On 07/11/2013 07:37, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 23:59:35 on
Wed, 6 Nov 2013, Paul Corfield remarked:
On Wed, 06 Nov 2013 23:13:07 +0000, Neil Williams
wrote:

On an aside, it never ceased to amaze me how TfL designed Oyster to
require so much human intervention when paper tickets require near
enough none.

Can you explain what you mean by "so much human intervention"?

I presume he means when buying the card, and when spending hours talking
to the helpline to sort out unresolved journeys etc.

On the few times that I have had a problem with Oyster, I have spent
less than five minutes on the phone.


Plus of course the effort of getting printouts for "expenses purposes"
when all you need do with a paper ticket is hand in the ticket itself.


Register Oyster, print journey history (or have it automatically
e-mailed to you)

What would be your example of a system or facility not requiring so
much intervention?

When my OnePulse Barclaycard was renewed after three years, the credit
card balance was transferred seamlessly, but the Oyster balance required
considerable individual effort to move across.

The facility with the least intervention is probably the Travelcard,
just buy it once and then use it. If it's an outboundary Travelcard it's
even issued as one coupon, whereas a day return will be two (plus
whatever ticketing is required once you get to London).