13 ms·

TfL's simple pop-up message led to a significant drop in paper ticket sales

• perch56 3y ago
  This effective solution has been in use for a number of years now in cities throughout Czechia, Poland, Romania, Estonia and probably many others around Europe. I wish we could see a faster uptake of this approach in Ireland.
  • felsokning 3y ago
    Agreed. We need the contactless payment scheme. For what its worth, you can use Leap for Bus Eireann and other services[1]. I think Irish Rail (excluding the Free Travel Scheme[2]) is the hold-out, in rural areas, as Bus Eireann and Irish Rail are the only services available in those areas. While not the contactless payment scheme inferred from the article, it would still be a viable alternative to paper tickets. [1] - https://www.transportforireland.ie/fares/leap-card/ https://www.transportforireland.ie/fares/leap-card/ [2] - https://www.gov.ie/en/service/9bba61-free-travel-scheme/ https://www.gov.ie/en/service/9bba61-free-travel-scheme/ Edit: formatting
    • CalRobert 3y ago
      Where would you tap? I used to live near Clara train station in Offaly and there I just... walked on the train. I suppose they could add readers, of course.
      • disgruntledphd2 3y ago
        I thought they'd added the gates to all the stations? Certainly I see them a lot, even though they're generally open in more rural areas.
        • cianmm 3y ago
          In Farrenfore you just get on the train. It’s a toss up on whether anybody will check your ticket on your journey to Dublin.
          • disgruntledphd2 3y ago
            Huh, wow. Like you can just walk on at Mallow, but they do have the gates if you need to tap.
            • rsynnott 3y ago
              Mallow is in the Cork commuter zone; you can use a leap card there. The issue is more around stations where you currently can’t use a leap card at all.
              • disgruntledphd2 3y ago
                Actually, I guess I haven't stopped anywhere that isn't in a commuter zone, so it makes sense that I wasn't aware of this.
      • seabass-labrax 3y ago
        Such contactless readers are the norm in the Netherlands. There are no ticket gates; it is still an honesty system, but one is expected to tap on before you board the train. They are sensibly located near the station entrance, so you also don't need to make a detour to find them.
        • CalRobert 3y ago
          Sounds nice! I've been caught on the wrong side of the barrier at Hilversum a few times due to malfunctioning gates, etc
          • seabass-labrax 3y ago
            Apparently there are some stations which still have ticket gates, but I haven't seen any in the rather short time I've been in the Netherlands - they seem to be concentrated in metropolitan areas[1], and I've only been in the somewhat more rural[2] province of Limburg. As it happens, though, I have never actually used the OV-chipcard myself, as I always use an Interrail pass when travelling any further than Belgium from my home country of Britain. I just get on the train - even more reason to like the 'gateless' platforms, because it's always the people with less usual tickets like Interrail that fall through the cracks with systems that try to be too clever. [1]: https://www.ns.nl/binaries/_ht_1583338071691/content/assets/ns-nl/stationsinformatie/stations-met-gesloten-poortjes.pdf https://www.ns.nl/binaries/_ht_1583338071691/content/assets/... [2]: https://mastodon.social/@rubenivangaalen/109705862906000821 https://mastodon.social/@rubenivangaalen/109705862906000821
      • rsynnott 3y ago
        Just readers on poles; smaller potentially unattended Dublin and Cork commuter zone stations have them. Same thing as used at Luas stops.
  • oneeyedpigeon 3y ago
    I've been using contactless for the majority of UK train and tube travel for many years now. Phone is most convenient, but adds a significant stress factor!
