stut

I still use my Oyster card from the very first day of Oyster "Pre-Pay" (which was New Year 2004, IIRC - I seem to remember walking down to a deserted Clapham Common Tube ticket office to get it). It was revolutionary for me - I generally only used the Tube 2-3 days a week at the time, so queuing up for paper tickets was a right pain.

It continued to see occasional use when I commuted into London and tended to cycle - there are always heavy rain days and days with luggage. Plus, you can load Annual Season discount on to an Oyster.

Now, I use it or Apple Pay, whatever's handiest.

What's remarkable is just how well the system works. Right down to the pink fare readers, the zone extensions, the different zone maps per transport mode, outboundary travel, contactless... If you could see what an utter mess the transport providers have made of the various smart card offerings out here in the provinces, you'd realise how lucky you are!

WorldLux

^ the system works great. I've came across a provincial system that had an online store to buy tickets: "Great! I just top up my card and I'm ready to go!" Well no, actually. I bought the ticket and received the message that I would need to go to a "transfer point" (a type of oyster card-reader that would transfer the tickets to the card) to have the credit loaded to my card. The closest one was where I was supposed to go with my ticket. The other sale points were at least 20 miles away. And if you think this can't get any worse: The closest transfer point is in a service point which is closed on Sundays and outside of normal opening times.

I spend 30 minutes to get my top-up and had to buy a paper ticket despite having topped up to precisely avoid paying for the paper ticket.

stut

Oh, it's worse here.

If I use public transport to work (I have the option of car-share, train+bike, train+walk+bus) then I have a train journey, a walk, and a bus ride. I have the choice of two bus companies. Oh, and the walk can be replaced by bus if I'm in a hurry too, and there's about 4 bus companies that cover that.

The train smartcard currently only covers season tickets, which is a dubious benefit. Despite my station not having barriers, you still need to touch in and out when you have a season ticket smart card or you'll be fined. You also can't use all the other train companies on the route. Umm, so what's the benefit over the paper ticket? Well, you don't have to take it out the holder. Maybe not.

They did trial putting day tickets on the card, which is good as the ticket machines (there are two at my station, which now has an annual ridership of over 1 million, and a part-time ticket office that randomly closes for other duties and breaks as it's single manned - the machines regularly break). This was a disaster. If you weren't able to use a ticket you'd bought, all tickets on the card became blocked until you could get to the call centre, raise an issue with them, they got back to you, then you went back to the specific station it started from, and held the ticket up to the reader for 10 seconds. Seriously? I never had it working properly. They didn't process the refunds either, until I got PayPal on to them. Nobody at the station could help either as they had no equipment to do so. We've been promised a "pay as you go" card for two years now, but even the date for that has evaporated.

On to the buses. Naturally, each bus company has their own system. Except in Luton, where there's a town-wide smart-card system. Oh, and in Hertfordshire, where there's a county-wide m-ticketing system. But not if you cross from one to the other. So you're stuck with one bus company or paying full cash fares. Due to my job, I can claim a discount on day fares on one bus company (if they can figure it out on the machines) or week/month passes on another bus company (if they can figure it out on the machines). These are paper tickets only and must be paid for in cash. The latter also has an m-ticket scheme paid for by Apple/Android pay, but you can't get the discount scheme to apply. But if you need a day ticket it's good, but the day ticket is only good if you're taking one journey more than the return. Which I don't know if I am because I don't know if I'll get the bus instead of the walk in the evening, and I don't know the timing to know which bus company will operate it (and they're not that frequent - every half hour, so you can't just wait for the next one - the traffic's not reliable enough anyway). Oh, and the other bus company, with the smart cards? Only works on some routes, not on the subsidised rural ones, which I also use. But you're supposed to know this.

The bus fare has also become so expensive that, if I'm not getting the weekly, discounted ticket, it's actually cheaper for me to hire a car for a few days than it is to take the train/bus. And I'd prefer to take the train/bus and read or listen to a podcast than to drive. The roads are clogged where the train goes, and I find driving far duller than reading.

It's a ridiculous set-up. But there's no incentive for these ITSO cards to be combined, because there's no central authority. The operators get some cashless advantage to having the cards, but they also get marketing data, which they don't want to share. Plus, they can force people to use just their services, where there's competition.

