U.K. and Ireland - London City Airport DLR - are the oyster card readers obvious enough?

OK, so I flew into LCY last night. I'm not a regular and had had a very busy day of meetings oop North.

I had 1 minute to catch the train, next one was 7 mins behind it and I was on a mission to get across London to catch my rather infrequent train home.

Needless to say I didn't touch in with my oystercard and sods law, there was a ticket inspector on the train. He got to me at Canning Town, I apologies profusely, touched out and back in at the gates at Canning town & still made the next Jubilee line train.

Thing is, I don't actually recall seeing the readers anywhere (I know they are there as I used them last month...). What's more, the DLR looks awfully like the sort of shuttle train you get at an airport, whilst with other airport trains like the HEX you can buy your ticket on board.

Is it just me, or should the station at LCY be positively screaming at you to make sure you touch in & out?

I agree, I've often had to do a double-back to get them. It doesn't help that you're often in a rush at the station, and want to get past the crowds that form in the little bottleneck where the readers are located.

A set at the top of the escalators would be helpful.

Contact TFL (https://custserv.tfl.gov.uk/icss_csip/init.do) to make a complaint/suggestion. They do read it, trust me they have a massive team who do actually read all emails. If you don't tell them they won't know - and even if they do know they need lots of people before they can do anything because even moving a pen from one desk to another takes a mountain of paperwork!!

Good luck!!

I missed them too, the one time I used the DLR at City. Couldn't see anything obvious at the entrance, or on the platform, so I assumed there must be readers on the train.

Thankfully, it was in the days when you just got a slap on the wrist for such indiscretions. Now they send a gang of masked men round to the house of anyone who doesn't touch in.

Now they send a gang of masked men round to the house of anyone who doesn't touch in.Or rather they require you to remortgage your house when you apply for an oyster card so that they can repossess it if you have an incomplete journey due to failing to touch in or out.

Brigher yellow required?

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4043/4355538433_ca9cff8685.jpg
(These are from Shadwell DLR, but I think the big yellow decals are on the readers across the network)

I find I do have to go out of my way to find them as well. I have seen myself running back down the stairs when I remembered I hadn't touched in.

The Oyster Card readers at London City station are in a ludicrous position and there have been innumerable complaints and comments about them. They are at the bottom of the escalators hidden behind a pillar facing in the opposite direction to people coming in (so they face those coming out). Eventually an additional one was provided, but in an even more obscure location.

If your only previous experience of the DLR was going out on it from Tower Gateway station TO the airport, you will know that the entry readers are at the top of the escalator, as you enter the platform. Whereas at the airport they are at the bottom of the escalator, not obvious, and there is nothing at the top at all.

Now the technical bit. When the readers were installed, the driving force behind where to site them was convenience of an electrical supply to them. Nothing to do with what makes them obvious. So if the electrician found the current position for them the easiest for wiring them up, that is where they went.

Of course, if they had been installing a London Transport special sign to show they were having a Good Service today (displayed permanently whether true or not), there would be no budgetary restrictions at all to mounting it in the most prominent position on the station as possible, with whatever electrical work might be needed to floodlight it elegantly.

The conductors on the DLR trains who are meant to check all tickets as you go along (yes, on a six coach train in the rush hour with no throughout corridor !) actually are a reasonable bunch and are well aware of the shortfall at LCY station (and some others), and they are good at sizing up those confused agains real fare-dodgers, and will just ask you to get out and touch in. This doesn't apply to the periodic ticket inspection "snatch squads", for whom duty on the LCY line must be Corn from Egypt for the number of fines they can write out. By the way, the regular train conductors hate these people.

They absolutely are in a daft place. I have had to ask before and the DLR agent conceded that they are not very well placed. I too went to the top of the escalator and realised I was in the DLR "sterile ticket zone"

To make matters worse (insider info from the DLR tea-break rooms) DLR train captains have revenue enforcement targets (something like 10 penalties per month) They don't much like having this target so actually endeavour to do it at LCY where the catch rates are higher because a) The machines are hidden and b) The trains are full of Johnny Foreigners that are mildly disorientated. Hitting their target at LCY is better than say at bank where regular travellers have period passes.

So not only are the oyster swipers stupidly placed at LCY, your chances of getting nabbed for it are also much higher.

Thanks for the sympathetic hearing!