    • drexlspivey 3y ago
      You can also setup “Express mode” in Apple Pay that works with TFL. You don’t have to unlock your phone/watch or press anything you just scan it and it works (like a physical card) https://www.apple.com/uk/apple-pay/transport/ https://www.apple.com/uk/apple-pay/transport/
      • oneeyedpigeon 3y ago
        It works when the phone is out of battery? This is the use case that makes it difficult for me (for the record, I don't have an Apple phone either)
        • drexlspivey 3y ago
          Yes it does, it says so in the link
          • tialaramex 3y ago
            No, it will work on power reserve, but it won't (logistically can't) work when you have literally run out. This ought to be incredibly rare, but if you actually do literally run out of battery (not just it gets to the last few percent) then this technology doesn't work, whereas your bank cards do.
            • mjlee 3y ago
              To clarify, power reserve works when your phone has run out of power to the point where it has shut itself off.
            • taylortbb 3y ago
  • avianlyric 3y ago
    You maybe interested to know the TfL were the first metro system to use this system, they actually developed most of the technology themselves, and now sell it to a number of other cities.
    • kmlx 3y ago
      here’s another fun fact: TfL turned on contactless payments for all their stations without any apparent changes in their user facing hardware. one day the same oyster card reader started accepting contactless payments. i’m sure it was not as simple as turning on a switch but it looked that way :)
  • Asraelite 3y ago
    Yes, but it will inevitably lead to paper tickets being removed completely, which has already happened in some places. That is an absolute nightmare both in terms of privacy and in terms of ceding power to the credit card duopoly. For the same reason that we need cash, we need to keep paper tickets at least as an option. I'm surprised the sentiment in this thread is so strongly in favor of cards; normally HN is a bit more cash-friendly.
    • vidarh 3y ago
      You can buy an Oyster card and top it up with cash.
      • zeristor 3y ago
        I believe Oyster cards are to be retired in due course
        • ghaff 3y ago
          It seems that you need some way for people without credit cards to pay and the OP is about TfL trying to get away from cash for paper tickets.
        • dotnet00 3y ago
          That sounds like a bad idea, considering that children and tourists are very likely to not have a credit card (or at least not necessarily a compatible one).
          • vidarh 3y ago
            I think the tourists argument is rapidly fally, but not children (though they are available in the UK via providers like Go Henry). Credit/debit cards also won't solve the season-ticket issue.
        • vidarh 3y ago
          I'm not aware of any plans to do so, not least because while cards have overtaken Oyster for pay as you go, Oyster season tickets / travel cards still remains a very significant use case. As do free / discounted children Oyster cards. Neither has a credit/debit-card based viable solution at present that'd be tolerable.
• sedatk 3y ago
  The actual message in the popup may not be relevant at all. I also stop browsing a site immediately if I see a popup.
  • vasco 3y ago
    The article says it only appears for trips where it is possible to pay contactless.
  • tux3 3y ago
    It's a physical ticket vending machine, not a web page. The whole machine is a giant popup, you walk up to it with the intent to buy something.
    • sedatk 3y ago
      Yes, that was the joke. :/
  • echelon_musk 3y ago
    Did you browse this site?
  • keybored 3y ago
    Like the popup on that website. > We value your privacy
    • tgsovlerkhgsel 3y ago
      "We and our 1052 partners value your privacy"
• mattlondon 3y ago
  The TfL ticket machines are a UX disaster. Being a London native I am very comfortable with the transport system and how it works and how to get around etc, but fuck me the machines are an incomprehensible mess. They present so much information at once in small text - this popup is a good example, lots to read but you are in a rush to get somewhere and there are 25 impatient other people in the line behind you. I now just always tell people to just tap in with their phone.
  • switch007 3y ago
    All modern ticket machines are I miss the ones from the south east that had physical buttons and very few options. Brighton button, Day Return button, insert cash, done. Even was visible in bright daylight, what a marvel.
