makes the excursions possible, irrespective of some hypothetical ideal.
And it is an unnecessary obstacle, because what does the Permit allow one to do? I don't get it.
It's not a permit to travel without a ticket because I have a ticket, pre-paid and ready to be charged. Why can't the ticket barriers at Victoria MainLine and Streatham Hill work exactly the same as the ones at Victoria Underground/ Brixton? My possession of a valid Oyster with a balance of between £5 and £25 is surely permission enough. I'm giving them access to my bank account, for heaven's sake, so my intentions are absolutely not fraudulent. Perhaps it is to deter me travelling to Brighton - but then, surely, I'd arrive at Brighton (or be inspected on the train) and be found lacking, with all the consequences.
Under the current system, I could face a penalty fare or prosecution for travelling between, say, Victoria and Battersea Park, or Waterloo East and London Bridge, whereas I can happily hop on a train at Heathrow and travel all the way to deepest darkest Essex or Hertfordshire perfectly legitimately as long as I swipe in and swipe out.
It strikes me as being yet another stupid transport wheeze dreamed up by people who don't actually use public transport. Just as foolish as designing buses with windows that don't actually allow a through breeze - and yet another idiot is set to introduce air-conditioning on these buses, whereas slidey windows would do the trick, like they used to.
They realised with ticket machines and ATMs that what may work on paper doesn't actually work when real people with no prior knowledge are let loose on them, so they get in actors to replicate what normal people do. There is another mechanism, called public consultation, but why do that when you can pay hundreds of thousands to 'consultants' to bugger about and come up with something stupid.
We've ben promised the Underground round here since the First World War, and there's even a plot of land set aside for a station a hop, skip and a jump away from Gert Cottage. It's unlikely ever to happen because of the disproportionate cost of building the infrastructure. So a far more sensible approach is to integrate and make accessible the existing means of transport.
Just before I moved to the area, they doubled the number of trains through Streatham Hill (under the Tories surprisingly, but pre-privatisation), thereby exponentially increasing their usage - quarter of an hour frequencies encourage people to turn up and wait, half an hour doesn't (source Lambeth Public Transport Group, sometime in the 90s)
It's going to take a lot more to really make public transport accessible - I don't know if Streatham Hill refurbishment is complete, and whether it includes lifts. But accessibility isn't just about the physical environment, although that is important. It is about enabling people to use the network spontaneously without the need for pre-planning. The system already allows for integration, because of in-zone season tickets and Freedom Passes, so what is the problem with out-of-zone and other PAYG, especially with auto top-up?
I hope that this OEP is only a temporary measure, until Boris and his cronies realise that it adds no value, and introduces no controls that don't already exist. I suspect they have bent over to please the Train Operating Companies without anyone having the nous to ask 'what is the purpose?'