I've sent TFL some feedback on this and would encourage others to do so as well.

https://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/contact/dlr/default.asp

This thread just about sums up everything you need to know about officialdom in England in the early 21st century. Ordinary people are there to be hassled and fined into poverty and submission.

The conductors on the DLR trains who are meant to check all tickets as you go along (yes, on a six coach train in the rush hour with no throughout corridor !) actually are a reasonable bunch and are well aware of the shortfall at LCY station (and some others)

I don't think you'll find many 6-coach trains on the DLR!

Amusing post though ^

I don't think you'll find many 6-coach trains on the DLR!

Sure you will. They may call them 3-car, but to most normal people they're 6, because each car is in two articulated halves.

A set at the top of the escalators would be helpful.
A brilliant suggestion, namely because I would have said the exact same thing. :)

Thanks for the sympathetic hearing!

I've sent TFL some feedback on this and would encourage others to do so as well.

https://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/contact/dlr/default.asp
Letter submitted!

A brilliant suggestion [readers at the top of the escalator], namely because I would have said the exact same thing.

Knowing the configuration of the station, this has almost certainly been nixed by the Health & Safety Mafia, on the grounds that the distance between the top of the escalator and where they imagine any queue might be is inadequate.

Besides which, it's a very profitable arrangement for London Transport. If you don't manage to touch in, but then change onto the Underground at Canning Town (like our OP Swiss Tony did), and then have to touch out in Central London, you automatically get fined what, £5 now, on your Oyster card, for an "incomplete journey". Plus London Transport can use all the "incomplete journeys" detected to pretend they were all fare fraudsters that their skill has detected, which makes for such an exciting report in the news every year.

Besides which, it's a very profitable arrangement for London Transport. If you don't manage to touch in, but then change onto the Underground at Canning Town (like our OP Swiss Tony did), and then have to touch out in Central London, you automatically get fined what, £5 now, on your Oyster card, for an "incomplete journey".

FWIW, the gate at Canning Town deducted £4.60 from my card (I checked). I then had another £2 plus some p deducted when I exited the station in zone 1.

The incomplete charge is between £4.60 and £6.70 depending on whether it's peak or not, I think.

I can't say I agree with the location issues of the LCY Oyster readers. They are just before the red line delineating the entrance to the compulsory ticket area. There is also a woman there most mornings inspecting people's cards and telling them to touch in/out.

Somewhere around 3% of TFL journeys are incomplete, which is a tremendously high number. I wonder though are they including Travelcards on that — if you touch in or out within the zones of a Travelcard on your Oyster but not at the other end, there is no charge. This is partially a legacy thing because Travelcards on Oyster were valid before pay-as-you-go at a lot of stations (full PAYG within the zones is only around since January 2010) and partially to allow for people using Travelcards on Oyster plus a Boundary Zone ticket on a fast train.

I can't say I agree with the location issues of the LCY Oyster readers. They are just before the red line delineating the entrance to the compulsory ticket area. There is also a woman there most mornings inspecting people's cards and telling them to touch in/out.


I wasn't looking for a red line, though! I was looking at the overhead monitors telling me the first train was in 1 minute and the next one was in 8!

I can't say I agree with the location issues of the LCY Oyster readers. They are just before the red line delineating the entrance to the compulsory ticket area.
I think you will find that 99% of the non-train-buff users, including most daily travellers, have no idea about any red line on the floor.

There is also a woman there most mornings inspecting people's cards and telling them to touch in/out.I have never seen this, but surely the need for such a member of staff on an ostensibly fully-automated system tells something.

Somewhere around 3% of TFL journeys are incomplete.I do believe that a significant number of these occur due to various equipment failures - certainly most of mine that turn up do so - rather than any misuse. I believe that the various "Out of station interchanges" are the most notorious for miscalculating this, and there have been umpteen software patches over time to try and address this.

I agree, the Oyster Card readers are not very obvious. Moreover, for people who are non-regular users of the system, it may well not even be obvious (therefore) that they need to do anything at all.

Add to this the inherent difficulties at airport railway stations (people just arrived in the city/country, people with lots of luggage, people in a hurry to get the airport), and you have a good recipe for problems, imho.

FWIW, the gate at Canning Town deducted £4.60 from my card (I checked). I then had another £2 plus some p deducted when I exited the station in zone 1.

