Paul G wrote:

How about encouraging young people to use, become confident with and
perhaps even enjoy using public transport rather than become accustomed
to always travelling everywhere in an inefficient congestion causing
car? It probably very fair given that all the young people (i.e.
students) concerned don't earn money! Some social justice.

What happened to parents paying their childrens' way, then? Or, in
teenagers' cases, a paper round or Saturday job?

Neil

Dave Arquati wrote:

Bob Wood wrote:
Kev wrote:

I am absolutely staggered by this increase. Last year it double from
£1.40 to £3, now it is going to £4. A 167% increase in a little over
a year. A little over 10 years ago it was £1, so 400% in just over 10
years.

£1.40 to £4.00 is a rise of 185%, not 167%

£1.00 to £4.00 is a rise of 300%, not 400%.

I don't recall it being £1.40 - last year it was £2.00 cash AFAIK. In
real terms these rises will be somewhat less; certainly on buses, fares
have barely risen at all in real terms over the last six years.

My memory is that three or four years ago, the single bus fare in Epsom
& Ewell was 70p. Thanks to the corrupt Labour government giving Mr
Livingstone powers of taxation without representation, he's now made it
£4. Note that Mr Livingstone has not made any way of topping up an
Oyster card available at any location more than 100yds in from the
boundary with the Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames.

Seeing as Oyster isn't valid on the K9 and K10 (and these routes have
sensible distance-based fares still), it would be very easy to extend
the same principle to the 406, 418, and 467. With a little re-routing,
the 293 and 470 could receive similar treatment.

James.

What's wrong with this explanation for tourists:

An Oyster is a little card that you touch in and touch out the gates
with. On buses, you only touch in. Get a PAYG one and you do not have
to worry about how much it costs. It will be the cheapest way for you
to get around. A trip will cost you 1 pound on the bus, and one fifty
on the tube. Put enough money on the card to make sure you can travel
around. You can check your balance at every station using the machine.

I wouldn't go into zones, peak/off peak and the slight bit of money
they might save using other kinds of tickets.

How about encouraging young people to use, become confident with and
perhaps even enjoy using public transport rather than become accustomed
to always travelling everywhere in an inefficient congestion causing
car? It probably very fair given that all the young people (i.e.
students) concerned don't earn money! Some social justice.

What happened to parents paying their childrens' way, then? Or, in
teenagers' cases, a paper round or Saturday job?

Not everyone in London is middle class. By providing the travel concession
as a universal benefit, children from disadvantaged backgrounds get to
travel free without the stigma of receiving a targeted or means tested
benefit. There are other positive externalities to getting young people used
to using public transport on a regular basis which include the environmental
impact.

Barry Salter wrote:

I spent a week in Nuernberg last month and whilst the information
provision is somewhat better, in that the Journey Planner tells you what
zones you need for a given journey, and the machines are multilingual,
the multimodal ticketing isn't really explained all that well, so
chances are that people who aren't used to how it works (i.e. buy a
Single ticket and it's valid on all modes necessary to reach your
destination) probably end up buying multiple tickets for their journey.

Same with the Strippenkaart. It does say 'overstappen is toegestaan',
but someone who doesn't read Dutch wouldn't know what that meant, and
I've not found it anywhere else in any other language.

There's the other "curiosity" of the Strippenkaart in that it gives you
a specified amount of time to make your journey which isn't always
enough if there are a lot of changes; this is based on the number of
strips stamped. If you think this will be the case (rare, but
possible, it nearly happened to me one evening when waiting for a
connection took a while) it is advantageous to stamp more strips in the
first place, as if you go over you need to stamp again from scratch.
This *isn't* explained anywhere.

Same applies for validation. Not wanting to risk a Penalty Fare, we
validated every ticket we bought, whether it was a Single or a Day
Ticket.

I always work on the basis that it won't do any harm if there's space
for it on the ticket. Usually, I believe, you do need to stamp
everything, but some ticket machines do it for you.

But, yes, it's not explained well enough.

Neil

sweek wrote:

An Oyster is a little card that you touch in and touch out the gates
with. On buses, you only touch in. Get a PAYG one and you do not have
to worry about how much it costs. It will be the cheapest way for you
to get around. A trip will cost you 1 pound on the bus, and one fifty
on the tube. Put enough money on the card to make sure you can travel
around. You can check your balance at every station using the machine.

This is roughly the level it needs to be at, yes, though I think you
may be intending to be ironic. It needs to be put above the ticket
machines (or before you reach them) in tube stations to prevent the 4
quid rip-off occurring, and in several languages.

Next, you need to make it easier to obtain an Oyster by having it sold
from several machines pre-credited, rather than having to queue for
ages at the ticket office. (Note: many tourists will want to avoid the
ticket office as the language barrier may be an issue, let alone the
invariably long queue).