    • seabass-labrax 3y ago
      That does indeed sound enticing, but I also really like the Deutsche Bahn ticket machines: not only do these have options for the most usual tickets, they also have the full journey planner system built in. That means you can purchase tickets valid across multiple fare zones - like the National Rail website in Great Britain, but in a vending machine! Additionally, you can use this to find information in advance, like what the platform for arrival will be, which can save some time when making connections. If you're going to put a touchscreen on something, you might as well do it properly! :)
      • switch007 3y ago
        I find staff are even better for journey planning. Shame we've mostly replaced them with machines Now we get to stand there tapping 13 times because the touchscreen sucks. And worry about being taken to court because the machine was broken. Yes "most" people have phones but public transport needs to cater to all
    • ta1243 3y ago
      Last ticket machine I used was at Stafford, tap the "Birmingham" button, Offpeak return, tap phone on the pad, ticket prints. Obviously that one was well maintained as the touchscreen was calibrated correctly. But old machines used to be broken too. If you want a ticket to say Gloucester from Stafford then it's something like "other, g, l, Gloucester, Offpeak return, tap phone". The old style physical machines wouldn't sell a ticket to anywhere other than a few locations.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• stavros 3y ago
  The title is clickbait, because the actual content continues with "which is what the popup was designed to do".
  • gpvos 3y ago
    That was exactly what I expected the article to be about, actually. So there is nothing misleading. (Although I expected it to be about their website, not their ticket vending machines. But that's fine.)
    • weberer 3y ago
      I was expecting potential customers to bounce due to some annoying GDPR pop-up that somehow breaks the page.
  • jayceedenton 3y ago
    I think "drop in paper ticket sales" is unlikely to be misconstrued as a drop in sale in general.
  • abanana 3y ago
    Why has this been voted down? The title is plainly trying to imply that it's a confirmed case where the friction introduced by a popup in the purchase flow has seriously damaged sales. "Led to a significant drop" doesn't imply a commensurate rise in non-paper ticket sales, else it wouldn't be written that way. The title is pure clickbait.
• ssl232 3y ago
  Can you tap your contactless card at the barriers to pay for several passengers, e.g. by handing the card to the next one coming in? Or this this method only for single travellers?
  • pityJuke 3y ago
    > You can pay for someone else's travel with your contactless card or device if they're travelling with you. You need to pay for your own travel with a different card or device. https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/how-to-pay-and-where-to-buy-tickets-and-oyster/pay-as-you-go/contactless-and-mobile-pay-as-you-go https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/how-to-pay-and-where-to-buy-tickets...
    • banf 3y ago
      So I can't pay for others? I can pay for others but then I need another card or device for me
      • jannes 3y ago
        Exactly. Let‘s say you have: 1 contactless bank card, 1 iPhone, and 1 Apple Watch These count as three different cards and would therefore allow you to pay for your own fare and two additional people.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  • echelon_musk 3y ago
    Single travellers.
  • mjg59 3y ago
    You can't. It's one card per traveler.
  • barnabee 3y ago
    Single traveller per card. You also have to tap out at the end so it can calculate the fare. If you have more than one card you can let others in your group use those. Though it’s been a few years since I was travelling with anyone who didn’t have either a contactless card or Apple Pay / the Android equivalent, which also works and is arguably even more convenient.
• felsokning 3y ago
  https://archive.is/sBY6l https://archive.is/sBY6l > ...an off-peak trip from Paddington to Canary Wharf would cost £6.70 if buying a paper ticket but £2.80 if using contactless payments. Is the inference that a single magnetic strip paper ticket costs ~£3.90 per printing? Did TfL reduce the volume of magnetic paper it bought (in relation to this change)? I don't see either of these points mentioned, anywhere in the article. If it's not that expensive to print on magnetic paper, and TfL has not reduced the volume of the magnetic paper it buys (in relation to the change) then the dramatic price fall seems a bit suspect to me - but maybe that's just me?
  • JansjoFromIkea 3y ago
    It'll be largely down to the costs of continuing to support paper tickets I'd imagine. Virtually everyone uses contactless/oyster and paper tickets are more prone to failure both for the ticket and the scanner in a way that both requires assistance and reduces the capacity of a station to process passengers at peak hours
    • immibis 3y ago
      More countries should adopt the random checking model used in Germany: sometimes ticket inspectors board the train and check everyone's tickets. If you don't have one you get fined on the spot. It saves a lot of expensive and annoying ticket gates.
