London buses to become cashless this summer

[Philipnet]

TfL said making buses cashless will deliver £130m in savings
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-26008726

London's buses are to become cashless from this summer, Transport for London (TfL) has said.
It predicts that, because of the Oyster card, the number of cash fares on buses will fall to less than 1% this year.
That compares with 20% of journeys being paid by cash 10 years ago.
TfL said it would introduce a 'one more journey' feature that will allow passengers to make one more bus trip if there are insufficient funds on their Oyster card.
The decision comes following a public consultation last year in which 37,000 people responded.

When the idea was first proposed, there were concerns about the impact on vulnerable people and the lack of places in outer London to top up an Oyster card.
To address these concerns, TfL has introduced measures including

• Introducing a new 'one more journey' feature on Oyster that will allow passengers with less than the single bus fare (currently £1.45) but who have a positive balance on their card to make one more bus journey before they have to add credit to their card
• A review of the Oyster Ticket Stop network to see if additional locations can be identified, particularly in outer London
• Refreshed guidance for all 24,500 London bus drivers to ensure a consistent approach is taken when dealing with vulnerable passengers

Last December, buses began to accept payment via contactless debit cards.


And:


New technology means you can 'touch in' with a bank card as well as an Oyster card
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20708615


Bus passengers in London can now choose to pay fares with a contactless card, Transport for London (TfL) has said.

Passengers on the city's 8,500 vehicles will be able to buy tickets by swiping a credit, debit or charge card by a reader. More than 85,000 bus journeys are still paid for using cash each day, TfL said.
Contactless payment will not be available on the Underground until the end of 2013.

Discussions are also under way with the train operating companies that serve London about accepting contactless payment cards where Oyster is currently accepted.

BBC London's transport correspondent Tom Edwards said the new payment system could save TfL £35m-a-year in reduced cash collection costs.
'Simple touch'TfL said every day 36,000 people board a bus and find they have insufficient funds on their Oyster card to pay for their journey and that at least 500 people a day try to pay their fare with a high denomination note for which the driver does not have change.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: "Lots of us have had the frustrating experience of dashing to board a bus only to discover that our Oyster card has run out of credit."
So the arrival of this latest technology is welcome news, meaning that with a simple touch of a contactless payment card, people can avoid having to scrabble for change and also still benefit from the Oyster fare discount.

"But the contactless payment system will not include daily price capping, which means if it is used several times in one day it will not stop charging once a passenger reaches the cost of daily travelcard.

This is what happens with a pay-as-you-go Oystercard. And passengers are being warned to be careful about swiping their wallet against readers if they own more than one contactless payment card as the reader will reject all of them.


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I don't go into London that often and when I don't I take the underground (I know the stops and can remember the map).
London Buses have remained a mystery - but I know some people are Londers and know the buses.

What are your thoughts on these changes?

[Rob McCow]

What does he mean, "Exact Change Only?"

[Philipnet]

Just remember to swear every other word!

[Stuart Wallis]

The Lads cannot make any more highway robberies on buses any more. Of course this means war!

[Perry Vale]

It's simply part of the plan to phase out and replace the Oyster card, and deflect attention from ticket office closures and redundancies.


Unfaithful Boris Screws Tube Passengers

Little prominence has been given to the phasing out of the Oyster card, to be replaced by contact-less bankcards. The Oyster card works fine for the passenger, but LU want to switch to a system that conveniently means that any ticketing problems experienced by passengers are no longer dealt with by LU, but by the passenger’s bank!

London Underground states that they will keep Oyster cards while the public wants Oyster cards, but who will decide this? No doubt it will be London Underground, and when they do, it will mean that anyone who doesn’t qualify for a contact-less card from their bank will have to pay the full price at a machine. Even those with a contact-less card could find that their bank refuses to sanction a transaction, forcing them also to pay the full price at a machine and take up the argument with their bank later.

Foreign tourists may well have contact-less cards, but they won’t be in sterling, so they’ll be charged the banks usual exorbitant exchange rate. A great advertisement for one of the world’s top tourist destinations!!

[Philipnet]

But when are they going to introduce this on the Tube?

Not that I'm a fan of contactless payments.
I have several cards in my wallet and I don't want to get one out just to get on a tube/bus.

[Stuart Wallis]

I've only just got used to paying with Oyster (and I'm not going to make any seafood jokes, don't worry!). In fact, the one thing I object to about all of this is that I don't have a bank card, I've never wanted one, and I don't see the point of getting one simply to pay for a bus fare home when it's raining cats and dogs or I'm suffering from a migraine. Given the interest rates on bank cards, which I and most people object to I imagine, I might as well pay cash, only it looks as though I'm not going to be able to do that now. Thanks, Boris! you're mucking up my transport options and you're not even my mayor!

Signed, Disgruntled of Loughton

[Philipnet]

I wouldn't want to use my current account for this or any other contactless payment.

I'd get much more protection using a credit card.
Yet when using a credit card it's very much harder to keep track of what you spend and where :-( !

