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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Before TFL stopped cash on the buses, they should have put in place more ways to top up!

136 replies

devilwithabluedresson · 15/07/2014 20:52

There is a retail area where I live that is next to a dual carriageway. Very unfriendly for walkers, its a miserable walk down a noisy road with very fast cars passing you.

It is huge, probably about a mile from end to end. I walked there this morning and hoped to get home by bus. Anyway, it turned out I couldnt top up my oyster at any of the shops there. Not Morrisons, Sainsburys, M&S, nowhere. I checked my iphone and it showed the nearest top up stop to be 1 mile away in any direction! I understand you get 1 more ride home, but I wasnt sure if I had already used that and I wasn't prepared to wait 20 minutes for a bus just to find I was turfed off.

It was no biggie, I decided to walk home as I actually live about a mile away. But it did highlight some huge problems with this No Cash thing which I pondered on the walk back :

  • Not everyone has iphones to check where the nearest top up stop
  • Not everyone can actually walk 1 mile to the nearest top up stop
  • There is no way to check your credit, or that you have used your 'last ride home' unless you have a smart phone (and know how to use it!) Not everybody does.
  • If I'd had my oyster and my cashcard in the same wallet and it was lost or stolen, I would have no means to get on the bus at all.
  • Someone with mobility issues could effectively get stuck at a place like this and have to hope a bus driver would take pity on them to get home. Even if they had the cash to travel!

Anyway so I was thinking how about a top up facility on the cash points in Sainsburys/Morrisons/M&S. That would be easily solve a lot of these points! AIBU?

OP posts:
StandsOnGoldenSands · 15/07/2014 21:37

When you live in lovely middle class wonderland auto top up is fine.

When you're on the streets and need to raise enough cash to go see your children once a fortnight and you don't have the money for an Oyster deposit ever (like some men I have known), the switch to no cash payments starts to look petty and horrible.

mymoonandstars · 15/07/2014 21:38

Yes you will. It will cost you a £5 deposit. So your bus journey will have an upfront cost of £6.45.

vindscreenviper · 15/07/2014 21:45

I've just checked on the Tfl site and there is such a thing as an Oyster Visitors card, but you have to buy it before you arrive, and it costs £3, then the min. amount you can load it with is £10.
Worra fuckin palaver.

StandsOnGoldenSands · 15/07/2014 21:47

Apols for sounding snarky btw. Frustrates me that people can't see this, and that it's been so badly organised.

Me624 · 15/07/2014 21:48

I think it's perfectly sensible. There are so many places you can top up! Where do you live OP that you're a mile from a shop? Must be right in the outer zones?

Most people I know hardly carry cash anyway. I am longing for the day when I can simply have a chip implanted into my wrist that will act as bank card, Oyster card, passport, driving licence, nectar card etc all in one. I reckon it'll happen in my lifetime.

WomanScorned · 15/07/2014 21:48

My ex - NDN's have no bank account, just a PO one, which their benefits are paid in to. Auto top up would not 'work brilliantly' for them and others too poor to have a bank account/i-phone/internet etc. They frequently knocked at my door for the extra 5p or so that would get them on to the bus (or give them the price of a super-strength, but that's a whole other thread!
And I'd be pissed off if I had £10 in my bank to last the week, and it automatically topped up my Oyster card, even tho I already had credit on it!

londonrach · 15/07/2014 21:49

Yanbu. I'm shocked I can't use cash on a bus. Loading my oyster until easy where I am. I ave to walk 5 minutes oats bus stop to top up. If bus there it's a long wait till next one....

HeartsTrumpDiamonds · 15/07/2014 21:53

Awful. At least some of the vulnerable (elderly people, disabled people) have Freedom passes. Wonder how long until those are done away with.

Can you not even buy tickets at bus ticket machines any more?

I don't trust contactless payment cards either.

Original poster
devilwithabluedresson · 15/07/2014 21:53

I am in zone 6 and the very edge of that as well. But if a system is to be implemented, it has to be workable over all of the areas it affects.