      • ubercow13 3y ago
        But how do you buy the ticket and is it less annoying than an almost instant tap on a ticket gate?
        • Symbiote 3y ago
          It is a tap on the card reader thing at the entry points to the platform.
          • 3y ago
• projektfu 3y ago
  Why is overall ridership down?
  • pyb 3y ago
    WFH?
  • arrowsmith 3y ago
    Economic long covid.
  • jdietrich 3y ago
    Work from home. While most workers have now returned to the office after the pandemic, a large proportion have done so on a part-time basis. Passenger volumes are below pre-pandemic levels throughout the week, but are particularly low on Monday and Friday. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/return-to-office-working-from-home-wfh-commute-covid-b1109192.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/return-to-office-work...
    • ta1243 3y ago
      Yup, a lot of people turn up on Tuesday, Wednesday And Thursday -- they're called twats at our work.
      • orf 3y ago
        Why are they called twats?
        • arrowsmith 3y ago
          Tuesday Wednesday And Thursday Not to be confused with those who only come to the office on the last three days of the week - the WTFs.
    • projektfu 3y ago
      So, WFH caused a YOY drop from 2022 to 2023, while there was an increase from 2021 to 2022? August 2022 was similar to September 2022 but there was a drop between August 2023 and September 2023 when the change was implemented. WFH?
• ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  It seems to me, that the main focus of the article, was talking about how a very simple UI change (a pop-up cancel option) made all the difference. On the other hand, these types of popups can be incredibly disruptive to the UX, especially if the text is badly written, and there's no clear utility to the user. All too frequently, these types of guardrail popups are there, only to advance the agenda of the developer/service provider, and not the end-user. It looks like the popup was well-designed, the text was well thought-out, and the user advantage is clear.
  • mnw21cam 3y ago
    Arguably, the entire purpose of this popup is to be incredibly disruptive to the UX - it's trying to stop you using the service.
    • ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
      Good point, but that is OK. The end user still gets the advantage (so does the TfL, but that doesn't concern the user). I feel that so many tech companies consider their end-users to be little more than cattle herds (the real product is the company), and they simply don't think about stuff like this. This kind of usability is a basic, fundamental mindset, that, in my opinion, seems to be severely lacking, in today's tech industry.
    • ranit 3y ago
      Arguably indeed. Depends what is considered the service in this case. I would argue that the service is “using the public transport “, and it is not “using machine for buying paper tickets”.
      • ubercow13 3y ago
        So then rephrase their point to "it's trying to stop you using <this way to pay for> the service"
  • Rastonbury 3y ago
    Those snide guilt trip pop ups are the worst
• hosolmaz 3y ago
  Nobody seems to have commented on the surveillance aspect? I would assume contactless payments are easier to surveil compared to paper tickets, similar to cash vs credit card payments.
  • lpribis 3y ago
    You can get contactless PAYG prices without any identification in London by using an Oyster card. You can buy them from corner shops without ID, and top them up at the same places with cash. I doubt this really affords you any extra anonymity though. Tube and rail stations are so heavily covered by CCTV, and the police have many times tracked peoples entire commutes and movement through CCTV only.
    • cwillu 3y ago
      Although somebody used to have to actually sit down and comb through the footage to do that. Although not so much these days, so that point is moot.
    • eesmith 3y ago
      To hinder traffic analysis across multiple trips, you should also have meeting where you swap Oystercards with others, similar to how people would (and still do?) swap grocery purchase tracker cards with each other, to get the discount with less surveillance.
      • fullspectrumdev 3y ago
        I used to do this with a few people. The system breaks down when one guy stops topping up their card knowing they can be a prick about it :)
  • GlacierFox 3y ago
    I think it's because it's the most obvious assumption you could make in this regard so it goes without saying :S
  • robjan 3y ago
• ekianjo 3y ago
  problem is that contactless payments are not anonymous...
