I had to use a bus on the w/e and found that my pre pay had run out.
It cost me 2 quid to go 1 mile because I had to pay by cash. Is that
fair? I don't think so. Same story on the tube.

I think one of the first things boris should at is ditch Kens
idiotic , deliberate and spiteful disparity between the Oyster and
cash fares to deliberately force occasional commuters to use Oyster to
no benefit to themselves but every benefit to TfL.

B2003

Boltar wrote:
I had to use a bus on the w/e and found that my pre pay had run out.
It cost me 2 quid to go 1 mile because I had to pay by cash. Is that
fair? I don't think so. Same story on the tube.

I think one of the first things boris should at is ditch Kens
idiotic , deliberate and spiteful disparity between the Oyster and
cash fares to deliberately force occasional commuters to use Oyster to
no benefit to themselves but every benefit to TfL.

B2003

That's dreadful. I think Boris should introduce a scheme whereby you
can top up your Oyster automatically when it runs out...

Tom

On 6 May, 10:10, Boltar wrote:
I had to use a bus on the w/e and found that my pre pay had run out.
It cost me 2 quid to go 1 mile because I had to pay by cash. Is that
fair? I don't think so. Same story on the tube.

I think one of the first things boris should at is ditch Kens
idiotic , deliberate and spiteful disparity between the Oyster and
cash fares to deliberately force occasional commuters to use Oyster to
no benefit to themselves but every benefit to TfL.

You realise that if it benefits TfL, that means it benefits
ratepayers, right? Cash handling is expensive and it is right that
this should be reflected by putting prices at a deterrent level,
thereby saving us all money and allowing more spending on improving
the service...

[as well as the auto-top-up point someone else mentioned, aren't there
any newsagents near your house?]

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

On Tue, 06 May 2008 11:06:01 +0100, Tom Barry
wrote:

Boltar wrote:
I had to use a bus on the w/e and found that my pre pay had run out.
It cost me 2 quid to go 1 mile because I had to pay by cash. Is that
fair? I don't think so. Same story on the tube.

I think one of the first things boris should at is ditch Kens
idiotic , deliberate and spiteful disparity between the Oyster and
cash fares to deliberately force occasional commuters to use Oyster to
no benefit to themselves but every benefit to TfL.

B2003

That's dreadful. I think Boris should introduce a scheme whereby you
can top up your Oyster automatically when it runs out...

Tom

I thought you could by registering your bank account details on the
tfl site.

On May 6, 11:12 am, John B wrote:
On 6 May, 10:10, Boltar wrote:

I had to use a bus on the w/e and found that my pre pay had run out.
It cost me 2 quid to go 1 mile because I had to pay by cash. Is that
fair? I don't think so. Same story on the tube.

I think one of the first things boris should at is ditch Kens
idiotic , deliberate and spiteful disparity between the Oyster and
cash fares to deliberately force occasional commuters to use Oyster to
no benefit to themselves but every benefit to TfL.

You realise that if it benefits TfL, that means it benefits
ratepayers, right? Cash handling is expensive and it is right that
this should be reflected by putting prices at a deterrent level,
thereby saving us all money and allowing more spending on improving
the service...

If small corner shops can handle cash and still make a profit TfL can.
And it costs the same amount to support cash whether 1 person per week
pays using it or 1 million. If shops charged more if you paid by cash
than by card there'd be an outcry , but for some reason the same rules
don't seem to apply for TfL and everyone just accepts it.

B2003

On May 6, 11:12 am, John B wrote:

[as well as the auto-top-up point someone else mentioned, aren't there
any newsagents near your house?]

If i'd known it had run out I'd have topped it up beforehand. Its a
bit late when I'm already on the bus.

B2003

On May 6, 11:15 am, Scott wrote:
I thought you could by registering your bank account details on the
tfl site.

You'd have to be an idiot to give your bank details to TfL.

B2003

On 6 May, 11:12, John B wrote:
On 6 May, 10:10, Boltar wrote:

I had to use a bus on the w/e and found that my pre pay had run out.
It cost me 2 quid to go 1 mile because I had to pay by cash. Is that
fair? I don't think so. Same story on the tube.

I think one of the first things boris should at is ditch Kens
idiotic , deliberate and spiteful disparity between the Oyster and
cash fares to deliberately force occasional commuters to use Oyster to
no benefit to themselves but every benefit to TfL.

You realise that if it benefits TfL, that means it benefits
ratepayers, right? Cash handling is expensive and it is right that
this should be reflected by putting prices at a deterrent level,
thereby saving us all money and allowing more spending on improving
the service...

[as well as the auto-top-up point someone else mentioned, aren't there
any newsagents near your house?]


It is a bit like sticking your credit card behind the bar though. It
makes people not notice what they are spending, with the likely result
that they spend more.

And you can only do it by registering to be electronically tagged.

On May 6, 12:18 pm, MIG wrote:

And you can only do it by registering to be electronically tagged.

You can always have two cards. One is set with auto-top-up so it can
never run out. The other is an unregistered card that you top-up with
cash. Usually you use the unregistered card. Only if your registered
card runs too low and you can't top it up do you use the registered
card. (You could miss out on a daily cap if your card runs out part
way though the day)

Tim.

On May 6, 10:10*am, Boltar wrote:
I had to use a bus on the w/e and found that my pre pay had run out.
It cost me 2 quid to go 1 mile because I had to pay by cash. Is that
fair? I don't think so. Same story on the tube.

I think one of the first things boris should at is ditch Kens
idiotic , deliberate and spiteful disparity between the Oyster and
cash fares to deliberately force occasional commuters to use Oyster to
no benefit to themselves but every benefit to TfL.

B2003

Bad luck, I used to do that all the time until I got an auto top up
card. You can get an auto top up oyster card he

https://oyster.tfl.gov.uk/oyster/gue...method=display

The advantage of people paying by oyster isn't just reduced costs.
It's also faster journey times. It used to take forever for a long
queue to board a bus, when many people were paying cash. Now that
paying cash is significantly more expensive, hardly anyone does.

In a sense, having to effectively pay a penalty for using cash is the
price we pay for faster journey times. I don't think the people who
are responsibe for the difference between oyster and cash fares were
motivated by spite.