Oyster is great. Things like OV-Chipkaart and Rejsekort even moreso, despite their teething troubles.

lhrsfo

I agree that the Oyster is a fantastic thing to behold. In fact, generally, TfL has really got its act together over the last 10 years or so. Looking back 20 years, buying tickets was a pain, getting to the platform was an obstacle course of broken escalators and at least once a week one of the lines would be up the spout. Nowadays, ticket buying is unbelievably simple, the service is generally reliable (and with nicer trains on several lines) and, although getting to the platform is still a pain, that's often because of improvement work as opposed to lack of maintenance.

WorldLux

Yes. The quality of the tube has IMO increased dramatically over the past couple of years and they are working hard to update the network in spots where it is still suboptimal (e.g. Bank/Monument station will get new entries and they plan to move the northbound Northern line platform and use the tunnel currently used for the platform as a corridor; Holborn will probably get a new entry; more trains* thanks to the 4LM; new stock on the Central/Piccadilly/Bakerloo/Waterloo&City lines; the Jubliee line is being refurbished (The refurbished trains are IMO very comfortable. Much brighter in the trains); Northern line extension, possible a Bakerloo extension; Eventually splitting the Northern line into two separate lines).

*I suspect however that increasing the number of trains per minute won't help in the long term. During the rush hour, people still try to catch the train and block the doors rather than waiting one minute for the next train to arrive. As a result the next train usually has to stop in the tunnel rather than at the platform.

The only thing that is seemingly unlikely to happen is the proposition to use face recognition to pay for journeys. The advantage would be no barriers but it seems impractical as a tourist visiting London once every 10 years or so would need to get a profile just to ride the tube. And the proposition doesn't really answer how that's going to be solved in buses.

enviroian

When i arrive into T3 lhr Tuesday at 10 am I'll give the contactless a shot again. If not I'll get an oyster card. Too bad I can't use it for Southeastern trains though.

tmiw

I'd delete and re-add your cards to your mobile wallet beforehand, just to be safe. They may have changed something with provisioning since you last added which might impact Underground use. (Doing so is how I got my CSR to work, FWIW.)

enviroian

good call. I'll go into my account and do that. Have nothing to lose.

UKtravelbear

That depends on your destination. Any station within London zones 1-9 can be done with contactless / oyster

enviroian

I see, good info thanks.

I want to take the fast service to Ashford International. Great ride--and quick.

rcspeirs

This map shows the area within which you can use oyster /electronic payment. Ashford International is well outside the area.
(This map will become out of date in may 18, when all Heathrow stations will move into the valid area.)
http://content.tfl.gov.uk/london-rai...rvices-map.pdf

enviroian

I wanted to follow up --after fumbling for 10 minutes with my new iphone X I got ipay to work. You have to double click the side button...I had no idea about this. Needless to say the turnstile beeped green and viola it opened. I used it again at the end of my tube journey to ipay out and again it worked like a charm. However, even today, there is still no record of any tube charges on my citi card, period. When I used the ipay additional times for other (non tube) purchases, the charge would reflect on my iphone right away with the merchant, amount, and time/date stamp. Not with a tube purchase. Odd.

On my return trip to LHR from Ashford the hi speed train to St Pancras cost me 23 pounds, not 31 like it did the way there. The reason I got this fare is still a mystery to me. I initially asked the clerk if he could add on underground to my ticket and he said it's 7 pounds extra + 31 pounds for the hi speed but if you have contactless use that instead separately. So the new ticket price was 23 pounds. Anyone know what the hell he was talking about? I was unable to replicate that fare online. Also, how come I didn't get that rate when I took it to Ashford? Both departure times were off peak.

Ldnn1

That's because contactless charges are finalised later, as a daily or weekly cap may be applied, rather than each journey being charged separately.

Not sure what you got there. Was it maybe an Advance ticket if you bought at least the day before? Or perhaps Southeastern were running some sort of special discount offer, as some operators do during school holidays, but usually those are online.

stut

The £23 ticket is normally the non-High Speed ticket. Did you specifically ask for St Pancras, or just London? The Advance ticket to St Pancras is £13.

enviroian