Ticket prices

Well, just imagine trying to do Charing Cross - Covent Garden... unbeknown to the tourists it is a ten - twelve minute walk...

but also Ken's great idea of giving me a 50p flat fare at all times on the tube network bar the deepest reaches of Metroland.

There is really no reason why anyone should want to buy a single tube ticket in zone one any more. It would have to be your only journey on the underground for the rest of your life. If you EVER intended to use the underground again you should get an oystercard as for £4.50 you have paid the deposit and the £1.50 oyster fare for a zone one journey, then all your subsequent journeys are cheaper. This is assuming you always correctly touch in and out on every journey .

I think a big problem is trying to communicate this message to wary tourists while a long queue is developing at your window!

Of course to drag up the ticket office closures thread, sometimes people want oyster but can't get it because the ticket office is shut. It's all well and good to say that there are ticket stops (newsagents etc) too, but once you're at a station you don't expect to leave it again to get the best deal.

prjb - I'm suprised you don't keep up with the fare revisions, I had you down as a man with a finger on the pulse so to speak ;D
(Oh and a zone 1 and 2 off peak travelcard is £5.10)

I wonder how long this disparity between oyster and magnetic fares will last though. Once enough oystercards are out there I'm sure the old paper ticket will be axed and oyster fares hiked!

The current situation makes a lot more sense if you pretend paper tickets have already been axed and an Oyster card (or ODTC) is a baseline requirement for using the system.

This press release says cash usage is already down to 4% on the tube, so I can't imagine they're relying on those £4 as a significant source of revenue or subsidy.

In answer to the original question, Gloucester Road to Victoria is £1.50 each way on Oyster.

Now that ticketing is computerised, would it not make sense to have tickets based on mileage? Ticket prices are high; and one might comment far higher than what one would expect in return.

Oyster isn't future proof. One day even that will be phased out. Customers rightly feel theyre experiancing too much 'stick' for no 'carrot'.

Oyster cards are difficult to get aswell compared to a paper ticket. They should have vending machines selling then for £3 at each station.

Well, Ben, I am pleased [Though not for my t/office brethren] to tell you that a machine selling Oyster cards will be coming in the next couple of years.

IIRC, it will be called an AFM [Advanced fare machine], it will be a much more modern version of the MFM [Multi-fare machine]

Let us hope a more stringent contract will be in place for the upkeep of these machines, as at the moment, Cubic, are reaching their targets on machines being in service, despite equipment failing on a daily occurence at many stations.

In other words there is no incentive for them to sort the problem properly!

I have to admit my knowledge of tickets is extremely poor to say the least having never worked on the station side. I hope to move on to the stations when I leave my current role in order to rectify this.
Thanks for the correction too, I knew it was £5 something!

Yes, I know!

The Oyster vending machines are undoubtedly going to continue to spread - I think I saw one at Gloucester Road a few days ago when I passed through.

Personally though I think there are still a lot of bugs in the system - I have been hit quite a number of times with the max cash fare when making perfectly reasonable journeys, and the database upload delay means that you have to wait up to an hour after the journey before the helpline can fix it.

I have an Oyster card, as do my family who go to London - and I advise friends/relatives visiting to get one accordingly. Sadly, not everyone is so clued-up.

The refund thing is stupid - it took me about 5 minutes of 50p-a-minute (had to ring on a mobile in my lunch hour because they're not open when I'm at home) to get a £4 refund, because LU can't get their system working. Until the system reaches a higher level of reliability, it should be set to err on the side of caution and charge passengers less.

Don't say that within earshot of Ken or he'll have you burnt at the stake.

Did anyone notice the fact that the Multi-fare machine is actually ripping people off?

The MF should've defaulted to a Z1-2 TC instead of a return ticket. The machines have always done this.

However at the last fare revision, this feature was removed - some would say deliberately.

LU are aware of the problem, and have done the serious thing of producing a poster.

The original plan was to convert those folding map machines. Then develop a new machine and roll it out.

The AFM Lord TB announced earlier was supposed to begin being installed from Jan, and AFAIK not one has been yet.

The paper ticket facility has been removed from many of the QBM's (the credit card only machines).

Oh and lastly the Oyster Card watch trial appears to be progressing well, but still 6 - 8 months behind schedule. So MAY be in the shops by Christmas.

I think the fares and tickets system is unnecessarily complex. It needs to be simplified because the current number of tickets available is just stupid and there's too many zones as well. It just causes no end of confusion.