On Tue, 16 Sep 2008, Boltar wrote:

On Sep 15, 7:52 pm, Tom Anderson wrote:

This is, to my mind, a major hole in the payment arrangements for the
buses, and i believe i've ranted about this before. The problem is that
cash comes in doses of 10 or 20 pounds, as notes. You cannot get money
from a cash machine in any smaller quantity. Bus drivers may refuse
these, and you certainly can't use them in the little ticket machines
at stops. Thus, if you're not near an open shop, whether because you're
somewhere remote or it's late, you're a bit stuffed.

If someone has a high value note and no change (though to be honest how
many people knowing they're going to catch a bus later wouldn't make
sure they had some pound coins on them?) and the bus driver has no
change he should have the option to issue tickets for however many
journeys the note would pay for. The passenger can then either hand over
the whole note or get off and walk.

That sounds like a very good idea. In fact, an ex-driver said upthread
that that's exactly what they used to do, more or less - give you a chit
you could take to a bus depot and cash in.

It doesn't address the problem with recharging your oyster at night,
though. I would have thought that could be done fairly simply by having
some oyster machines - which could be of the card-only type - on the
outside of tube stations, and so accessible outside opening hours.

There really also need to be card-operated oyster vending machines at all
major points of arrival into London, including Victoria Coach Station. I
was catching a night bus from Victoria in the wee small hours a few weeks
ago, and had to explain to some hapless Spanish tourists who'd just got
off a coach that yes, they really were going to have to go and find some
kind of shop that was open to get change, and then spend four pounds each
on two singles to take them and their luggage about a mile to their hotel.
That's bull**** behaviour on TfL's part - if you're going to apply
punitive pricing to paper tickets, you also have to make it easy to get
electronic ones.

tom

--
Any problem in computer science can be solved with another layer of
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