please empty your brain below
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I completely support the attempt by TfL to get people to use Oyster as it's a much more efficient method of payment. However I have two issues with such separation in the fares.
1. Tourists are being fleeced. How long will it be before such fares actually damage London tourism? London is already extremely expensive for many tourists to visit.
2. I use a pre-pay Oyster. Occasionally I forget it when going out and boy am I going to be slammed in the pocket if I do.
Gary | Homepage | 12.09.06 - 9:00 a.m. | #
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They don't know where you are if you bought your Oyster with cash and always top it with the same.
NiC | Homepage | 12.09.06 - 9:18 a.m. | #
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Tourists can still buy one day travelcards (so long as they know they exist).
(And, of course, that's assuming they're not planning on scrapping them too!)
Dicky | 12.09.06 - 9:50 a.m. | #
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The online service didn't work for me and I had a HUGE problem getting my money back. Took at least 3 hours of my time.
This fleecing of tourists happens in many other cities in the world. It's high time London joined them. The £3 fee is refundable if you surrender your card at the end of your stay (just like in Singapore, Hong Kong, Paris (IIRC) etc etc).
What happens to those of us with PAYG (bought with cash and topped up with cash to avoid Them) cards in November when the touch in/out isn't working and a station isn't manned (as is often the case at Epping after the rush hour, for instance).
And when you consider what most Londoners happily pay for coffee and food 'on the hoof' during the day, I think they should quit complaining about very reasonably priced transport.
Blue Witch | Homepage | 12.09.06 - 9:55 a.m. | #
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And what's the situation for people coming into Town by train who currently get a tube add-on on their ticket? What price will they pay in future?
Blue Witch | Homepage | 12.09.06 - 9:57 a.m. | #
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Voltan cares little for public transport. However, anything that may cause misery to the little people is to be applauded.
Voltan shall disrupt the Oyster Card network and compell all to pay the inflated cash fares. This shall be done in such a manner that the blame and anger arising within commuters' breasts shall be directed at your government. Voltan shall channel this rage into support for London's cessation from the United Kingdom, and its rebirth as an indepedent city state with Voltan as lord and ruler.
Do not speak of this to anyone. Voltan requires utter secrecy in order to make adequate preparations.
Voltan | Homepage | 12.09.06 - 10:27 a.m. | #
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As someone who formerly worked in London, there's every chance I'd walk to my destination, if the walk is reasonable in terms of distance and time (and due to the many problems of rush-hour buses/tubes, used to do so most of the time).
For visitors and tourists who don't have the first notion of where they are, one stop on the bus or tube isn't necessarily stupid or lazy, but if they had the forethought to equip themselves with a map they would save money.
GoodTwin | 12.09.06 - 10:33 a.m. | #
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They'd have to pay me to get me on that Tube.
Birdy | Homepage | 12.09.06 - 10:37 a.m. | #
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"forget to touch in or out"
Eh?
Gordon | Homepage | 12.09.06 - 10:49 a.m. | #
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Perhaps if people spent less money on office snacks....
Great Aunt Annie | 12.09.06 - 10:54 a.m. | #
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I bet Voltan "touches in" and "touches out" ALL the time.
Scaryduck | Homepage | 12.09.06 - 11:40 a.m. | #
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I'd rather have The Man know where I am than be charged £armleg.
China Blue | Homepage | 12.09.06 - 11:58 a.m. | #
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And yet certain people I can think of are strangely against Oyster ...
What's so bad with TFL knowing where you are? I go to work each day in London - Monday to Friday, to the same building, the same office, the same desk. It's not big secret to my colleagues where I am, so why the hell should I be fussed about TFL knowing where I am? Not at all ...
Ian | Homepage | 12.09.06 - 12:39 p.m. | #
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They don't know where you are if you don't register your Oyster, do they? Of course, then you can't get a refund if you lose it. And there's enough CCTV around that they probably can track you without resorting to Oyster Card usage, if they really wanted to.
Except for Voltan, who no doubt has an invisibility shield.
After 2 years here, I still convert to dollars in my head (a very bad habit). Nearly $8 for a tube ride is pretty rough for a city that is already fairly expensive. Even the Oyster fare ($3 ish now) is higher than any other public transportation that I can think of.
That said, for all the complaining that I hear Londoners do about the MTA, it is (for the most part) a better system than any others I've used in the past few years (NY, Chicago, Paris, Barcelona, Prague).
bob | Homepage | 12.09.06 - 1:07 p.m. | #
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Gordon - Oysters work by touching your card against yellow pads on platforms, at ticket gates, and on buses.
To make a train journey, you have to "touch in" as you enter the system, and "touch out" as you leave, or you'll get charged a maximum fare.
That's why the very good website about new transport things in London is called alwaystouchout.com.
Inspector Sands | Homepage | 12.09.06 - 2:23 p.m. | #
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It's commonly believed by most Booking Clerks, that Oyster is a way to cut Booking Office jobs, so pricing single paper tickets at such a price that customers will be basically forced on to go onto Oyster,.
Think about the logic,
Oyster £1.50
Paper £4.00
These can both be bought from machines but whats the cheaper option, also have you noticed that since the shorter working week came into play, a lot more of the Booking Offices close around 9pm.
Station Supervisor | Homepage | 12.09.06 - 2:28 p.m. | #
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I don't spend money on office snacks and I don't think the tube is a "very reasonably priced transport". I'm fed up with the tube, not registered with Oyster and claim money back after a 15 mins delay.
pine | 12.09.06 - 2:31 p.m. | #
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pine - you should try living in an area where there *is* no public transport, and *having* to run a car or permanently stay at home unless you fancied a 3 mile walk to the nearest small town. Then you'd understand "very reasonably priced transport."
