Ticket machines being boarded up?

They were originally designed with numerous buttons to select individual stations in the days before zonal fares. They were called Multifare machines.

The first examples were installed at Vauxhall station.

No simpler fronts were installed but the internal technology is very old and probably life expired.

Am sad to read this, see it as a retrograde move as there are still some people who prefer to use cash and no retailer (especially not when publicly owned) should be refusing legal tender for the products it sells.

Also, this reduces the numbers of machines in use at stations, in the process potentially discriminating against passengers who do not have the 'right' kind of plastic card to pay for their fares ... a comment that includes an Oyster card with available PAYG funds.

Um, what does AI have to do with the ticket machines? They hardly need any "I" at all, accepting cash and dispensing change is a well-understood process.

The real issue in most places is cash handling- the machines need to be emptied of notes and the coin dispenser refilled, and that needs people and has a risk of theft; there's a cost involved that may be more than the cost of processing card transactions (including fees). The mechanisms also need to be maintained; a touch-card reader doesn't have any moving parts.


BTW, this is little different from trying to swing people from paper tickets to oyster cards to touch cards & mobile apps- less and simpler field equipment for TfL to maintain and which leads to less need for "costly" maintenance staff.

(Many electric and gas companies in the US have installed "smart" meters, a main reason being they don't need to send anyone around to read them, and that was a large amount of union-represented labor that becomes redundant.)

Legal tender in the UK has a very specific meaning. From the Bank of England website:

(emphasis mine)

So if you do not have a debt to somebody, and on TfL (like most transport services) you do not have a debt before you travel. The only time legal tender would be relevant is if you have incurred a debt, i.e. you have made a journey without a valid ticket, oyster card, contactless payment card, or other permit to travel. Even then they can ask you to pay however they like, and they can accept whatever they want in settlement of the debt. However if you offer to pay in full using cash and coins (and there are limits on how many of some coins they have to accept) then they must either accept that offer or choose not to pursue that debt. Even if they choose not to accept it, bylaws may allow them to ban you from travelling on their services. And none of this imposes any requirement on them to accept cash payment for future journeys.

This means it is entirely up to the retailer or service provider what methods of payment they accept, and so it is always going to be a decision made on balance of how much it costs them to accept a method of payment vs the income they receive from that method of payment that they would not receive in other forms if they don't accept it.

In this case, TfL's costs to maintain the machines are increasing, the costs of handling the cash are likely increasing, the amount they receive in cash will almost certainly be decreasing, and at least most of those who do use cash will either switch to using an alternative payment method directly, use cash at a different station or use cash at a ticket shop.

Why do the machines still require a PIN? Most likely because they still work and there's no good case to spend any money to change it.

BTW, if you want a story about fiddly mechanisms and equipment maintenance, read Mr. Gibson's Ticket Machine (not rail-related so it's not on my book list).

Zbang, Gibsons *** were*** used in a small way by LT railways. The London end booking office at Buckhurst Hill had the; so did Roding Valley...

Worth considering tourism as well. A lot of tourists will use only cash when travelling to London.

I’m not sure why it’s false advertising- it tells the customer how much the shop hopes to be offered and they’d be unwise* to try and ask for more when you get to the till. The customer can try offering a lower amount if they wish - unlikely to be accepted in a supermarket but some traders may be willing to consider offers in the right circumstances.

*I think retail businesses who don’t include taxes & service charges in their displayed prices are unwise.

While there is some truth to this, it is not necessarily the case - with the rise of low fee cards designed for use abroad, and device payments, people are increasingly not taking cash or only minimal cash on foreign travel. I’ve spent significant time travelling in Europe with work the last year and not used cash at all, similarly visitors to London I know don’t bring cash. (And as we all know, the plural of anecdote is data)

This is the sort of thing that would make a good FOI request