London Banter - View Single Post - Bus tickets

Someone Somewhere · December 9th 15, 01:03 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On 09/12/2015 09:22, d wrote:
On Tue, 8 Dec 2015 22:40:28 +0200
Clank wrote:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 15:04:40 on Tue, 8 Dec
2015, d remarked:
There are some queues, but buying an Oyster from a machine is simplicity
itself. Even you could manage it.

Simpler than asking someone for an Oyster? Short of the machine being
psychic
and knowing what you want as soon as you get there I doubt it.

There was talk, earlier, of tourists. Non-English speakers will find a
machine less daunting than a grumpy Tfl employee.

This is certainly true. And I also find it odd that certain people here
think the first time a tourist will ever have experienced anything so
new-fangled as a ticket machine is on arrival in London.

And I find it odd that so many people on here have so little understanding
of human nature that they Just Dont Get that when its your first time in a
new city, are perhaps tired from travelling and are a bit confused about how
things work a lot of people would prefer talking to a person who can explain
what tickets they need , prices, zones etc, rather than wrestle with some
- IMO - poorly designed ticket machine interface.

I know people who use usenet are generally more technical than others and
wouldn't have a problem with most machines, but FFS at least try and put
yourselves in others situations occasionally.

And conversely why should we subsidise foreign visitors to these lands
when they do not do likewise? Particularly when there are plenty of
guidebooks available, in their language, that hopefully contain a useful
zonal map of the tube alongside details of what tickets are available.

Although I'd have thought the best advice these days would be to just
use a contactless card and it will get you close to the cheapest
possible fare if not exactly so.

At least the system is nowhere near as perverse as the Sofian tram
system, with the additional complication of notices in cyrillic and a
different fine structure for foreigners (higher by a factor of 10 or
used to be!)