Neil

Seriously? I always just change over without touching any readers at
all, just like changing between Tube lines, and it works fine.

I specifically queried it because the Oyster blurb does talk about touching
out and in when changing from one mode of transport to another and the tube
and National Rail are most definitely two different modes. In that case it
does make sense to have an exit and an entry and use both validators.

To my mind your approach makes more sense though. One entry and one exit
seems right to me.

How about encouraging young people to use, become confident with and
perhaps even enjoy using public transport rather than become accustomed to
always travelling everywhere in an inefficient congestion causing car?

Which is why I went on to suggest that incentives could be available in the
evenings, at weekends and in school holidays (off-peak) if such incentives
are required.

Ian Jelf wrote:

Right, as someone who's a regular here and obviously has a lot of
experience (and a vested interest) in London as a tourist destination,
I'll wade in. (SNIP)

An excellent post that summarises things pretty much perfectly.

I have an idea of my to make things easier for tourists;

Firstly, it's possible, or was possible, to get special rate tickets
for tourists, purchased in advance before travelling to the UK. These
could be a pre-paid Oyster with a one/two/three day Travelcard - or
whatever - that starts the first time it's swiped. TfL is prepaid, and
gets the money even if said tourist doesn't actually use it everyday.

Secondly, hotels, travel information points and airports could sell
pre-paid Oyster cards in £10, £20, £30 denominations etc (all of
which can be topped up). These would either work as PAYG tickets when
used - or ideally work as a ODTC that activates as soon as you make
your first trip. Make it simple and have it as a Z1-6 card only -
encouraging people to travel beyond Zone 1/2 and see the sights and not
have to worry about all of the (current and hopefully soon fixed)
issues with touching in/out when changing services. An Oyster
travelcard would then work fine on National Rail services too without
any issue. As you said, the capping system is too complicated and
clever for its own good and most people don't need that hassle if
they're only here for a few days or a week.

When I was in Hong Kong nearly 10 years ago, I kept my ticket as a
souvenir and if people have a ticket that still has some credit, they
will probably keep it for their next visit. Some might throw it away,
but most companies with some sort of ticket/credit system are clever
enough to make sure you can't actually use up all of the remaining
value (Hong Kong excepted - the last journey is whatever you have left
on the card). Whatever happens, it's money up front for TfL and
producing an Oyster card can't be that expensive these days. If you're
selling in different denomations, take an amount off for the card; e.g.
£10 for £9.50 credit, £20 for £19.50 credit. Bung some nice images
on the card and make them collectable at the same time!

The current PAYG system is fine, but tourists want simplicity and a
ticket that works anywhere without any hassle (the prepacked card
should also have a pocket guide that includes details on how to use it
- in multiple languages and maybe a map). Like a Travelcard, it's
possible some people will not take full advantage of the ticket - but
simplicity is better than planning your day in advance (which as a
tourist isn't always easy) or trying to understand price capping.

Once you have this, you can then charge a massive premium on paper
tickets and use the money from that to fund the cost of introducing
this 'third' type of Oyster card. No doubt many people coming to London
from the rest of the UK would use them too (buying them in advance at
their local station/shop).

Jonathan

Neil Williams wrote:
sweek wrote:

An Oyster is a little card that you touch in and touch out the gates
with. On buses, you only touch in. Get a PAYG one and you do not have
to worry about how much it costs. It will be the cheapest way for you
to get around. A trip will cost you 1 pound on the bus, and one fifty
on the tube. Put enough money on the card to make sure you can travel
around. You can check your balance at every station using the machine.

This is roughly the level it needs to be at, yes, though I think you
may be intending to be ironic. It needs to be put above the ticket
machines (or before you reach them) in tube stations to prevent the 4
quid rip-off occurring, and in several languages.

Next, you need to make it easier to obtain an Oyster by having it sold
from several machines pre-credited, rather than having to queue for
ages at the ticket office. (Note: many tourists will want to avoid the
ticket office as the language barrier may be an issue, let alone the
invariably long queue).

Neil
No I wasn't being ironic. Just trying to keep it very simple, and
ignore the things that probably won't affect tourists in the first
place. I was just thinking that something about getting to Heathrow and
Camden Town costing more should be in there, since those are the only
tourist destination outside of zone 1 that I think people might go to.
If you're a tourist in a place you don't know I think you're actually
way more likely to go to the ticket counter anyway, but yes, machines
that show you everything clearly would be nice.

Most tourists probably speak a little bit of English, but Spanish,
Japanese, Chinese and French would probably be very very useful
languages to add to ticket machines. And a few more, really.