please empty your brain below

How does this new cashless bus restriction help visitors from overseas? I am organising a week long event in Croydon in August, and am currently creating an information page on airport transfers. Most participants will be staying there the whole week and will make no further journeys (group day trip around the sights of central London excluded).

From Heathrow the most attractive option is the X26. Does this mean that they can only travel if they buy an Oyster card somewhere, and will somewhere have the facility to issue a refund on their return to get their fiver back. From what I have read you can only get a refund at an underground ticket office, which likewise will no longer exist (ok, I know the timeframe is different but everyone will still have to go down the escalator to get their refund (T1-3 that is) for now.

Help...
Ken, depending on where "overseas" they are coming from, they might well have a contactless card - a lot of places are further forward than us on this.
I believe "they can only travel if they buy an Oyster card somewhere" or use a contactless card. Or they could buy a One Day Travelcard, if they can find somewhere selling them, because bus travel is included.
In the spirit of 'bits and pieces' news day.... Anyone near Excel may be amused by the sight of a very bling 'yacht hotel' moored next to the defunct 'pleasure gardens'. It's temporarily moored there before final positioning which will be in the dock by the main entrance to Excel.
Ken. If your visitors are arriving into LHR, they can get an Oystercard from any of the tube stations. That will allow them to use the X26 bus for only £1.45 fare.
If they arrive into T5 or T4 and need to get to the central bus station, they can also travel between terminals on the tube for free using an Oyster.
One day travelcard is an expensive way of making a single bus journey, and you've still got to find somewhere to buy it.

I'm told some airlines do sell Oysters, and there is an information desk in some terminals at Heathrow, but I agree it is a ludicrous situation.

Ask TfL what you are supposed to do, and when you get the inevitable brush off, you will have ammunition to write to your MLA with.

What would happen to someone stuck in the position I was nearly in yesterday. Went to collect my car from its service, only to find they'd all gone home early. It's a long bus ride from anywhere to get there, and I was, of course, not expecting to need the Oyster again that day so was planning to load it up the next day. Fortunately I had (just) enough to get away.
Ken. I don't think you can rely on overseas visitors using contactless payment for the X26. The tfl site suggests it is UK cards only. Their text:
"If your card's been issued in the UK and displays the contactless payment symbol (as shown), you can already use it to travel on London bus services."
Ooh. Nexus 4. Colchester area. BT line. Regular visitor. Was it me, me sir! Is there a prize? Picture of a kitten?
Thank you Timbo, I certainly intend to write. This situation has been troubling me for some time, and I have been waiting in the forlorn hope that "this summer" might stretch as far as the August Bank Holiday, but it wad not to be (and doesn't change the situation in any event).

By way of analogy my wife is Polish. At Warsaw airport you can buy a ticket (timed, of course!!!, and, with a choice of durations, even better!!, as well as day travelcards!) and in the main concourse. Historically, my only concern when travelling abroad was how to get small denominations on arrival to be able to use public transport.

In C21, people arriving in London of all places will not be able to simply catch a bus even if they offer a 200 Euro note and say keep the change. Absolutely ludicrous.
IslandDweller: worth noting that the Heathrow Express can be used for ticketless travel between the Heathrow terminals. I don't think I realised that the Oyster fare between terminals was £0, otherwise I might have used it the other day.

T5's underground station is operated by Heathrow Express, so I'm not sure if it has the full TfL ticketing range available, or if their ticket machines can issue Oyster cards.
I'm in the contactless pilot for the Underground. I'll keep you up to date when a relevant subject is posted.
I think part of the reason Ken's particular situation doesn't fit neatly into TfLs assumptions is because his visitors are only taking one journey that week.

Most visitors to London will be travelling several times to see all of the landmarks and therefore they can keep using their Oyster or Travelcard all week. What really is needed is an automated refund machine where an Oyster card that is no longer required can be deposited and the balance and deposit be refunded to debit card (or possibly cash) as once ticket offices close this will be needed at airports for those who no longer require their Oysters.
Congrats on your 2048, well done!
@ Ken - it might be worth your while contacting TfL and asking if you can make a business purchase of Bus Saver tickets. These are the paper two part bus tickets where you give one half to the driver and keep half yourself. I believe these are priced at the Oyster fare.

These were previously sold to the public but retained for bulk sale to companies. Given the lack of use by your visitors beyond a couple of bus journeys it's clearly bonkers to issue Oyster cards for 2 trips and then go via a refund procedure for loads of people thereby choking Heathrow's ticket offices. Clearly there is an issue about how you get the Saver tickets into your visitors' hands if you aren't planning on meeting them at Heathrow.
Really pleased to hear the Line reached its target even if I live a long way from London and was one of those almost-redundant pledgers who gave just £10!
It must of been me that was the 4,000,000th visitor! As I do have a Nexus 4, live in Colchester and have a BT connection. Do I win a prize :D
Hey Chris. Hands off the kitten picture. It's mine!
No QEOP talk today: phew thank goodness.

