On May 9, 9:54 am, John B wrote:
Eh? Creating a vending machine that accepts cash isn't exactly mystic
Martian technology. The fact that petrol stations have chosen to pick
card-only machines strongly suggests that this is a lot cheaper for
them than offering a cash alternative.

When people fill up their car they're hardly likely to buy 1 quid of
petrol. More like 20 , 30 quid or more whereupon it becomes much more
practical to use a card. How does that equate with somebody giving a
bus driver a pound coin and carrying on down the bus?

B2003

On May 9, 9:59 am, John B wrote:
the system should go out of its way to accommodate them. As it is, TfL
does allow people who are clueless about the system to use it, but
imposes a fee for the inconvenience they cause.

That kind of arrogant attitude just about sums you and your fellow TfL
apologists up. I rest my case.

B2003

On 9 May, 12:33, Boltar wrote:
the system should go out of its way to accommodate them. As it is, TfL
does allow people who are clueless about the system to use it, but
imposes a fee for the inconvenience they cause.

That kind of arrogant attitude just about sums you and your fellow TfL
apologists up. I rest my case.

I look forward to meeting you next time I'm in Toyko, ranting about
the arrogance of the subway company as you struggle to find the exit.

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

On May 9, 12:39 pm, John B wrote:
I look forward to meeting you next time I'm in Toyko, ranting about
the arrogance of the subway company as you struggle to find the exit.

So if I can't find the exit I get penalised? How long do they give me?

I think its time for your medicine.

B2003

"Boltar" wrote in message
...
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.

Indeed, and it holds up the bus while you pay, too.

I bet you will remember next time.

Jeremy Parker

MIG wrote
On May 8, 6:39*pm, "Michael R N Dolbear" wrote:
MIG wrote

solution, it is sheer bloody-mindedness that makes TfL and its
defenders refuse to contemplate addressing it.

And Tfl's attackers redefine the question as they go.

I haven't quite followed your point. You seem to be identifying a
number of potential problems.

If some or even one of them had a simple solution, shouldn't it be
applied?

"Every problem has an answer which is obvious, simple and wrong"

Are you saying "there's lots of problems, so we can't start solving
any of them in case people ask us to solve the others"?

What we mostly see on this NG is the Frank Sinarta questioner, "I want
to do it my way" and no solution is acceptable that requires any change
in the questioner's behavior still less any enhancement in know.


--
Mike D

MIG wrote

Today, while queuing at the ticket office (with a slightly shorter
queue than the machine with a pad) purely to find out how much credit
I had left, because the barriers don't display anything, a couple in
front of me were being charged £8 to get to Finsbury Park and were
shocked.

They lived in Cambridge and had no intention of getting Oyster cards
(£6 in deposits?). Welcome to London.

So why didn't they buy a through ticket to Finsbury Park at Cambridge ?

--
Mike D

On 9 May, 09:59, John B wrote:


But if people can't be bothered to find out how the system works, or
just avoid it out of spite (why on earth did the Cambridge residents
above have no intention of getting Oyster cards? Even if they were
never planning on going to London again, they could hand them in at
Finsbury Park or KX for a refund...), then I don't see any reason why
the system should go out of its way to accommodate them.

People like you, the defenders of some particular aspect of public
transport, are going to be people like you, people who are actively
interested in public transport, and enjoy finding out about it,
learning more about it, planning journeys on it in advance, etc.

That's what people like you are like. Most people aren't like that.
Most people just want to get somewhere as quickly, cheaply and easily
as possible, and don't want to think about the actual details of
journey at all.

If one weekend, some people in Cambridge suddenly decide "Let's go to
London today, because we've never been there before" their next move
is usually to start heading to London. Not wasting time staying at
home, looking on websites to find out whether or not London has a
bizarre fare structure on its transport system that unfairly penalises
anyone who doesn't know the system backwards.

It's just human nature.

As it is, TfL
does allow people who are clueless about the system to use it, but
imposes a fee for the inconvenience they cause.

And what about the inconvenience TfL is causing to people who don't
enjoy spending ages trying to make sense of the confusing fare
structures


[if I went to Tokyo without checking how the public transport system
worked, and then got hopelessly lost because all the station names
were in Japanese and I'd only written down my stop in phonetic
English, this would mean that I was a raving idiot, not that there was
a problem with the Tokyo metro].

No, it wouldn't mean you were an idiot at all. It mean that that you
were a normal human being, who just didn't happen to know one specific
piece of information about the Tokyo Metro -- a piece of information
that you shouldn't be expected to know in the first place. (After
all, the Shanghai metro has all its station names written in both
English phonetics and Chinese characters. There's no reason why the
Japanese shouldn't be able to manage it too.)

On 9 May, 17:10, "Michael R N Dolbear" wrote:
MIG wrote

Today, while queuing at the ticket office (with a slightly shorter
queue than the machine with a pad) purely to find out how much credit
I had left, because the barriers don't display anything, a couple in
front of me were being charged £8 to get to Finsbury Park and were
shocked.

They lived in Cambridge and had no intention of getting Oyster cards
(£6 in deposits?). Welcome to London.

So why didn't they buy a through ticket to Finsbury Park at Cambridge ?


Two obvious possibilities:

Either they didn't know that they could. Or they had done, and now
wanted to get back to Finsbury Park for their return journey.

On 9 May, 17:16, solar penguin wrote:
That's what people like you are like. Most people aren't like that.
Most people just want to get somewhere as quickly, cheaply and easily
as possible, and don't want to think about the actual details of
journey at all.

So, if you decided to go on a driving holiday to America, didn't
bother looking up the speed limits, and then received a ticket for
driving at 70mph instead of 55, that would be the US government's
fault?

What about someone who boarded a plane to India without bothering to
check that they needed a Indian visa? Would they be a victim of
outrageous bureaucracy, or an idiot? What about an Indian who did the
same thing the other way round? (and if your answers to these two are
different, why the difference?)

[if I went to Tokyo without checking how the public transport system
worked, and then got hopelessly lost because all the station names
were in Japanese and I'd only written down my stop in phonetic
English, this would mean that I was a raving idiot, not that there was
a problem with the Tokyo metro].

No, it wouldn't mean you were an idiot at all. It mean that that you
were a normal human being, who just didn't happen to know one specific
piece of information about the Tokyo Metro -- a piece of information
that you shouldn't be expected to know in the first place.

You're seriously suggesting that someone who goes to a country which
uses a different alphabet from us (well, 3 different alphabets from
us, technically) without thinking that /might/ present /some kind/ of
comprehension problem and trying to take steps to mitigate it isn't an
idiot?

(After
all, the Shanghai metro has all its station names written in both
English phonetics and Chinese characters. There's no reason why the
Japanese shouldn't be able to manage it too.)

Could you get any more Anglophone-arrogant? Last time I checked, TfL
stations didn't have signs in Katakana...

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