On 8 May, 17:30, James Farrar wrote:
On Thu, 8 May 2008 02:33:24 -0700 (PDT), Boltar





wrote:
On May 8, 7:30 am, James Farrar wrote:
On Tue, 6 May 2008 03:49:51 -0700 (PDT), Boltar

wrote:
On May 6, 11:12 am, John B wrote:

[as well as the auto-top-up point someone else mentioned, aren't there
any newsagents near your house?]

If i'd known it had run out I'd have topped it up beforehand. Its a
bit late when I'm already on the bus.

In other words, you didn't keep track of the balance on your card, an
entirely trivial thing to do.

Of course , when I'm in a hurry back from somewhere I'll always glance
at the gate to see the balance left with a dozen people in a hurry
behind me to get out - oh wait , not all of them show it. But thats
easily solved - next time I want to get a bus I'll just head off down
the tube station to see how much I have on my card - oh wait , its a
mile away and the nearby NR station doesn't take prepay and has no
machines to read it. Well thats ok , I'll just go to the nearby
newsagents and ask them. Oh , its bank holiday and they're closed.

Yes , trivial, and I should be punished by having to pay double fare.

Do you work for the Labour party by any chance?

This last question is quite possibly the funniest thing I've ever read
on Usenet.

Every time you use your Oyster card, you should be looking at the
display, if only to check that the card has been read correctly. When
you look at the display, it tells you your balance (if you have used
PAYG for that journey). Therefore, it is trivial to know when you're
running low on credit.

You mentioned not using PAYG often enough to make atuo-topup
worthwhile. In that case, may I suggest that you give yourself a
target to keep your balance within a band of, say, £5-£15. That way,
when your balance drops below £5, you have plenty of time to add £10
before you run out of credit.

Your moan about not all gates showing the balance is technically true
but irrelevant - the only gates, TTBOMK, that don't have a display are
the *in* gates on the oldest model gates. Even if you happen to use
one such gate to enter the Tube system, you will still be leaving it
by a gate with a reader or a standalone target - all of which will
show you your balance.

I can't remember the last time I went in or out of an LU gate that
displayed anything at all apart from maybe "Enter" or "Exit".