If I walk nearly 3 miles to the nearest bus stop, it still costs a fiver to get into large local town 11 miles away.
Blue Witch | Homepage | 12.09.06 - 4:45 p.m. | #
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Yes, I’m glad I don’t have to walk 3 miles or use a car or stay at home; yes, I do appreciate that I can use public transport at any time. Have you been in France, or Spain or Germany? They have a "very reasonably priced transport" – maybe not the best - but for the price we pay I’d like to see a better service.
pine | 12.09.06 - 5:16 p.m. | #
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Quite a scoop, dg, if these prices aren't released until Autumn. How did you get them with Autumn still eleven days away? Well done. Now then, what is this tube, of which ye southern people speak?... 
Chig | Homepage | 12.09.06 - 5:56 p.m. | #
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TfL are over a billion quid in debt, they've got to recoup it somehow.
On the less bad side, the fare for routes 18, 25, 29 38, 73, 149, 453, 507 and 521 has been pegged at £0.
Matt | 12.09.06 - 7:42 p.m. | #
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Held at 2000 prices provided you always pay as you go. Season tickets plough on upwards - mine now tops 1.5K!
Big Al | 12.09.06 - 7:45 p.m. | #
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It's better now they've introduced fare-capping (it used to be that if you did anything spontaneous like make an extra journey on your pre-pay Oyster it ended up that it would have been cheaper to buy a travelcard that morning, but too late now...), but it still needs to cover Silverlink and Thameslink trains for the same reason.
Otherwise you can start off using Oyster, but by the time you've made one National Rail journey it works out that you should have bought a travelcard instead.
Salvadore Vincent | Homepage | 12.09.06 - 8:28 p.m. | #
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"pegged at £0" Matt? That sounds very reasonable.
Fatima | 12.09.06 - 11:13 p.m. | #
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I guess "pegged at £0" means "you can travel for fee because you can get on at one of the doors that isn't by the driver", so you don't have to touch in on the oyster pad. It's nice if you have the nerve - I've tried it a couple of times and spent the whole journey in a cold sweat - they do check sometimes you know.
She | 12.09.06 - 11:20 p.m. | #
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It'd only be impressive if 2000 prices weren't already extortionate.
ian | Homepage | 13.09.06 - 12:56 a.m. | #
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In 2000 I was living in a Suffolk village with five buses a day. Now those fares were extortionate.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 13.09.06 - 1:09 a.m. | #
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There need to be far more places where you can buy oystercards. They should have vending machines that sell oyster cards preloaded with PAYG cash to make it easier to pick up quickly.
It should also be much easier for tourists to get their deposit back at the end of their stay.
Jon Allen | Homepage | 13.09.06 - 2:07 a.m. | #
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"Well yes, but you'd have to be pretty stupid to travel one stop on the tube in central London. Or very lazy. Or the sort of Evening Standard reader who doesn't usually travel with the plebs"
You would be suprised at the number of stupid people, ones who take the Victoria Line from Euston to King's Cross and then change to the Circle to go to Great Portland Street.
mclm | 13.09.06 - 4:20 p.m. | #
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£6.10 for a Zone 1 peak travelcard yesterday. I was appauled at the price, even if work was paying.
All I did was Marylebone to Embankment; then Embankment to St James's Park, and back.
It's only £5.45 from home to Birmingham City centre, and that's 30 miles away.
verity74 | 14.09.06 - 11:11 a.m. | #
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Sorry but this is a cynical means of encouraging people to get Oyster cards so that the authorities can track them around the city.
andyp | Homepage | 15.09.06 - 9:22 p.m. | #
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So who in the authorites are tracking people round the city? I want that sort of job where I can just type in someone's name and postcode and find out where they go.
That's why fares are so expensive, it's those millions employed to track people round the city. I'm surpised none of them has started a blog about it. Or maybe they're sworn to secrecy and obviously everyone who's sworn to secrecy never breathes a word of it.
In other news, man insists on paying his bills by a cheque in the post because he doesn't want Them to know his bank details and everyone knows online banking is unsafe.
Gert | Homepage | 18.09.06 - 5:30 p.m. | #
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Yes, you would have to be very stupid to go one stop on the tube or, as in my other half's case, a disabled visitor clueless about public transport in the capital despite being a born and bred Eastender. I cannot understand pricing people off the tube.
Richard | Homepage | 24.09.06 - 12:21 a.m. | #
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And why on earth call it an "Oyster Card"? It means nothing at all to most of us. What's a shellfish got to do with transport?
Richard | Homepage | 24.09.06 - 12:30 a.m. | #
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My wife was coming to meet me in town to go to a recording at comedy store.
F***ing £12 for a travel card. She was only going to Zone 1. I've just checked the zone 1 cheapday return price and it's rocketed to over £13 from Watford.
£7.10 to Euston. So it's added over £6 to the cost of a ticket? But the ticket's printed ANYWAY. What saving paper ticket craziness is this? Does anyone know?
DG - like the Croxley Green shots, BTW.
Audrey | Homepage | 03.10.06 - 6:35 p.m. | #
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Thanks for the oyster information... I had no idea how to get one, and feel i'm being ripped off paying sixfifty for a day's travel card... as a tourist now, why should I pay that? London is no longer competitive as a destination for fun...
advanced-pondlife | 06.10.06 - 2:35 p.m. | #
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