MSE News: No more cash fares on London buses from Sunday

Lavendyr

I'm not a Londoner and I have an Oyster card. It's not particularly difficult to get hold of one. I appreciate the argument that tourists from other countries may find it more of a challenge, but honestly a) there is quite a small proportion of tourists who use the bus system compared to the tube, which has not gone cashless, and b) in the three years I've been using the bus system in London I've seen fewer than five people try to pay for their fare with cash.

wealdroam

pstuart wrote: »

Just London for the Londoners then.

Don't you have contactless cards in your part of the world then?

Jennifer_Jane

Saunatonttu wrote: »

Please forgive me for being thick but how would one for example make a single bus journey from say Euston to Paddington without an Oyster Card or Contactless Payment Card. Can you buy tickets at tube stations?

What I do is to buy my train ticket from my small town in the North West to my destination (eg Twickenham). You then get the trainline ticket which is for all the train (small town to Euston, then onwards on tube and London overland).


Unfortunately the exit machines in London don't seem to accept the tickets, so you have to ask for the luggage/disabled one to be opened for you.

dzug1

wealdroam wrote: »

Don't you have contactless cards in your part of the world then?

AFAIK only UK based contactless cards will do.

macman

pstuart wrote: »

Just London for the Londoners then.

So you think that the whole system should be designed around 5% of the user base then? Regardless of the huge extra cost and service delays that result?
I'm not aware that you have to be a London resident to purchase an Oyster card, so your 'London for Londoners' comment is absurd.
And, even if cash fares were still available, why would anyone still use them, given the vastly higher price that was charged? This is MSE after all...

dzug1

The system should be designed so that anyone who has the means to pay can do so.

How you do this is a difficult problem though. Make ANY credit or debit card work?? Have tube ticket offices open 24x7 to sell Oysters? Not sure either of those is practical

waiting for London bus drivers to process cash fares:

They haven't for years - at least in the central area. Tickets were sold at machines at bus stops




The most disadvantaged are overseas visitors arriving late at night who will be forced into using taxis rather than buses/tube until they can get an Oyster next day




Reminds me of an experience quite a few years ago in a european city. In the suburbs at least you couldn't buy a tram ticket/pass at weekends. No machines, any shops that might have sold them firmly closed.


But.... the driver would reluctantly sell a single ticket for cash at a premium.


OK things have moved on - but have they? 1990s East Germany 2014 TfL?

MotheroftheKid

How life gets complicated. I have family in London and visit fairly frequently, either by train or car. I have an Oyster card. My DS sometimes comes in the holidays for a few days. As my family live on the outskirts of London with no tube line, to get into central London I will buy a travelcard for DS but sometimes we jump on a bus for a local trip. As we live outside of London I could get him a Photocard Oyster, get his photos done and pay £10 administration fee (not refundable like Oyster). The alternative is to get a young visitor add on to my Oyster which lasts for 14 days, but I can only get this at a travel centre - there are none where I visit!

I think on our next visit, we will only use the train to get into town and buy a ticket from the train station and hope that they do not make them cashless and machine-less until he becomes an adult!

Hotspur

wealdroam wrote: »

Don't you have contactless cards in your part of the world then?

I'm sure some have had contactless cards issued by their bank but my latest card, issued in February 2014, is a standard chip and pin card. I have yet to see a contactless reader in outlets in this part of the East Midlands.

I tend to use a one day travelcard on my trips to the capital however I can see that not taking cash will be an inconvenience for the occasional traveller, tourist and those who only made a single journey who in the past had paid as they rode.

Lavendyr

dzug1 wrote: »

They haven't for years - at least in the central area. Tickets were sold at machines at bus stops

True, but I have seen people pay cash on the bus for a fare. As I said, maybe 5 in 3 years, but it does currently happen.

macman

Cash fares in Central London were abolished about ?6 years ago, leaving Oyster or pre-purchased tickets as the only options. I was referring to Greater London in my earlier post, where cash fares were abolished last month.
Before that, a cash ticket cost £2.40: that was 95p more than an Oyster or pre-purchased ticket (£1.45), so anyone making more than about 3 or 4 journeys would easily recoup the cost of an Oystercard.
TFL claim that cash fares were only used by 0.7% of bus users: less than one in every 140.