If you call the Oyster card helpline on 0845 330 9876 and explain what happened, they will refund the £4.60.

If you call the Oyster card helpline on 0845 330 9876 and explain what happened, they will refund the £4.60.

Would they? I was on their train without a valid ticket and I believe that's my problem. I'm just happy I got away for an extra £4.60 and caught my connections, rather than getting hit with an £80 fine and no doubt missing my overland train as the paperwork presumably takes time...

Would they? I was on their train without a valid ticket and I believe that's my problem. I'm just happy I got away for an extra £4.60 and caught my connections, rather than getting hit with an £80 fine and no doubt missing my overland train as the paperwork presumably takes time...

It's entirely possible they would (some of the call centre staff are not, in my experience, the sharpest tools in the shed) but they shouldn't. You are indeed lucky to have avoided a £40 penalty fare (it's only £80 if you don't pay it within 14 days).

You are indeed lucky to have avoided a £40 penalty fare (it's only £80 if you don't pay it within 14 days).

As lucky as the three other people in the carriage who had done exactly the same thing...

Would they? I was on their train without a valid ticket and I believe that's my problem. I'm just happy I got away for an extra £4.60 and caught my connections, rather than getting hit with an £80 fine and no doubt missing my overland train as the paperwork presumably takes time...

Yes, they're actually pretty reasonable about this sort of thing. A silly location for a reader at an unfamiliar station is a pretty good excluse IMO. I've always gotten my penalty fares refunded even in a few cases where it was kinda-sorta my fault.

If you've failed to touch your card (as my wife did twice at LCA, because she didn't find the Oyster touch pads) you'll have been overcharged on your Oyster card, for making incomplete journeys.
Get in touch with Oyster to get a refund after checking your journey history on your Oyster card acc.

Get in touch with Oyster to get a refund after checking your journey history on your Oyster card acc.
The latest excuse I have got from this lot is that refunds will only be considered if applied for within 28 days. I'm not quite sure when they made up this latest rule.

It is more inconvenient when you actually live on the DLR and only use their stations most of the time. The ticket machines were upgraded a year or so ago but, in the spirit of separately negotiated contracts for each part of London's transport network, the new machines are unable to show your Oyster history because they are from a different supplier to the Underground ones, so you have no idea about any incomplete journeys.

They genuinely can't do refunds after about eight weeks as the data is purged from their system to comply with the Data Protection Act. Don't know about 28 days.

At DLR stations there is a red line which forms the boundary to the compulsory ticket area. If you stray beyond the red line an enforcement officer can technically reprimand you.

Its worth noting that the penalty fare (I think it's £80 now) is a the more lenient option, the other which involves a visit to magistrates court, a higher fine and a criminal record. You don't have to accept the penalty fare.

If someone innocently walks across the line without touching in and gets caught by an enforcement officer keen to nab his 10th victim and they protest your innocence. If they still believe you guilty of a crime (such as fare evasion or trespassing) they will take you name and address, read you your rights and ask for a statement. At a later data the CPS can then summons you to court, but I doubt they would bother if there is no evidence that you intended to evade paying the fare.

I am not sure how it works for foreigners as they are not likely to be in the country by the time it makes it to the CPS. If I were visiting a country and got faced with this situation then I would probably pay due to lack of knowledge of the countries legal system and worried that it could affect my ability to leave, re-enter or future visa applications.

Its sad that enforcement officers have targets like this and also sad that they need to target a location like LCY where there are likely to be a lot of people who are un-familiar with the country and London.

At LCY there is the added complication of a bank of vending machines beyond the red line!

Staff at tube station ticket offices should be able to sort out incomplete journeys so I would always try there before calling the semi-premium rate 0845.

One thing I learned recently is that the penalty fare is not a fine, it is a charge for making a mistake.

They can only sort them out same day and even then if you have gone and made a subsequent journey it may not work.

I've never had a problem resolving a failed touch out over email - even a couple of weeks late. As long as you can nominate a station to "launch" the refund at, it's fine.

Staff at tube station ticket offices should be able to sort out incomplete journeys so I would always try there before calling the semi-premium rate 0845.


Yup. Or 020 7222 5600.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10A525 Safari/8536.25)

OK, so I flew into LCY last night. I'm not a regular and had had a very busy day of meetings oop North.

I had 1 minute to catch the train, next one was 7 mins behind it and I was on a mission to get across London to catch my rather infrequent train home.