• jarofgreen 3y ago
  Anyone else find the "buy ticket" and "cancel" button text confusing? I had to take a second to work out which one was which. I'd try clear text like "buy ticket anyway" and "use contactless".
  • tialaramex 3y ago
    But "use contactless" isn't what that option does. It cancels your transaction which is why it's labelled cancel. Suppose I'm at this screen about to get myself a paper ticket to Brixton to see my friend Jim, as this prompt appears I see Jim - oh that's right, Jim is coming here we're not meeting in Brixton. Cancel. I'm not making a journey, I don't want to "use contactless" I want to cancel this purchase, and that's exactly what this option does. Yes most users who choose to cancel might end up using contactless, but that's not what the choice itself does, it does not, for example, check that you're carrying some form of contactless payment, nor does it charge you for a journey, it just cancels the ticket purchase.
    • jarofgreen 3y ago
      I think in that situation most people would just walk away from the machine. Or try and press the red "start again" button. Ok, maybe my suggestion is the wrong wording but I still think the original is confusing. If I'm going throught a process and suddenly get a confusing popup I didn't expect, my first instinct is I can press cancel and get back to what I was doing. But in this case it takes me out of the whole process. But I'm not saying my UI choices are representative of all - really, it's about proper UI testing. The article doesn't say what user testing they did, if any. I guess this falls into the trap a lot of tech metrics stuff falls into: ok, we can clearly show that sales of paper tickets fell. We assume there is a corresponding rise in card sales (But crucially, the article doesn't prove that). But what none of the stats can clearly show is whether people were happy with all this or not. Maybe they would have preferred the cheaper prices AND a paper ticket.
• ccppurcell 3y ago
  Back in 2014 (and possibly still, I no longer live in London) not only was it cheaper per ticket but it was capped per day, so you couldn't accidentally pay for more than the price of a one day ticket. Obviously this is much superior to buying paper tickets for each journey. But I remember having quite a hard time convincing visitors to use their contactless cards on the machines.
  • Smaug123 3y ago
    Today it is capped simultaneously per day and per week (https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/tube-and-rail-fares/pay-as-you-go-caps https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/tube-and-rail-fares/pay-...).
    • CamelCaseName 3y ago
      This is awesome. In Canada, GO transit is also capped per day. Unfortunately for me, that cap was something like $20/day when I was really using it frequently.
    • zilti 3y ago
      We have something similar in Switzerland called FairTiq
    • iggldiggl 3y ago
      > and per week Though only on a fixed Monday to Sunday period. So if you arrive and depart mid-week, you might pay up to an additional capping period and buying a weekly travelcard could work out cheaper (provided you know in advance which zones you need). A travelcard also lets you buy slightly cheaper rail tickets for travel outside of the TfL zones (tickets to/from "Boundary Zone n", with n being the last zone in which your travelcard is valid), whereas with contactless the same trick requires physically getting off the train.
• roenxi 3y ago
  Room for improvement - if they get rid of the pop up now the improvement in metrics will probably remain. There is an interesting lesson in that on the nature of metrics.
• mytailorisrich 3y ago
  I'll stick to paper tickets for the time being. In my case: A paper ticket is simpler and quicker to buy, and I can wait until I am reasonably convinced trains are running before buying. Scanners for e-tickets don't work. Every day I see people fighting with them with their smartphones while I just wizz past. Sometimes "old tech" just works. (I use TfL trains but not tube so infrastructure is shared with other operators in standard train stations. It may work better in the tube)
  • nsteel 3y ago
    This is about the tube so none of what you've written here is relevent. There are of course no "scanners for e-tickets" on the tube and there's no world where buying a physical ticket for a tube journey is faster than using contactless at the gate. New tech wins on the tube.
    • mytailorisrich 3y ago
      Oh dear, I've ruffled a few feathers here...
