Richard Adamfi wrote:
If the same tickets can be bought from a newsagent or machine as from a
ticket office, what is the point of a ticket office?

Exactly. If you make a ticket machine good enough, that it can handle
all forms of payment, make it clear what tickets are on offer (and also
display the options in numerous languages) then ticket staff are,
fairly, redundant. When I go abroad, the machines are usually easy to
use, although - to be fair - the ticket staff are usually excellent and
their knowledge of our language puts some of us to shame.

Oyster cards are excellent, although I accept that technically they're
regarded as proprietary, and as such there are a lot of issues/concerns
with the TOCs about their use. We may well see a switch to a different
card in the future, although I guess the Oyster name will remain.
Whether we needed to have people forced into getting an Oyster is
another story, as I'm surprised anyone who has used one would go back
to using cash - and as more people get them, surely word gets around
('what you're still using cash?').

Jonathan