I have a similar travel pattern to yours - my journeys change on a day
to day basis and on any given day I have to decide whether it's more
economical to buy a one day travelcard (either off peak or full price
depending on the time my journey starts) or a straight single or
return ticket.


I'd not thought of the Oyster system working out if you're better off on
a weekly or a series of daily tickets. It would be very rare for me to
be better off on a weekly ticket though, so I personally wouldn't be
upset if the system could optimise tickets on only a daily basis.

I have a question about what happens when the 2004 fare structure
comes in in January. The TfL site shows preferential rates (ie. held
at 2003 levels) for those who pre-pay on certain fares. The August

Good point indeed. My bet is that the Oyster prepay discount comes in
just after the January fare structure comes into place - they'll make
more money on the increased ticket prices and won't have to reprogramme
anything they do between now and then.


At the moment I have a soon-to-expire weekly Oyster card which I've
loaded £50 onto. Once the weekly pass expires my understanding is that
I'll have to use the big ticket machines to buy a paper ticket
(single/travelcard etc) and "pay" using the Oyster card instead of the
debit card I'd normally use. That's a slight improvement, I end up with
one £50 receipt to put into my accounts intead of 20 smaller receipts.

That's where the Oyster convenience stops though, right? I'd end up
with a normal paper ticket which has to go through the gates each time.
It can't be a big leap to load a ticket onto the Oyster card instead
of print something out.

Ideally though, I'd just walk through the gate without visitng the
machine, and let the gate deduct me £3.80 or whatver from my card. The
only parellel I have in this operation would be using Singapore's new
EZ-Card system - operates just as I have described, load money on, don't
visit the ticket machine, just walk through the gate and tap the reader.
It, though, has an LCD screen which displays your balance. I have
only seen LCD screens on the gates at Baker St (beside the yellow disc),
most other stations just have a red/orage/green LED. Not a lot of use
if you want to track how much credit you have remaining.