On Dec 11, 6:33*pm, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Fri, 11 Dec 2009, John B wrote:
On Dec 11, 2:09*pm, MIG wrote:
In any case, TfL could easily ensure that Oyster cards were available
for gbp10 with gbp7 credit and gbp20 with gbp17 credit from vending
machines at all airports, mainline terminals and major Tube stations -
and from behind the counter at hotels, ticket stops, etc, packaged
with a 10-language leaflet on how to top them up. That'd be pretty
straightforward for everyone.

(and very few people would bother getting a refund, which is a bonus
from Londoners' perspective.)

That would mean doing something helpful that takes into account
people's circumstances. That is not the general approach to the
introduction of Oyster so far, so why should it suddenly change? "TfL
could easily" have done a number of things that took into account
reality over the the last few years, but they refused.

The only things TfL could've done to make Oyster more useable would've
required the permission of the TOCs

There could be a way to top up oysters without the use of coins after the
tube stations have closed. Machines which took either cards or notes. Just
in the central area. As it stands, if you're out of credit and out of
coins, but you have a working cash or credit card, you're stuffed - there
is *no way* to pay for a bus. I've been affected by this when getting home
late at night, and i've seen tourists arriving off an airport coach being
affected too. I, of course, could enable auto top-up. The tourists
couldn't.

The TOCs have nothing to do with this.

That's true. The problem is vandalism, isn't it? - the bus coin
machines are hard enough to keep operational; I can't see a free-
standing machine that also took notes faring any better.

An ideal solution would be to fit Oyster readers to ATMs and allow top-
up there, but that took mobile phone companies 10 years after the
introduction of PAYG to implement *without* any hardware requirements,
so I'm not holding my breath.

On the flip side, that's about the only thing that would make Oyster more
convenient for me. That and adding a lot more ticket machines - there is
still space in stations being wasted by cash-for-card ticket machines, and
not enough card-for-credit ones.

Hmm. I've pretty much never had to queue for a top-up, IMX the queues
are for the paper ticket machines and especially the big idiot-proof
ones where you press your destination. MX might not be representative
though.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org