On Jan 23, 9:34*am, "Peter Masson" wrote:

"Mizter T" wrote:
I'm a Londoner, and think Oyster is a fantastic system that I greatly
value - the ability to simply be able to head off without having to
worry about working out if one would be better off with a Day
Travelcard or not is great.

Is the in-boundary ODTC likely to survive long, now that Oyster is available
on National Rail throughout the zones? Out-boundary ODTCs will presumably
have to continue, as it is impossible to touch in an Oyster while you are on
a train entering the zones.

Valid question, one that I've pondered on before. There is some
precedence, as the paper one-day Bus Pass was withdrawn by TfL in
January (this was available to buy from all the participating
newsagents, plus roadside ticket machines where they exist and also
from Tube station ticket offices and machines). However I'm really not
so sure the same would happen w.r.t. the Day Travelcard, and certainly
not any time soon. Two impediments immediately spring to mind - (1)
it's still the case that not many TOC-run ticket offices can deal with
Oyster at all, and (2) the existence of the Day Travelcard is
protected by statute.

In addition I can't see the TOCs pushing for the in-boundary Day
Travelcard to go 'all Oyster' (at least not yet), the thinking being
what do they have to gain? Plus Oyster can't replace one functional
element of conventional paper Day Travelcards in at least one regard -
you can't get a boundary zone extensions to cover journeys beyond the
zones with Oyster PAYG + capping, as you'd need to touch out (and then
back in on the return).

Lastly, a point I've made before - if there wasn't a simple easy to
buy day pass available for use on public transport across London then
there'd be the need to invent one. Perhaps this applies more to the
Underground (i.e. a day pass for LU), but since we have the Day
Travelcard then that more than fulfils the above function, so it might
as well stay.

I can however imagine that in future years a capped Oyster card might
be marginally cheaper than a Day Travelcard - indeed until January
this year the quasi-equivalent caps were 50p cheaper than a Day
Travelcard - but that would just be a way of attracting people to use
it more, and would of course have to be agreed upon with the TOCs now.