In London, as you may or may not know, they’ve been phasing out the old Routemasters and introducing bendy-busses. You know – the things that take up twice as much space as the old ones, and that don’t let you jump on and off whenever you like.
Anyway, I still don’t quite understand ticketing on these things. In Central London, buses don’t take cash any longer. If you’re an occassional traveller, you should buy your ticket at the machine by the bus-stop. Or you can buy a pre-paid Oyster card. Or you can buy books of tickets in advance which save you a few quid.
But the thing is, the driver is no longer interested in you. We Londoners are used to either the conductor or driver taking an interest in whether or not you have a ticket or cash or a pass. Now, unless you’re handing a pre-paid ticket in, the driver doesn’t want to know. And you can get in via any door.
If you’ve got an Oystercard, you’re supposed to swipe it past one of the readers throughout the bus, but initially there were problems with these – they didn’t know the time, so couldn’t be linked through to the central system.
But if you’re like me, with an old-fashioned paper pass, you don’t show it to the driver, and don’t swipe it against anything. You just get on and sit down, and maybe wait for a ticket inspector.
But if I can do that, what’s to stop everyone else on these busses doing that?