Sir - The new parking payment system at Oxford Rail Station is discriminatory and intrusive.
To pay a £4.50 parking charge you need a mobile phone; a credit or debit card; to stand on platform 1; to pay the £4.50 charge (from platform 1), you give car and card details as well as a passenger number which is displayed on platform 1 only.
Otherwise, you pay £20. Apparently you can pay at the ticket office on production of a valid ticket for £6.00, but this is not on the signs. You can also get a carnet' from Chippenham (Chippenham?) ticket office.
If you pay once, your details are registered. So, in essence, there is a running record of your journeys. Or you can opt to safeguard your privacy by the payment of a £20 charge.
This is discrimination against those without a mobile or plastic and those who do not wish to give their details or whereabouts to strangers. Such people may go, presumably, to Chippenham.
The claim is to free the car park for rail users only, while they are using the railway, however you can pay for the car park by mobile for at least seven days and perhaps for longer.
In which case, you could use the car park whenever you wanted, whether travelling or not.
The council needs to make clear that it is possible to pay at the ticket office. Moreover a) the charge should be the standard charge without penalty and b) people paying at the ticket office should have the same right to pay for a week or more at the same rate and buy carnets at the Oxford ticket office.
Shame they didn't just copy London's Oyster Card - which you could load with cash or card, swipe in at the car park barrier, then again on any platform and out at the car park barrier. By comparison this system is elaborate, illogical and intrusive.
Agnes Kocsis, Witney
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