The London news today is that the Mayor is giving away 100,000 free Oyster Cards to people who don’t yet have one. This is an attempt by Transport for London to get some of the die hards who’ve not yet got one, to get around to picking one up.
Ordinarily you have to pay a “deposit” of £3 to get one. Once you have one, you’re entitled to discounted public transport tickets… Well I say “discounted”, when what I really mean is that, if you don’t have an Oyster Card, you have to pay significantly more for your travel.
Why is this initiative limited to 100,000? Why doesn’t TfL just make Oyster Cards free for everyone all the time? You see, while I might have “Big Brother” issues with the ability of the authorities to track you around London, I have an even bigger issue with the fact that the really big losers are tourists and visitors to London.
Why should a tourist have to fill out a form, put down a “deposit” for a plastic card, just to travel around London at a reasonable cost? Sure, they can get their cash back at the end of their visit, but who’s really going to bother with that? And I’m not just talking about overseas visitors – I’m also talking about those who come from other parts of the UK to visit London. It’s just not fair.
Oyster Cards
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2 responses to “Oyster Cards”
While you do have to pay the deposit of £3, you don’t have to fill in a form; indeed some of the bigger stations like Waterloo have Oyster vending machines which look a bit like the ones that spew out fold up maps.
And, it’s a no-brainer for any tourist to buy one. You pretty much save the cost on the first journey (a zone 1 journey being £1.50 with an Oyster and a ridiculously high £4 without).
I suspect not many tourists understand them, although the Mayor and Visit Britain are trying to do something about that: http://www.visitbritain.com/corporate/presscentre/presscentrebritain/pressreleasesoverseasmrkt/apr-jun2006/oyster.aspx
Oyster cards cost more to produce than a paper ticket. If there was no deposit, there would be no incentive for people to reuse them, and you would see them littering the pavement outside tube stations. A waste of resources, and a further financial burden on TfL.