On 5 Oct 2005 02:16:30 -0700, "Larry Lard"
wrote:

Oyster in its current form is not suitable for very infrequent
passengers.

Why not? Seems to me that Prepay is *exactly* what very infrequent
passengers need.

I'd say there's a difference between relatively infrequent (e.g. me -
I go to London about once a month, and I would consider an Oyster card
if I didn't normally travel there on an outboundary ODTC) and very
infrequent (e.g. someone who perhaps visits once every 6 months).

To the latter, they probably just want to get a single from the ticket
machine. They may not even understand what Oyster is - some don't
understand what a ODTC is! They certainly won't want to join a
typically long ticket office queue to obtain an Oystercard and top it
up, nor to pay a gbp3 deposit on a card.

Now, there are ways of mitigating this, such as the installation of
Oyster sales machines, either removing the deposit or making it easier
to get it back (e.g. with an Oyster return machine), and posters
explaining an idiot's guide to Oyster alongside the tube maps. But
while the infrastructure for issuing paper tickets exists, it might as
well be used. If TfL simply want to do away with it, why don't they
say so?

None of this is a valid excuse for ripping people off. The fact that
most posters on here have come up with ways around the gbp3 fare would
show me fairly clearly that it is unreasonable.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
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