The Anonymous Widower

London Buses May Go Cashless

According to reports like this one on the BBC, it looks like London buses may go cashless.

There have been a few comments that the usual suspects are against this, as it may hurt the poor and the vulnerable, but I don’t think it will create too many problems after the first few months, especially if publicity and the technology was cranked up a bit.

I do remember though, a conversation on a Manchester bus, with an off-duty driver and union representative.  He felt that their single-door buses where the low-life gathered around the driver and tried to steal his money were very inferior to two-door buses.  he would have loved a cashless system.

I’ve just done a small calculation.  There are six million riders on each weekday on London’s buses and working on a figure for today that one per cent of riders buy a ticket with cash, that means that 60,000 riders a day buy paper tickets. as there are 250 weekdays in a year, that means there are fifteen million tickets sold each year.

The cost of collecting the cash is given as £24 million a year, so it would almost appear that some of those without tickets could be issued with a free get-you-home ticket. Transport for London are saying they might bring in the Hong Kong system, where an expired card is good for one journey.

I do think though that if the decision was made to go cashless, as the no-cash day approached most people would do something about getting a ticket like Oyster.

i do suspect though that there will be a few objectors, who would not countenance any ticket like Oyster, that enabled them to be tracked,

August 19, 2013 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Buses, Contactless Ticketing, Oyster Card