Tube fares of doom!

[fluffymark]

Tube fares next year

£3 minimum cash for a single tube ticket? *boggle*

Oyster card fares are going down. Cash fares are going into outer space. If you travel at all in London, *especially* if you’re just visiting for daytrips - get an Oyster card NOW.

Comments

[adamw]

Sur, Oyster card is a good idea; but I fail to see why it's somehow so much better. And for people who don't live in London, it's especially silly.

The whole point is that London's transport is turning "cashless" - which has many benefits - such as vastly improved safety for drivers and staff who would other wise handle money, and reductions in costs for handling money too, as well as speeding up journey times by reducing the amount of time a bus has to stop (no fiddling with change etc, of course).

It is also expected to be used for "small change" purchases such as newspapers and the like in time - much as the Octopus scheme does in Hong Kong, which has been an enormous success.

And there is nothing to stop those of us outside of London from getting a pre-pay Oyster Card, as we can just use it whenever we like (as I intend to do in the next few weeks) - all the increase does is to quicken the changeover. (And after all, paying in advance for less on public transport has been the norm in Europe for years - nice of us to finally catch up).