I think top up at supermarkets is the way forward. These are open all the time and mean you don't have to walk along a dual carriageway for a mile! I actually usually have a weekly pass but it had run out today.

OP posts:
Original poster
devilwithabluedresson · 15/07/2014 21:56

I am actually eligible for a freedom pass but the condition I have means that I have to get lots and lots of paperwork in place to prove it. There are a lot of hoops to jump through, people awaiting their freedom pass would be in the same hopeless position if they ran out of credit in an area with no top up facility.

I am still waiting for mine Sad

OP posts:
Purplecircle · 15/07/2014 22:01

What's wrong with auto top up?
I use it and I live a few hours away. My card gets used 10 times a year max

RueDeWakening · 15/07/2014 22:06

Auto top up is fine in principle, except I live in the part of London where there is no tube south of zone 4 (Morden), and when I investigated it you had to pass through a designated tube station for the top up to generate. I rarely use the tube, it's just not convenient or anywhere near me.

Admittedly I've not looked at it for a few years (I have a Freedom Pass, that gets me funny looks when I get on with a pushchair and 2 kids in tow...) but it certainly was the case. I'd like to hope that it's been changed, but somehow I doubt it.

Madsometimes · 15/07/2014 22:07

My number one rant about this is that online top up is not fit for purpose.

To activate a one off online top up or to set up auto top up, you need to touch in at a nominated tube/DLR/railway. The thing is, if you are at a station, then you don't need to do online top up, you can just use the machine Hmm. Online topup should be particularly useful for people that don't live near a station, or just want to travel by bus, but this group of people can't use it.

Not everyone lives close to a station. My nearest station is a bus ride away. And what isn't clear is that if you do touch in at a station, will you be charged for a journey that you don't want to make, assuming you want to use the bus only?

I know that once auto topup has been activated, it isn't necessary to go to a station, but it's still frustrating and poorly thought through.

mymoonandstars · 15/07/2014 22:10

Womanscorned, that is exactly my point. If you cannot use auto top up, there has to be other ways accessible to you. And more than a mile between physical top up stops is not an accessible way for many people. Imagine if you walked all that way to find it was broken? Or the shop was closed? Ridiculous.

tethersend · 15/07/2014 22:11

I'd like to see top-up facilities at every bus stop.

mymoonandstars · 15/07/2014 22:13

Hear hear, tethersend! Grin

Madsometimes · 15/07/2014 22:16

Absolutely and an Oyster card vending machine for those that don't have/can't find/have had theirs stolen.

ICanSeeTheSun · 15/07/2014 22:22

Oyster cards sounds confusing.

Iggly · 15/07/2014 22:23

You can set up auto top up. Some people don't like it but why not, I don't understand. (Although does it work on the bus?)

Isitmylibrarybook · 15/07/2014 22:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Iggly · 15/07/2014 22:26

I know that once auto topup has been activated, it isn't necessary to go to a station, but it's still frustrating and poorly thought through

Write to them and complain then here
I will be!

tiggytape · 15/07/2014 22:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mymoonandstars · 15/07/2014 22:32

The point is that by taking away the cash service, they have made public transport inaccessible, or difficult to access for certain groups. You can't travel if you need to. Even if you really really need to. Your money literally isn't welcome here!

KneeQuestion · 15/07/2014 22:32

Auto top up is most definitely not for everyone.

I looked into setting it up only today, it requires an initial £10 top up, then you set it to auto top up when your credit balance falls below £10. You have to top up with either £20 or £40.

That is a lot of money if you only use it for buses as and when you need them and you are on a budget.

Lots of people are not in the position of being ok with £20-40 coming out of their account just because they took a £1.45 bus ride.

I think there are things wrong with the oyster system. I used the free ride facility when my credit was less than I needed, it was late so nowhere to top up, I topped up a few days later paying back the debt and some on top. Today my oyster balance was minus £3. No idea how or why.

I live in inner London and there are not enough top up points around where I live, so goodness knows what it must be like in the outer zones.

Maryz · 15/07/2014 22:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.