Oyster Travel Card

...off from buying a London Oyster card for several reasons, not the least of which is that I thought they were only for season ticket use, and as my need to use London's buses and Underground trains was minimal, say, three of four times a month, this ruled me out, or so I imagined.

True, you can use your Oyster card as a season ticket; a friend of mine does, but as I now know it can also be used as a Pay-As-You-Go payment card, with ...
...The TfL (Transport for London) Oyster card is a mainly pale blue credit-card sized smart card, although there is no outward sign of a microchip. To enter the TfL* travel network, you touch it onto or slide it over one of the myriad yellow card reading points that have sprung up in recent years, either at the entry door of buses, or at the entry and exit barriers of Underground stations.

*To date, this rules out a large chunk of Network ... more

I'd held off from buying a London Oyster card for several reasons, not the least of which is that I thought they were only for season ticket use, and as my need to use London's buses and Underground trains was minimal, say, three of four times a month, this ruled me out, or so I imagined.

True, you can use your Oyster card as a season ticket; a friend of mine does, but as I now know it can also be used as a Pay-As-You-Go payment card, with certain advantages over real cash.

A PAYG OYSTER? HOW'S THAT WORK THEN?

The TfL (Transport for London) Oyster card is a mainly pale blue credit-card sized smart card, although there is no outward sign of a microchip. To enter the TfL* travel network, you touch it onto or slide it over one of the myriad yellow card reading points that have sprung up in recent years, either at the entry door of buses, or at the entry and exit barriers of Underground stations.

*To date, this rules out a large chunk of Network Rail stations within the TfL zones, but there is a three year project to bring them all under the same wing.

This latter lack of universality is a major problem for passengers using a station like Richmond or Wimbledon which serves both Network Rail and Underground services. Don't for goodness sake take leave of your senses and swipe a PAYG Oyster Card and then use the mainline service - this can result in 'Deep Thought', as I call the massive computer that monitors all barriers, charging you the penalty fare of £10 at the end of the day, as there'll be nowhere at Waterloo Station for example to 'swipe out' of the system.

With the exception of buses which now only have a flat fare, you must strike in and out in 'matched pairs' otherwise the system throws a wobbly and thinks you're still down there somewhere.

I narrowly missed a penalty fare last year, just before the rule was introduced. Returning to London on an enthusiast's special train trip, we made an unscheduled stop at Finsbury Park, so those of us with an 'independent streak' got off, and within seconds were installed on the Piccadilly Line platform without going anywhere near a card-reading barrier. Having then left the Underground at Ealing Common and boarded a bus, this must have left Deep Thought wondering where the hell we'd been, or rather which barrier we leapt over to get into the system. I checked the website later to find that it had kindly charged me for a single fare and a bus ride, which was in fact exactly what I'd done!.

ANY BETTER THAN REAL MONEY THEN?

Yes, for a start you don't have to start the day with a clear idea of what kind of ticket to buy. It's still advantageous to start journeys after 9.30 am on weekdays, but after that, you can sit back and relax (if you can use the word 'relax' in a sentence that also includes Underground travel).

Let's compare a typical on/off day involving several 'Ins and Outs'.

I get on a local bus and swipe in. This immediately reduces my costs from a £2.00 (!) flat fare to £0.90p, in fact it makes you wonder who on earth it is that still hands over coins to board a bus. The fact that I can now travel by bus to Kingston, a journey taking the best part of an hour all the way from my house for 90p makes this astounding value for money, and I don't have to pay for a parking space when I get there. Anyway, back to the plot.........

Deep Thought says "Kerching! 90p spent at 9:35 am. Thanks a lot Chris!"

Then I enter Hounslow Central Piccadilly Line Station, possibly with a view to going round a museum at South Kensington.

Exiting from South Kensington, Deep Thought is starting to get interested. "Hmmmm, that's more like it, a 4-zones single fare. That's £4.00 please, Oh OK, £2.50 partly coz I like you and mostly coz you've got an Oyster card".

Being all 'museumed-out' I now get back into the system in search of my favourite Spanish restaurant in a side street off Piccadilly Circus. A swipe in and out costs me another £1.50. Cash payers would be fleeced a monstrous £4.00 for this 'privilege' which is only a margin cheaper than a taxi!

So far today, I've racked up £4.90, and I haven't even thought about going home yet.

Nursing a belly full of tapas, I now face the return trip from Piccadilly to Hounslow Central with a silly grin, followed by a bus ride to my nearest bus stop. As single fares to a non-card holder, these two alone would rack up a further £6.00, and even to me it's another £3.40.

I arrive home having had my Oyster card docked £8.30.

