New Oyster system to help customers pay the correct fare

After a long campaign by Caroline Pidgeon, Leader of the London Lib Dem GLA Group, a new system will help Oyster passengers who occasionally forget to touch out.

Transport for London (TfL) has introduced a new facility for Oyster pay as you go customers who occasionally forget to touch out at the end of their Tube, DLR, Overground or National Rail journey.

Currently those who do not scan their pay-as-you-go card at the end of a journey are charged the maximum Zone 1-6 fare of £7.90. But a new system will calculate the likely journey based on the individual's travel history and charge the appropriate fare, it is claimed.

Caroline Pidgeon said: "We don't want to penalise customers who normally touch in and out for occasionally forgetting, so, for such customers, we are looking at ways of correcting journeys that have been left open without a final touch at the destination."

In January figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats on the London Assembly showed mistakes at ticket gates had resulted in Oyster card users being overcharged by £60m last year. And in August 2010 BBC London revealed TfL had refunded £40,000 in eight months to customers who had been overcharged by faulty machines when topping up their Oyster cards.

Caroline Pidgeon, leader of the Liberal Democrat London Assembly group, said: "The mayor and TfL must address the much bigger problem of Oyster overcharging caused by the system not always working properly, for example when barriers are left open, or the machines are not working at the start of the journey. We still have a long way to go in tackling the scandal of Oyster overcharging."