On 2014-10-10 08:33:06 +0000, Roland Perry said:

I've seen similar (or were they an earlier version of the same) reports
about extending Oyster to those airports. Maybe the roll-out of
contactless payments will trump that, especially for the tourist market
who are unlikely to have Oysters (on arrival at Luton, anyway).

Indeed. While Oyster was definitely a worthwhile product of its time,
I suspect it has a very limited future lifespan - 5 to 10 years maybe -
as banking products replace it.

I would have thought that covering journeys to/from Luton Airport (not
merely Airport Parkway) would be the think to aim for. Since the
shuttle bus is no longer free, without this arriving passengers will
have to find cash to pay for the bus, and only then could they use
their Oyster cards for the rail part of the journey. At present if
they can find the (well-hidden) places to buy rail tickets in the
airport they can buy a through ticket.

There's a prominent machine in baggage reclaim. I agree that there
should be better advertised ones landside (eg at the bus station).

There is a very obvious ticket machine outside right at the bus stop
for the shuttle bus, and the conductor[1] has a ticket machine as well.

[1] Why on earth does it have a conductor when the layovers at each end
are (deliberately) quite long, so there is plenty of time for the
driver to sell tickets? As ISTR you aren't penalised for not buying a
through ticket - the add-on is the same as the bus fare - there is no
need for through rail tickets to be sold on the bus itself.

In the absence of a Cheap Day Single, I wonder how many tourists
arriving buy the much more expensive Open Single, rather than a Cheap
Day Return and throw the other half away?

For what, the bus? brfares.com doesn't list a CDR, just SDS, SDR and
SOR (the latter two bizarrely costing the same, so why the middle one
exists I have no idea).

Neil
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Neil Williams
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