Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 14:21:07 on Mon, 5 Jun
2006, Dave Arquati remarked:
It is now possible to recover the £3 Oyster deposit and up to £5
credit across the counter at ticket offices, rather than having to
send off for the money; this is specifically designed to encourage
short-term use of Oyster.

arghhh!

I queued for over ten minutes to purchase a ticket at Russell Square
last week. That's because I wanted a child ticket which the machines
don't sell (nor are there any signs saying the machines don't sell them!!)

Almost everyone else in the queue was signing up for an Oyster Card;
loads of tourists. They were processing them reasonably fast (two
windows open) but obviously somewhat slower than just selling a paper
Travelcard.

I think it would be a good idea to put Oyster "vending machines" at
major tourist starting places so that people could get an Oyster just by
putting their deposit & credit into the machine and getting one "vended"
to them - and could return to such a machine at the end of their stay
and do the reverse process by inserting their Oyster into the machine,
the machine checks that it is undamaged, and returns the appropriate
deposit + leftover credit. Undamaged cards could be automatically reset
(including the journey history) and returned to use.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London