"Aha!", I hear you cry, "you were done. A 4-zones Travelcard only costs £5.70"

Yes, this is the clever bit. Once services stop running for the day, Deep Thought takes a long hard look at today's activities, does a reality check and forces himself to agree that I should only have been charged for a Travelcard, after all, I DID only enter the system after 9:30 am and I did behave myself and remember to swipe out of the system as I left the Underground for the last time.

So basically, you've nothing to lose. You either get charged at discounted rates for a smallish amount of travel, or your day's activity is capped at Travelcard rates. In fact, as someone has just reminded me, if you confine your travel to buses, the maximum daily charge is capped at that of a daily Bus-Pass, i.e £3, which costs in during your fourth journey, the rest being 'free' after that.

In fact, arriving very delayed at Heathrow, I found myself at 1.00am having missed the last Underground train getting on a night bus for the first time ever. These carry a double fare premium, but boy, is £1.80 cheaper than a cab ride home at that time of night?

MAINTENANCE

This is where I'd feel disadvantaged without access to my own PC, rather like buying mobile top-up cards at Tescos other than some mechanised means.

Setting up an account at the TfL Oystercard website (https://oyster.tfl.gov.uk/oyster/entry.do) makes the whole thing a lot slicker. You don't have to be a Londoner to get one, although non-UK residents need to get the photo-ID version and as I've shown, they would suit anyone with occasional needs to travel around London on either the buses or the Underground. They are also valid on the 'Croydon Trams' but it will be a while before all the surrounding main line services are brought into the scheme.

On first use, you have to nominate a convenient Underground station for your first top-up to operate. If you are a 'non-Londoner, bear in mind that they only give you a week's grace to operate the initial top-up or else you have to arrange for another one. Maybe it would be a good idea to start out about two weeks in advance of needing to use it for the first time to allow for the card to arrive by post and have a specific reason for using Tfl services in the following week.

After that, top-ups operate automatically every time your credit drops to less than £5.00, your nominated bank or credit card being debited with a further (in my case) £20.00. You get an e-mail to remind you that this has happened.

Passing through an Underground ticket barrier shows you your remaining balance. The card readers on buses aren't so 'smart' and I assume that they can only spill out their data to the system once back at the depot. Maybe if the buses reader goes faulty, you get away with a free ride although it was only going to be 90p anyway - who knows?

OTHER PROS AND CONS

With the PAYG versionI can't see why you couldn't lend it to a friend - after all, it's not like you're defrauding anyone, and you'll still get billed for their usage. Unless you've got an identical twin, don't try this at home with the photo-ID or season ticket versions kiddies!

You don't even have to get the card out and flourish it - putting it as the last card at the back of my wallet seems to be good enough to get it to register over a yellow card reader, although 'flourishing' your wallet might not be too good an idea in any big city. I'm told by "Sweary" that it was designed to work like that.

If you live in the southern half of London, a PAYG version is only really useful on trams, Docklands Light Railway, buses and the Northern Line. You'll have to wait till Southern and South West Trains stations are updated to read the cards and for all their on-train inspectors to get a card reader - you can almost hear Deep Thought groan at the prospect of all the extra work. Season ticket users need not despair though - theirs are already valid on 'real trains' too as are senior citizens passes.

On that subject, I know you shouldn't wish your life away, but I've got just over two years before qualifying for mine - now THAT'S a concession worth having, free travel in the London area! I can see the headlines now - "Bnibbles Becomes a Twirly**"

**'Twirly' as in "I am twirly - is it 9:30 yet?"

I said "I'M FIFTY SEVEN YOU KNOW!"

There's talk of making the Oyster Card a leap towards a cashless London, with holders being able to charge other things to it, the most immediate opportunity being the cooled chocolate dispensers on platforms. I believe this is already in operation in some other major cities. The only problem I could see with is the fact that the £5 lower threshold for top-ups may have to be raised to allow for some people's chocolate fix whilst allowing them to make the single longest journey on the Underground, otherwise they'll be using their new-found energy boost to hurdle barriers!.

The website also gives users access to various two-for-one offers at venues and restaurants, although they've never yet coincided with anything I want to see/eat, and in that order.

The only major drawback that I can see is that Deep Thought now knows where I go. When I had a season ticket for commuting, at least they only knew where I lived and how far into London I travelled. I guess this is only the tip of the iceberg though, what with road-pricing and PAYG car insurance just over the horizon.

It can sometimes take up to 48 hours for the website to update itself, but you can even track your own usage, possibly with a view to telling your pal that you lent it to what you think of him!

I've described as I've found. I've had no problems with the computer systems or with the charging. A trawl of other reviews does reveal that some poor soul has been badly let down, and as an example of the maxim ' If something can go wrong, it will, BIG TIME' it's worth a read.

Fingers crossed eh? 

...less