      • nsteel 3y ago
        Misleading offtopic posts are a bit frustrating, yes.
    • ta1243 3y ago
      > There are of course no "scanners for e-tickets" on the tube and there's no world where buying a physical ticket for a tube journey is faster than using contactless at the gate. The lack of scanners at Underground stations is a pain for cross-London journeys -- you can't get a ticket from say Milton Keynes to Tunbridge Wells on an e-ticket because it includes the cross-london element
      • nsteel 3y ago
        That's a very fair criticism. They should at least make an eticket version of that route a few quid cheaper and make it clear the journey doesn't include the tube part.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• mannykannot 3y ago
  The message says, in part, "No need to buy a ticket, just tap in on a card reader at the start of your journey and touch out at the end." The article goes on, "The Passenger Operated Machine (POM), to use the TfL name for the ticket machines, doesn’t show the pop-up for every journey that they can sell tickets for because not every destination accepts contactless PAYG tickets." Does this mean that there are at least three ways to pay: contactless credit/debit card, contactless PAYG ticket, and paper/magnetic stripe ticket? If so, what happens if you use a contactless PAYG ticket to enter a station but find, at your destination, that this ticket is not accepted?
  • estel 3y ago
    These are typically stations that are outside of London. If you reach the destination station, you'd probably need to appeal to the kindness of staff members who attend the ticket barrier (if there is one), who might ask someone to buy a ticket or pay a penalty fare. But it's functionally equivalent to traveling without a ticket at all. You'd also have to pay a default charge for an incomplete journey on the PAYG ticket, but you could potentially appeal to have this reversed. It's usually made pretty clear on train announcements that you're leaving the contactless PAYG fare zone.
    • josephcsible 3y ago
      > It's usually made pretty clear on train announcements that you're leaving the contactless PAYG fare zone. How is an announcement then supposed to help, since you'll have already bought your ticket before you hear it?
      • NullPrefix 3y ago
        >How is an announcement then supposed to help You would have some time to accept whatever is coming and make peace with it
      • alexchamberlain 3y ago
        You can then get off the train, buy a ticket and get the next one in 10 minutes or so.
• Havoc 3y ago
  Next step - open all the barriers. Every day on the way home 3 out of 8 gates are active and one of the three is flakey
  • avianlyric 3y ago
    The gates are setup to deliberately limit throughput to prevent overcrowding on platforms or in trains. If you look around when walk through a TfL station you’ll noticed that all the infrastructure is setup to make sure there’s more provisions for exiting a station, than entering the station. So the gates are setup to have more exit gates than entry gates, escalators set are always configured to have more up escalators than down escalators, routes through the station are more direct for exiting than entering etc. TfL takes overcrowding extremely seriously, and have loads of provisions and strategies to prevent an overcrowding issue.
    • kmlx 3y ago
      can confirm. they regularly shut down entire stations due to overcrowding only letting people exit and not enter.
    • tgsovlerkhgsel 3y ago
      > all the infrastructure is setup to make sure there’s more provisions for exiting a station That's required because people tend to trickle into the station over time but flood when a train arrives.
• Theodores 3y ago
  Although public transport always caters for paying in numerous ways, it can be hard to get people to change habits and it can be hard to get new customers to pay the 'easy' way. If you don't get a bus very often and don't have cash on your person, it can be worrying or slightly intimidating even if you just have to tap in and tap out. Plus you have to link a payment card to your phone. Personally I am still a paper ticket person, psychologically I need that bit of paper. Top tip if visiting the UK and going outside London with a ticket bought online or with an app - always screenshot your purchase!
• cja 3y ago
  What does the message mean by "contactless card"? Oyster or payment (e.g. credit) card?
  • binarymax 3y ago
    Tap-to-pay using near-field-communication (NFC). New credit cards have this ability and Oyster cards (the TFL top up card) has had this for awhile
  • beejiu 3y ago
    Either or.