Needless to say I didn't touch in with my oystercard and sods law, there was a ticket inspector on the train. He got to me at Canning Town, I apologies profusely, touched out and back in at the gates at Canning town & still made the next Jubilee line train.

Thing is, I don't actually recall seeing the readers anywhere (I know they are there as I used them last month...). What's more, the DLR looks awfully like the sort of shuttle train you get at an airport, whilst with other airport trains like the HEX you can buy your ticket on board.

Is it just me, or should the station at LCY be positively screaming at you to make sure you touch in & out?

Exactly the sme thing happened to me.

How come the DLR has those readers rather than gates anyway? Very easy to miss if you aren't used to them, I had to do an about turn and run back to touch out a few weeks ago.

How come the DLR has those readers rather than gates anyway? Very easy to miss if you aren't used to them, I had to do an about turn and run back to touch out a few weeks ago.

I assume one of the reasons is that the DLR was designed to operate on a much lower staffing basis than the Underground. Every time you have an operational gate-line you need an attendent, whereas with the readers revenue is protected by random ticket inspections (at a lower level of overall staffing).

I assume one of the reasons is that the DLR was designed to operate on a much lower staffing basis than the Underground. Every time you have an operational gate-line you need an attendent, whereas with the readers revenue is protected by random ticket inspections (at a lower level of overall staffing).
Indeed. However, there is nothing to stop the Oyster readers on the DLR being placed in exactly the same sort of positions across the station entrances as the Underground does, just without physical gates, apart from parsimony with the installation budget, and a "not invented here" attitude of being different for difference's sake.

It works exactly like this at suburban Underground stations when there are no staff present, when for safety the gates all have to be kept open but the readers still work.

Most DLR stations have 'hidden' Oyster card readers - however, the responsibility to find it rests with the passenger.

In terms of the Penalty Fare, my experiences are that it is not always offered. Typically if you don't have the means to pay it there and then, or they cannot confirm your identity or your get mouthy, they will prosecute. That's typically a fine of a weeks salary, costs of about £145 pounds, the cost of the fare evaded and a criminal record.

Make sure you find those Oyster Readers, regardless of how long it takes is my advise.

I assume one of the reasons is that the DLR was designed to operate on a much lower staffing basis than the Underground. Every time you have an operational gate-line you need an attendent, whereas with the readers revenue is protected by random ticket inspections (at a lower level of overall staffing).

That's what I assumed. I do wonder how effective a form of revenue protection it is though

The DLR is not random ticket inspection. Every train has an operator who closes the doors, and checks tickets between stations. This was universal when it started with one-coach trains, when they expanded to two and now to three, which cannot be walked through, it is less so on shorter journeys, but the operator changes cars as you go along and if you travel end-to-end it is likely to be checked. I would say, looking at the checks, that 98%+ of passengers have valid tickets. This is probably as good as it gets, doubtless helped by the vast majority of travellers being "regulars".

Separately, there are occasional "snatch squads" who operate in groups, sometimes on trains and sometimes on exiting the platform. They are outsourced to a private security company who seem to have engaged a particularly thuggish lot (and whose command of even English can leave much to be desired - goodness knows what they make of the LCY European arrivals).

There is no love lost between the train operators, who have always been a reasonable lot, and the snatch squads.

In my experience the passenger services assistant rarely checks tickets, even when I am in the same car as him or her. Just does the doors.

In my experience the passenger services assistant rarely checks tickets, even when I am in the same car as him or her. Just does the doors.

Yep I'll +1 this. I take the DLR from the City to Canary Wharf and back at least once a week, outside of rush hour (so it's not that busy). It's 5 stops I think and the PSA has maybe got to me once in the last two months.

It is true that the inspections tend to take place on the quieter sections of the route, which excludes the City to Canary Wharf section, especially at peak times. But I do understand that the operators are measured on it. Certainly out at the eastern end of the system it is pretty normal.

I used to travel regularly between Bank/Tower Hill, Canary Wharf and LCY. Ive never had trouble finding to readers, but i suppose once you find them the first time, you remember.

What i do find odd is how they perform the random inspections. Once or twice my touch in hadnt registered and the ticket inspector just let me pay for a single fare on the train. No mention of a fine or a penalty of any sort. Particularly on the City-Canary Wharf service i hardly ever saw any ticket checks.