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

[devilwithabluedresson]

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?

Ihatethecold you can buy Oyster cards from a machine in (I think) most tube and London national rail stations.

You don't have to buy a "visitor's" oyster - they have a pretty picture on the front, but are no different to normal blue oyster cards in the way that they work.

You can get a normal oyster at any station. It will be £5 deposit which is cheaper than the visitor one if you add postage.

But 'any station' is still miles away from some people like the OP in the outer zones.

Did I see correctly that auto top up cant be activated on buses? Pretty useless that then, unless you live near a station.

And the point about not being able to check your balance is valid. Because you have to wait for a bus to check, who then won't let you on. In the outer zones that could be 20 minutes.

Ah, yes, Auntie Stella - that is a very good point.

(Doesn't help me with the lost oyster problem though!)

No you're right a system that has been a massive success for ten years is fundamentally flawed .

It doesn't have to be a tube station, it can be a train station or a newsagent or you can buy them online and have them posted to you.

hmm. I guess this is neighbourhood dependent. In my area, top up places are everywhere. Mainly small shops. Although I just try and remember to do it when I walk by a tube station.

I used this to find my nearest ticket stop and it looks like I am in a black hole too. My nearest is a train station thats a very long walk away, most people would catch a bus there. Shame as there is a petrol station near us that would be a perfect place. I am on the fringe of Hertfordshire.

So even if I auto topped up, I would still have to make the journey to the train station to activate it? Is that right?

I think its a huge stretch to call Oyster a massive success There are huge problems. I am a commuter and have been charged so many times where there is no where to touch out etc.

It IS cheaper, I will give it that. But cash is inclusive and universal. This system is not.

Yes, written. You would have to go to the train station to activate auto topup. Only for the first time, but still a pita and not at all customer focused.

Sorry that was to imonlydancing

Those of you calling people Luddites are just not thinking. I have 2 bank cards, both renewed this year, neither are contactless not have I been offered it. It isn't as widespread as you think! You should go run some transport organisations though, because obviously ifyou have something, then everyone's got it!

YY Gardener - a bit like if there were a proposal to so do away with the post and the complaints were met with "just use email".

I use cheques all the damn time. I've written seven this month and will need at least three more before August.

YY Gardener - a bit like if there were a proposal to so do away with the post and the complaints were met with "just use email".

I use cheques all the damn time. I've written seven this month and will need at least three more before August.

All these people who keep saying you've got no way of knowing how much is on your oyster unless you have a smartphone...

You know that it displays the balance every.single.time you use it, right?
Tap in on the bus and it will say "£1.45 deducted, £xx remaining"
Same when you tap out at a tube station and sometimes even when you tap in.

And if you use your 'last trip' on the bus because your card is empty, it makes a different noise AND the driver gives you a paper ticket (like a ticket when you paid cash) so there is really no way of claiming you don't know you've used it

For Londoners it's a great system.

For other people, not so much

What do old people do, by the way? Ones with no cards, no mobile phones?

Yes well it is mainly designed for the benefit of people living here and using the transport system very day.

Old people get a card and load it with cash. At a newsagent. At a train station. It's not hard.

I refute the 'charged loads when there is nowhere to tap out'. I have never been to a single station where there is nowhere to tap out! Unless you've gone outside the oyster zone in which case you shouldn't have tapped in!

Sometimes it's hard to read how much is on it, especially if you are hurrying through the barriers, with someone behind you, or your eye sight isn't very good.

If you use it often, you're probably going to have a good feel for how much is on it, it's worth you organising auto top up etc, it doesn't matter if you were distracted and missed how much credit you have left, because you'll be using it again later and you can look then.

If you only use it once a month, less than that, just the odd journey, then maybe you won't remember how much was left on it last time you got on a bus.

Occasional users of public transport, those in outlying areas with fewer buses and fewer places to top up shouldn't just be left fumbling and struggling because they only use it occasionally, or because of where they live. Obviously services are going to be better in Central London. But implementing a system that is likely to actually put people off using public transport, or make it effectively inaccessible to them, has got to be a retrograde step.

You don't have to do that if you don't want to Maryz. You can still buy a paper ticket travelcard.

I wonder about that Bryonyc, will getting rid of cash on buses have any effect on rider numbers?

I suspect that if it doesn't, TfL will trumpet their big success. If rider numbers go down in outer London, we won't hear a word.

I mean, I have no idea what you mean by "tap in" for example. I shouldn't have to read a load of bumph, pay a fiver deposit and load a tenner onto a card just to get a bus a few stops down Oxford Street.

If you actually get a bus, it will become blindingly obvious what tapping in is ;-) Yellow pad by the driver, everyone presses their card against it on the way onto the bus.

Occasional users of public transport, those in outlying areas with fewer buses and fewer places to top up shouldn't just be left fumbling and struggling because they only use it occasionally, or because of where they live.

They will either have enough money for the fare on the oyster, or not. If they don't they get their 'ride home' and like others have said you get a paper ticket thing from the driver to show this. So then it's blindingly obvious that you need to top up before you next get a bus.

It may be blindingly obvious you need to top up.

If you can't actually get to somewhere to top up from, then you can't top up, and it may stop you being able to use the bus.

Maryz, as some posters have said, to check their credit level on a bus they would first have to wait 20 minutes for that bus. Then what if there's no money on it?

Go to the nearest tube to top up? Mine is oakwood. That's 3 buses away.