On Thu, 6 Oct 2005 13:48:31 +0100, "John Rowland"
wrote:

I have a friend who won't get an Oyster card because
she doesn't want "them" to know where she's been
and what she's been doing. Not even an
unregistered pre-pay card...

Presumably she's on benefit and working,

What a ridiculous statement.

On Thu, 6 Oct 2005 18:43:40 +0200, "tim \(moved to sweden\)"
wrote:

I just looked at uswitch.com and it gave me a whole list of 12-month
loans that the monthly payment is less than a monthly Travelcard
(using the example of a Z1-5 as quoted).

but is it less than 11?

It's fixed at a value of around 10.4.

"asdf" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 6 Oct 2005 18:43:40 +0200, "tim \(moved to sweden\)"
wrote:

I just looked at uswitch.com and it gave me a whole list of 12-month
loans that the monthly payment is less than a monthly Travelcard
(using the example of a Z1-5 as quoted).

but is it less than 11?

It's fixed at a value of around 10.4.

I know, but the claim was: including the interest an anuual
was still less than 12 monthlys,

But is it (inclusing the interest) less than 11?

tim

On Thu, 6 Oct 2005 08:19:49 +0100, Phil Richards
wrote:

Neil Williams wrote:

But what is the principle? It's effectively no different from buying a
book of ten stamps when you only have an immediate need for one, is it?

You are not penalised for buying one stamp on its own instead. The
price of a book of 12 stamps is 12 times the price of one.

The point Chris is trying to make is that like Oyster, it is for
convenience. The only difference is that TfL are offering you a financial
benefit as well as convenience with Oyster whilst the Royal Mail aren't
with stamp books.

Except that if you buy a book of 1st Class stamps before a price-rise
for basic 1st Class, the "old price" stamps are still valid at the
"new price."
--
Nick Cooper

[Carefully remove the detonators from my e-mail address to reply!]

The London Underground at War, and in Films & TV:
http://www.nickcooper.org.uk/

On Wed, 5 Oct 2005 01:10:17 +0100, "John Rowland"
wrote:

I don't have an Oyster. For the small amount that I use public transport
these days, it wouldn't make that much sense.

It makes sense when the saving over cash fares exceeds £3. Currently
this happens after about 10 journeys. In the New Year it will be
considerably fewer.

Look at it this way. They COULD have announced "No more cash fares".
Instead, you will still be able to pay cash. But at a hefty premium.
And for those of us who don't take a stance against Oyster, many fares
will go DOWN! Hurrah!

I listened to an East End mum railing against the new free passes for
schoolkids recently. It was a quite unacceptable imposition that her
daughter would have to take proof of her age to the Post Office and
pay a small fee. She couldn't quite explain how else the ticket
would seek out her daughter though :-)

On 5 Oct 2005 04:04:20 -0700, "Mizter T" wrote:

Nope. An Oyster loaded with pre-pay automatically acts as a ODT.
Except that most National Rail stations within the ODT zone won't read
it :-(

Lawrence, you've misunderstood the situation somewhat. An Oyster card -
when used in it's Pre Pay guise - will be capped at the price of a ODTC
if it's used enough during a particular day - but it does *not* become
an ODTC, and can only be used on National Rail routes that accept Pre
Pay (and the majority of NR routes in London don't accept Pre Pay).

Isn't that exactly what I said?

On Thu, 6 Oct 2005 08:19:49 +0100, Phil Richards
wrote:

The point Chris is trying to make is that like Oyster, it is for
convenience. The only difference is that TfL are offering you a financial
benefit as well as convenience with Oyster whilst the Royal Mail aren't
with stamp books.

I'd agree with that up until now. For the new Tube fare, AFAIAC, they
are offering a significant financial *disbenefit* in the form of an
unreasonably[1] high fare.

Compare it with, for instance, the Post Office raising the price of a
first class stamp to gbp1 if bought individually, or the current price
if bought in a book of 12, for which one must give a gbp3 deposit for
the return of the empty book. I know it's not a perfect comparison,
but it makes one think.

[1] I fail to see how anyone can consider, in itself, gbp3 as a
reasonable fare for a short-distance Tube single.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

On Thu, 6 Oct 2005 09:10:01 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

New York subways also have a mag-stripe card which you can load with
money for several journeys. One disadvantage for the infrequent
traveller (and tourist) is that the credit expires after a year.

ISTR that a Dutch Strippenkaart expires after two fare increases (or
something similar).

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 09:13:06 +0100, Arthur Figgis
] wrote:

Kuala Lumpur did that when I went. You got the final trip cheap if
there wasn't enough credit remaining on the throw-away card. Of
course, the two different metros in KL didn't accept each other's
tickets :-) (though I think that's been changed now)

I'll check it out when I'm there[1] in a couple of weeks (I jest not).

[1] Chiang Mai - Bangkok - Hat Yai - Butterworth - Kuala Lumpur -
Singapore over 3 weeks, mostly by train but a bit by bus, with a
number of stopovers in various places. Not my usual European haunt
but I'm really looking forward to it!

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 10:38:02 +0100, Paul
wrote:

I have a sneaking suspicion that TFLs long term aim is to get rid of
travelcards altogether and move everyone on to pre-pay oysters (with the
daily cap thing still applying).

If everything went on Oyster, it would make sense to revise the fares
structure completely, removing period tickets and replacing it with
some kind of discounting, for example giving a specific discount in
the event that a certain amount is spent in a month, for example, or
alternatively (and this may be easier to implement) offering a certain
amount of "free" travel when topping up with a large amount.

For example, you could get gbp10 of top-up for gbp8, or gbp30 for
gbp40, or something similar.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.