• m3kw9 3y ago
  “It’s cheaper..” will grab attention. If you write anything thing else in the first 2 words you may not have had the same effect as people’s attention span is low
  • supertrope 3y ago
    "Free"
• djhworld 3y ago
  The last time I got a paper ticket for a TfL journey was at the olympic games in 2012 where I think they gave you one for free if you had a ticket for one of the sporting events. Other then that I just used my Oyster card. I don't live in London any more, but I've been back for visits/work and I've had no issues using Google or Apple Pay for contactless tap ins/outs - it's all very seamless. It's really impressive tbh and it's a shame this sort of system isn't rolled out to other cities in the UK, or at least is has patchy support.
  • ianvisits 3y ago
    There is a project at the moment to expand TfL's contactless payments to most stations across the southeast of England. Further expansion will be dependent on government funding.
  • AlecSchueler 3y ago
    Checking in and out by phone was recently rolled out nationally in the Netherlands, but at a slightly higher cost than the subscriber's card. It works on every train, metro, tram and bus in the country. The subscribers get the additional benefit of being able to hire bicycles from the train stations also.
    • consp 3y ago
      > but at a slightly higher cost than the subscriber's card Since when as that's actually illegal for the NS to do. (It doesn't) From the ovpay.nl website: "En de prijs? Die is hetzelfde als reizen met je OV-chipkaart."
      • AlecSchueler 3y ago
        My understanding is that that's the same cost as an anonymous blue card, not the yellow card subscribers have, meaning you'll pay the extra 40% on the train for example.
        • mdibiase 3y ago
• stevage 3y ago
  >To pick a random example, an off-peak trip from Paddington to Canary Wharf would cost £6.70 if buying a paper ticket but £2.80 if using contactless payments. That's insane. It feels like some kind of dark pattern that they were even offering paper tickets.
• weinzierl 3y ago
  I saw this message recently and it left me seriously confused. I was in London for about a week with my twelve year old. For myself, I just swipe my mobile and I am done. For my child tried: - Registering in the TfL mobile app doesn't work for children - An Oyster Card for children should exist but we were told to get a paper ticket instead - at multiple TfL counters. - Tried to swipe twice, for my child and myself. Did not work - unsurprisingly. - Trying to get a paper ticket for a child leads to the mentioned pop-up, which says: "It's cheaper to use contactless [..] at adult rate [..]". What is that supposed to mean when trying to buy a ticket for a child? Is the contactless adult rate still cheaper than a paper child ticket? If not, then why am I seeing this pop-up? So for our next visit: What is the proper way to travel with a 12 year old child as a tourist?
  • daveoc64 3y ago
    There is an Oyster Card for children aged between 11 and 15, but you have to apply for it in advance and supply a photo. I think it's aimed at people who live in/regularly visit London: https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/free-and-discounted-travel/11-15-zip-oyster-photocard https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/free-and-discounted-travel/11-15-zi... The other option is a child's paper ticket - those can be purchased without having to apply for anything in advance. Adult fares via Oyster/contactless may still be cheaper than a child's paper ticket. You can use the Single fare finder to check the price of a specific journey - for both adult/child: https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/tube-and-rail-fares/single-fare-finder https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/tube-and-rail-fares/sing... If the Oyster/contactless adult fare is cheaper than a child's paper ticket, you could just use a standard Pay as you go Oyster card: https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/how-to-pay-and-where-to-buy-tickets-and-oyster/pay-as-you-go/oyster-pay-as-you-go https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/how-to-pay-and-where-to-buy-tickets...
    • weinzierl 3y ago
      Thanks, this is a good summary and is very much appreciated. If we assume that an Oyster card for children doesn't make much sense for a tourist, I found no option where the child is cheaper than the adult. Admittedly, most often the difference between contactless for the adult and the pay-as-you-go Oyster card is negligible. Still it is a bit disappointing.
• barryrandall 3y ago
  How often to they steer people toward a ticket that causes them travel problems later (e.g. not accepted, technology failures)?