[Perry Vale]

In fact, the one thing I object to about all of this is that I don't have a bank card...

T'was ever thus, that's the plan. They want everyone to have a bank account, and be dependent on it. You can't get paid, or recieve any benefits without one. A population dependent on the state, will be unlikely to rise up and bring it down.

In 10-20 years time, they'll do the same thing with RFID chips, implanted into your hand, or temple. Such things are not the realm of sci-fi any more. IMO.

[Philipnet]

In a similar vein:



A futuristic all-in-one travel pass that you could use on trains, buses, the tube and even to catch flights, all at the lowest possible price, is the stuff of sci-fi, but will move a step closer to reality when MultiPass is trialled in London and Glasgow this year.

The Technology Strategy Board, the UK government's innovation arm, has awarded a £1.1m grant to an industry consortium to pilot the new technology, which takes its name from a fictional bit of kit featured in the 1997 science fiction movie The Fifth Element starring Bruce Willis.

But could developments in contactless payment technology risk leaving it looking redundant?

Those behind it claim it is designed to solve two problems: the need to carry, or buy, lots of different cards and tickets for different journeys, and the challenge of negotiating Britain's byzantine ticketing systems in order to obtain the cheapest fare.

MultiPass could replace a rail season ticket or Oyster card, and you could also use it to pay for car parking and refreshments during the journey. And – because it can display a barcode on its screen – it could even be used for air travel. With government-backed funding, and a consortium which includes players such as train operating company Greater Anglia and the Centre for Transport Studies at Imperial College London, it suggests that unlike some flights of fancy this one just might get off the ground.

The consortium plans to run two pilot schemes during the middle of 2014 – one involving journeys into London, the other in and around Glasgow – ahead of what they hope will be a full rollout in 2015.

However, millions of Londoners and visitors to the capital are about to get an all-in-one card that will allow them to do many of the same things. Since December 2012, passengers on London's 8,500 buses have been able to pay using debit and credit cards displaying the contactless symbol, and from summer 2014 they can be used across the capital's network, including the tube, overground, Docklands Light Railway and trams.

Oyster cards will continue to be accepted, but Transport for London claims that using a contactless card instead will mean no more queuing for tickets, no need to keep topping up your Oyster, and no need for visitors to get a ticket on arrival. Ahead of the launch, TfL will carry out a controlled pilot to test the system and rectify any "operational issues" that rear their head.

However, Jeremy Acklam at London-based company MultiPass, which is leading the consortium, suggests its invention goes several steps further than that. He says it would offer a simple proposition: seamless "best price" travel across Britain.

Some will wonder what the point is of a single travel pass, and may take the view that having to carry and buy different tickets for different types of travel is hardly a major hardship. However, Acklam says people won't need to think about what ticket to buy – the aim would be that the MultiPass would charge the lowest possible fare for any journey the passenger makes, on any form of transport, with any operator.

"Because we are managing all these different tickets 'up in the cloud', we can pretty much guarantee to get you the best price. That's the big attraction," he says, adding that one of the reasons for the pilots was to determine customer reaction – "how they like to use it, which bits they find useful". Several hundred people will be recruited for the pilots, some of them existing season ticket holders.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/money/201...ass-travelcard

[duncan]

But when are they going to introduce this on the Tube?

Oh, it's coming, trust me.

They will bring in contactless cards in the next 6-9 months and have it running for the following 3-6 months and once they are 100% sure it all works, the first ticket offices will start to close in Jan/Feb 2015.

A small-ish number of underground staff have already been given contactless cards for them to use instead of their staff pass for a trial period. So it's definitely on it's way.

As for Buses, Central london buses have been cashless for a few years now as you had to buy a ticket from a machine at the bus stop before boarding.

[Philipnet]

Once they are 100% sure it all works, the first ticket offices will start to close in Jan/Feb 2015.

Hence the strike that's going on at the moment!

[duncan]

Yes, but that isn't just about closing ticket offices.

What LUL are not telling the public is that when they mean there will be no compulsory redundancies and that anyone who wantts a job and is willing to be flexible can have a job; by being flexible they actually mean taking one heck of a hefty pay cut for those that have to come out of the ticket office and work elsewhere on a station.

[Philipnet]

Yeah, I've heard the phrase "anyone who wants a job" - and wondered what they weren't saying

[duncan]

At the risk of hijacking this thread, which I don't want to do, there's a lot they haven't said.

Even Cameron has today attacked the strike because only 3% of journeys start at a ticket office. But's that's because about a year after Oyster was introduced, LU imposed a minimum top up of £5 at the ticket office window. They threatened disciplinary action to those ticket sellers who topped up a customers oyster for less than the minimum. Therefore, this forced those customers into topping up elsewhere.

Anyway, I can't see any advantage to going over to cashless on the buses as it's not providing the world class service for a world class city which is TFL's vision.

[Philipnet]

Duncan, in that case this thread is for you: http://www.planetskaro.org.uk/forums...upts-commuters