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Changeless bus passenger denied boarding
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 indirection. -- David Wheeler |
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