"I still don't have a contactless card" ...easy to solve...get one.
Not really a problem if you are working and have a reasonable job.
What is a problem is topping-up a Oyster card onine if one only uses buses...try it and see what happens.
And what of those who don't want a Oyster and don't have a contactless card...can legal tender bearing the Queen be rightly refused as payment for travel on a public transport network? Also there may be a few people can't afford the deposit needed for a Oyster card?

2048...is that not the year by which the major cities of Scotland and England will be connected by HS2?

"Colchester area, using on a Google Nexus via a BT connection" ...sounds bit like we being watched?

Oh, I like old buses. Shame that the event on route 22 seems to leave out South London. Maybe we'll get a look- in on the 100th anniversary.

Todd Terje?

"Head of Online" ...is that really a job title?
I visited Ruth's blog and tried to like it but her writing style is stilted and there is little of depth or context to the daily entries that I sampled.
The link to the piece on the LT Museum site about the RT 75th anniversary prompts a question.

According to the article, this will be RT1's first appearance in public service since 1945. However, I have a memory from the mid-1980s of seeing the then newly-restored RT1 running on the vintage bus service 100 (which then ran from the LT Museum to Portman Square) in wartime guise complete with anti-blast netting, I think in conjunction with an exhibition on London Transport in WWII at the Museum. This would have been shortly before the 100 ceased operating following the death of Prince Marshall (preservationist and the operator of the 100).

Was I imagining it, was it a private party, or...?
Sheesh there were some miserable bastards commenting this afternoon.
I hate to say this, but even when I visited Hong Kong and Singapore in 2004 one needed to buy their equivalents of an Oyster Card (with atendant deposit) in order to use thier public transport systems. If one can afford to fly thousands of miles, one can afford a couple of quid for a deposit on the required means of access without needing to get it back.

And, given how much cheaper Oyster fares are, why would anyone not want to get an Oyster Card in order to benefit from them? The rubbish about people not being able to afford them just doesn't cut it - it's recoupable within a couple of journeys.
@Grumpy Anon

The 22 never went very far into south London anyway, just from Putney Bridge to the common

@Blue witch et al
My concern with cashless is not so much the foreign tourist but the vulnerable person late at night whose Oyster has been stolen - stopped working - maxed out due to some unexpected emergency: late at night, all the newsagents shut and in some tube desert like Kingston or Bexley, and two buses from home or safety. At the moment a friend can pay their fare. But you can't pay for two fares on one card.

If 2% of fares are still paid by cash, that's thousands every day. On an average every fully laden bus has someone on board who has paid a cash fare. Given the price difference, they must have a good reason not to have use Oyster. Could you justify their future banishment from the buses? Tell the schoolkid whose Oyster has been stolen he's going to have to walk home? Or the young lady who's had a row with her boyfriend on a night out, who's driven off into the night without her, leaving her at the mercy of dodgy minicabs or worse?

Harry Potter's Knight Bus was only available to people who could wave a particular object at it. Are we going to make Night buses equally exclusive?
Yes, burn the deposit, but you still have to find somewhere to buy one in the first place. And it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth that you can't get your deposit back...
DG, didn't have you down as a Todd Terje fan. This makes me very happy!!
@ Blue Witch

The very poor/homeless...probably do not have contactless cards or £5 for a deposit for a blue plastic card. But if they can "gather" some "loose change" then can manage to use a bus to get to somewhere like a hospital or shelter. I guess a system that makes it harder for them to travel on a bus is probably seen as a good thing by some.
Even the blog writer does not have a contactless card...so what would he do if lost his Oyster card I wonder?
*wonders how the problems raised are solved in eg Hong Kong and Singapore that have been totally card-accessed for more than a decade*
@ Blue Witch - I am sorry to disagree with you but you are wrong. Neither Hong Kong nor Singapore's transport system are cashless. They do have very popular and successful smartcard systems but you can still pay cash on any bus and at a ticket machine to buy a ticket for their Metro and light rail systems. I have visited both places many times and have used their transport systems extensively. I have always had an Octopus Card (HK) and a EZ Pass (SG) so I agree with you it's no great hardship to get one. You do, though, have to be a bit careful in Singapore as opening hours for travel centres that sell them are a bit limited.

