Graham J wrote:
[Oyster Pre-Pay Auto Top-Up on buses and trams]
... starts Wednesday 28th June.

Good news - this facility will be very useful for many passengers.


Is that just auto top-up or other top-up instructions too? Auto top-up
seems to have been working on the trams for a few months now on the quiet.

Some may consider it bad form to follow up ones own post, but never mind...

Having auto top-up working on buses and trams will be a big improvement but
there is still the issue of collecting the initial auto top-up instruction
for those who don't yet use it. "Ask Oyster" is now stating that this may
collected from a nominated tram stop, as well as DLR or tube stations.
Hopefully it might also prove possible to collect other instructions such as
online top-ups and season ticket renewals at tram stops too. Good news for
those who use the trams but still not much help for those who mostly just
use buses. There still seems to be need for dedicated Oyster collection
points spread around the bus network.

G.


I suspect there won't be any new arrangements for collecting the auto
top-up instruction - people will just need to make a Tube journey. As
has been discussed before it'd be useful for some people to be able to
collect this instruction at a Tube station's ticket office or ticket
machine - but perhaps the Oyster system can't currently handle this (as
it wasn't designed with this fucntionality in mind).

So we can cue more posts along the lines of "I touched my Oyster on the
gate/reader at my local Tube station to collect my auto top-up
instruction and - shock, horror - it charged me for a Tube fare even
though I didn't want to travel on the Tube". The mind-reading functions
of the Oyster system are of course still in the testing phase, and a
pilot trial of the Oyster mind-machine interface is expected early next
year between Balham and Morden on the Northern line.