On 29/03/2015 12:13, Clank wrote:
Personally, whenever I arrive in a foreign city for the first time I always
use ticket machines instead of windows because (a) there's a much higher
chance the machine will speak my language and (b) even if it doesn't, it's
unlikely to make fun of my accent.

I appreciate anecdote doesn't make data though .

Well so do I. But in two cities in the last few years (Paris and
Rotterdam) I've found machines which won't take British credit or debit
cards and I had to resort to feeding in literally dozens of small coins
to buy my tickets. Fortunately I had just enough, but many tourists
will have had experiences like this and decide a human is more helpful
than a machine.

But in the case of King's Cross, they take some trouble on Eurostar to
push sales of Oyster cards, and TfL also encourage their use by having
cash fares which are many times that of the Oyster fare. So I'm baffled
as to why the queues are so long, but it's a fact that they are.

--
Clive Page