I’ll try not to sound smug here, because I know it can happen to any of us, but why do so many people leave it until this morning, the first day fully back at work after the break, to buy their train tickets?
This morning at my local station, where there’s one assistant and one ticket machine, the queues were ridiculously long. Everyone should have gone two days ago:
1) to beat the rush
2) to beat the ticket increases that came into play yesterday
As I say, we’ve all turned up to buy a ticket on a Monday, but unless your firm’s season ticket loan cheque only came through this morning, there’s really no excuse.
While I’m on a transport theme, I notice that bus prices have also increased to £1.20. Isn’t that a 20% 25% increase that’s not really been commented on? I know it’s much cheaper if you get an Oyster Card (£1.00 or 80p depending when you travel), but that’s a bit unfair on tourists and others. Actually, looking at the new fares even people who buy, say, a one-day bus pass, are screwed. The Oyster Card cost is a maximum of £3.00 in one twenty-four hour period, yet someone who buys a one-day bus pass (perhaps they’re a tourist or from out of town) is charged £3.50.
The whole Oyster Card thing really annoys me anyway. I have to use a “national rail” station (as we have to call what once upon a time would have been a “BR station”), and they don’t accept Oyster Card pre-pay on their routes. They do allow Oyster Card Travelcards. (Note: for those who don’t know, you can either pay a fixed amount for unlimited travel – a travelcard effectively, or you can pay per trip, topping your Oyster Card up with credit – like pre-pay mobile phones).
The trouble begins because Transport for London have made pre-pay Oyster Cards very cost effective whilst penalising those who use cash. The minimum trip on the tube is now a fixed £3.00 in zones 1-4 for example.
The reason for my local railway not taking pre-pay is pretty simple: the station has no attendants or barriers. If it did have barriers, then everyone getting off the train would have to swipe their card to show that they’d completed their journey there. But with no barrier, and the possibility of swiping your card at, say, an earlier station, a smaller amount can be charged.
The station will accept “travelcard” payments on Oyster Card because the payment has already been made. No chance of fare-dodging then.
The only long-term solution is for all these stations to be gated, and therefore manned. But that’s not going to happen since it’ll add a massive cost to running the stations.
Anyway, if you do only travel by tube, then why not try James’ Oyster Card Calculator? Just be warned that it doens’t take into account any bus trips that you might make on top. But it does highlight the savings you can actually get from pre-pay over and above monthly or even annual travelcards. I think that the big savings can come from travel made after 7.00pm. This can make the difference between going pre-pay or travelcard. All this assumes that you have the choice of course.