On 10/10/2014 09:33, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 19:17:53 on Thu, 9 Oct
2014, Clive Page remarked:
On 09/10/2014 11:32, wrote:
London TravelWatch published yesterday a report on improving surface
access to London's airports. It can be found at:-
http://www.londontravelwatch.org.uk/news/view?id=497&x[0]=news/list

That's an interesting report, with fairly sensible (if fairly obvious)
conclusions. But one item on p6 stuck me as a bit odd, it says:

"London’s Oystercard/contactless payments ticketing system should be
extended to cover journeys on Heathrow Express and Heathrow Connect to
and from Heathrow Airport, and on journeys to and from Luton Airport
Parkway and Stansted Airport stations"

I've seen similar (or were they an earlier version of the same) reports
about extending Oyster to those airports. Maybe the roll-out of
contactless payments will trump that, especially for the tourist market
who are unlikely to have Oysters (on arrival at Luton, anyway).

Acceptance would presumably be Oyster + contactless (in London they go
hand in hand now).

What might be useful is a 'check your contactless card works on public
transport in London' type card scanner at certain places where there are
lots of foreign tourists.


I would have thought that covering journeys to/from Luton Airport (not
merely Airport Parkway) would be the think to aim for. Since the
shuttle bus is no longer free, without this arriving passengers will
have to find cash to pay for the bus, and only then could they use
their Oyster cards for the rail part of the journey. At present if
they can find the (well-hidden) places to buy rail tickets in the
airport they can buy a through ticket.

There's a prominent machine in baggage reclaim. I agree that there
should be better advertised ones landside (eg at the bus station).

Agreed the one in baggage reclaim is pretty obvious.


The report also says on p27 that the bus is free to those holding rail
tickets - this is very misleading, as it only applies to those who
have bought a rail ticket to/from the *airport*, i.e. which has a
higher fare because it includes the shuttle bus element. All others
have to pay the extra fare, currently £1-60.

In the absence of a Cheap Day Single, I wonder how many tourists
arriving buy the much more expensive Open Single, rather than a Cheap
Day Return and throw the other half away?

Sorry, that's not quite right - for journeys *from* Luton Airport - the
Anytime Day Single from Luton Airport to London is £15.50, the Off-peak
Day Return is £16.50. Similarly, at weekends the Super Off-peak Day
Single is £10.40, whilst the Super Off-peak Day Return is £12.00.

However for journeys *to* Luton Airport from London, *on weekdays* the
exact same applies - the Anytime Day Single is cheapest - however on
*weekends* the cheapest option is the Super Off-peak Day Return at £12,
as (for reasons unknown) they don't make the Super Off-peak Day Single
available for journeys starting from London.

(My recollection is that the Super Off-peak Day Return didn't used to be
available from the London end, so you could only take advantage of it by
buying one to start at Luton Airport and just using the return portion.)


Which if those fares would Oyster/CPC charge if you made only a single
journey?