Why London’s Bus Ticketing Is Right
To use London’s buses, you need either to have an Oyster Card, a bank or credit card you can wave at the reader, or cash. If you’re lucky like me and have survived to a certain age, you can have a Freedom Pass, if you live in the city.
Today, this flexibility was well illustrated.
I had lunch with a friend, who had to get to Euston afterwards, to get home to Liverpool. The easiest way was to take a bus and a 390 arrived to do the honours. I used my Freedom Pass and I lent her my Oyster Card, that I always carry for visitors or for my own use on the cable-car and river buses.
When we had sat down, I realised she could also have used her contactless credit card. It didn’t occur to me at the time, as my cards don’t have the feature. She did say though, that she would use the buses in London with her’s in future.
It just goes to show how I think that London is going the right way and I think they’ll come a time, when a contactless bank or credit card is the standard method of buying a bus, tram, metro or train ticket all over the world. Her city of Liverpool is already planning to introduce the system on trains.
We are going to see a revolution in ticketing in the next few years and those places that don’t go with the flow will find themselves in the slow lane for visitors and tourists.
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The Anonymous Widower 
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