I have checked the fares info for Singapore and a cash tariff is still in place although fares are higher than using a card. Cards also give a through fare discount when you change bus routes or bus to MRT. The latest government notice on fares says cash payment makes up 3% of total transactions. I've also double checked the fares in HK and cash is still taken on buses and the MTR. You pay a premium fare on the MTR for using cash. On the buses you can't benefit from bus to bus interchange discounts if you use cash. They're only available with Octopus.

Neither HK or SG have yet adopted contactless bank cards for transport use. London is pioneering that system.

I have ended up in a potential nightmare scenario in HK where my Octopus Card failed on my final rail journey back to my hotel. I then needed to get a bus to the airport. Thankfully the MTR still have staff at their combined ticket booths / operation rooms. I was dealt with politely in 2 minutes to get a refund of the card balance (the rules usually mean a wait of 1 week while systems are checked). They flexed the rules and asked me to estimate the card balance. Thankfully the Airport Bus took cash and I had enough to shove the cash in the farebox.

The issue in London is that we are moving to a system where human contact and assistance is being removed or vastly reduced. As Timbo says it is all very fine for TfL to quote percentages as justification for removing a facility. However in a system of London's volume those percentages equal vast numbers of people. I am certainly concerned at the prospect of people being stuck and unable to travel through no fault of their own. Any of us can lose a card or be a victim of crime but perhaps still be in possession of some cash or able to get some on a short term basis. I'm certainly not confident that every bus driver will apply TfL's guidelines, on allowing vulnerable people to travel, in a consistent manner.
Just FYI - in Melbourne tourists can donate their Myki cards for the homeless / disadvantaged upon leaving the city. There is no way to travel on PTV without this monstrosity here.

I'm happy I own an Oyster, which I use once a year on my sanity break.

I'd be less happy if I had to use a contactless card, which I don't have, or, if for some reason I were only contemplating one single trip to London and had to make one bus journey.

What's the highest bid for the kitten piccy, so far, Chris? WANT!
A bus that does not take cash...whatever next?! Funny how parking machines let rich people park their expensive luxury cars in the London Congestion Charge Zone and still have option to use cash to pay for parking.
It is worth noting at this point that the Heritage Routemaster routes are not able to accept contactless bank cards as the conductor's ticket machines are so old they cannot be upgraded. I have yet to read what will happen on Heritage route 15 after 5 July 2014. Will cash still be accepted or will it be Oyster and paper Travelcards only? The Heritage 9 is, of course, withdrawn on 26 July but falls within the scope of this conundrum for 3 weeks.
@ PC

Has the withdraw of Heritage route 9 been officially stated somewhere?

dg writes: From the very top.
So consultation concluded then. Think the Heritage route 15 will be luckly to survive more than another 5 years...?
@ Ed - if TfL can happily ignore tens of thousands of responses against the removal of cash payment on buses what chance is there that they'll pay any attention to the cries of bus enthusiasts (and others) about the removal of the Heritage 9?

Excuse my cynicism but the crucial issue is the £1m saving and that overrides everything. The Heritage 15 will run until the next Mayoral term. Boris won't want the distraction of Routemaster removal in the run up to May 2016. TfL will be guided by whatever the funding position is after the election but if the bus network remains on an austerity budget relative to rail then the 15H will be gone within 24 months of May 2016 (IMO, of course).

I rather expect all Mayoral candidates to say absolutely zero about Heritage Routemasters! I doubt they'll be allowed to say nothing about the New Routemaster which means we'll have an election campaign full of nonsensical distractions again.
A little late catching up with this and, though I may be biased having grown up in the Westcountry, the Cornish coast is indeed fantastic and definitely worth visiting.
OK so my memory of 10 years ago is failing in the exact specifics... but there are definitely towns/cities already that don't take cash (from what Antipodean says, eg Melbourne).

My point about seeing how these places deal with the problems raised here, and learning from them, remains valid.
@ Blue Witch - one counter point is how many of those places that are cashless have the sheer scale of usage that London does? Looking at Melbourne's patronage stats they come out at just over 510m boardings per year. London's figure is 9 times bigger than that (ignoring main line rail services outside of TfL control). It is interesting to note the horrified reaction from people who are now seeing the TfL tweets and other announcements that cash is not going to be accepted on buses in 3 months time.

I don't doubt TfL want the financial saving from going cashless. However there is surely something of a credibility issue when they chose to ignore tens of thousands of negative responses to a public consultation, when they removed a previous option to provide Oyster top up machines at interchanges and where options like making the cash fare higher than at present, to improve the cost recovery for cash payment, are not an option either?

I'm not technology phobic and am one of the people who invented what became Oyster but I remain concerned that now is not the right time to remove cash payment from London's bus network.
Thank you for the kind mention of my coastal walk adventures.I wondered why my visitor numbers had skyrocketed on Friday! Just off to North Devon for another few days :)
Best wishes, Ruth










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