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Isn't that a bit perverse? Londoners had a discount for using Oyster over cash, yet elsewhere you'd prefer people to be charged an extra 50% so that you can board three seconds quicker? Isn't it better to offer incentives (slightly lower fares, maybe?) for not paying in cash (or "driver payments")? You also need to give people options for paying other than having to use an app - maybe allow tickets or top-ups to be sold at PayPoints (or equivalents).
In the beginning, Oyster was advertised as a discount but in reality paying by Oyster became the default. Therefore people buying paper tickets from the driver were really being charged a premium. TfL boasted how successful Oyster was because less than 1% of people were buying tickets from the driver at the end but it was really the price difference that made people switch rather than the technology.
Nonsense. The ticket machine takes the same time to read a smart card, whether it's a contactless bank card or a concession card. The delay caused by someone collecting a ticket is negligible in rural areas and non-existent in areas where there's a tap-on, tap-off system.
Urban areas in many parts of Europe and much of the world consider it essential to keep the bus moving as quickly as possible in order to make the service as attractive as possible so that as many people as possible use public transport instead of cars. So many operators allow passengers to board without showing a ticket, despite the high chance of fare evasion. That's how seriously they take it. They would consider London too slow.
I don't really agree with that. The discount provided an incentive to use Oyster but, at least for me, Oyster was just easier to use than buying paper tickets. With auto top-up enabled, I didn't need to think about it and I didn't need to queue at ticket machines (either at a tube station or at the bus ticket machines at major stops).
When I moved further out of London I considered the annual paper out-boundary Travelcard to be a major step back in usefulness.
So many operators allow passengers to board without showing a ticket, despite the high chance of fare evasion. That's how seriously they take it. They would consider London too slow.
London went down that route with the multi-door boarding on the bendies, the Red Arrows, and on the NBFL. Fare evasion was too high so they went back to everyone boarding via the front door.
London went down that route with the multi-door boarding on the bendies, the Red Arrows, and on the NBFL. Fare evasion was too high so they went back to everyone boarding via the front door.
I don't remember it ever actually being publicly proved that there was increased fare evasion. But there was a definite public perception of fare evasion because people with a travelcard (Oyster or paper) could board without doing or showing anything. And their fellow passengers saw that and many decided that these fare paying passengers were up to no good. Of course, the answer would have been greater ticket checks, but no... (And, of course, passenger behaviour in many respects was no different to the trams or DLR...)
I don't really agree with that. The discount provided an incentive to use Oyster but, at least for me, Oyster was just easier to use than buying paper tickets. With auto top-up enabled, I didn't need to think about it and I didn't need to queue at ticket machines (either at a tube station or at the bus ticket machines at major stops).
I don't deny the Oyster card was a cool, convenient thing at the time but it required people to buy it and top it up. If there was no discount/premium then I bet plenty of people would still be paying in cash today had cash continued to be allowed.
When I moved further out of London I considered the annual paper out-boundary Travelcard to be a major step back in usefulness.
London went down that route with the multi-door boarding on the bendies, the Red Arrows, and on the NBFL. Fare evasion was too high so they went back to everyone boarding via the front door.
The main point is that boarding time is considered so important in other places that they are willing to accept the fare evasion. Some other places insist on front door entry (for example the Netherlands) but it costs more to buy from the driver, if it is allowed at all.
Urban areas in many parts of Europe and much of the world consider it essential to keep the bus moving as quickly as possible in order to make the service as attractive as possible so that as many people as possible use public transport instead of cars. So many operators allow passengers to board without showing a ticket, despite the high chance of fare evasion. That's how seriously they take it. They would consider London too slow.
I think you might need to travel around the UK and actually gauge how quickly passengers do now enter vehicles. Travelling in Bristol, that parochial provincial backwater, and most people are tapping in by card or using an app/m-ticket.
The irony is that in London, you can quickly and efficiently tap in and then.... be stuck in traffic as bus priority is so limited depending on which borough you're in.
London went down that route with the multi-door boarding on the bendies, the Red Arrows, and on the NBFL. Fare evasion was too high so they went back to everyone boarding via the front door.
I don't remember it ever actually being publicly proved that there was increased fare evasion. But there was a definite public perception of fare evasion because people with a travelcard (Oyster or paper) could board without doing or showing anything. And their fellow passengers saw that and many decided that these fare paying passengers were up to no good. Of course, the answer would have been greater ticket checks, but no... (And, of course, passenger behaviour in many respects was no different to the trams or DLR...)
Open boarding on bendis and NBfL did have demonstrable levels of fare evasion.
In relation to bendis, Peter Hendy confirmed it as being 6 to 7% which he stated was comparable to other open boarding such as Tramlink though TfL's own figures showed that bendy fare evasion was 8.9% rather than 1.3% on other buses. TfL estimated that the removal of bendis would increase fare revenue by >£7m p.a.
In relation to bendis, Peter Hendy confirmed it as being 6 to 7% which he stated was comparable to other open boarding such as Tramlink though TfL's own figures showed that bendy fare evasion was 8.9% rather than 1.3% on other buses.
Have to admit, I'm a wee bit cynical about those statistics given how neatly they fit into Boris Johnson's arguments about how the bendies were terrible for London and how Ken Livingstone was an idiot for bringing them in. Just before Johnson then brought in a new bus which had exactly the same boarding system as the bendies.
But the open boarding did have more fare evasion than the front door boarding, which is why the NBfL eventually went back to front door boarding too.
Have to admit, I'm a wee bit cynical about those statistics given how neatly they fit into Boris Johnson's arguments about how the bendies were terrible for London and how Ken Livingstone was an idiot for bringing them in. Just before Johnson then brought in a new bus which had exactly the same boarding system as the bendies.
But the open boarding did have more fare evasion than the front door boarding, which is why the NBfL eventually went back to front door boarding too.
Those figures were from 2006 so they pre-date Boris, and they were from TfL. I hate that huckster and his opportunism. I didn't hold with the rhetoric about them being threats to cyclists and all that tripe.
However, the issues with fare evasion were well founded and established. Is it worse in the UK than other countries...? Dunno. Is there a cost - definitely. Do the costs add up - revenue forgone vs. reduced operating costs????
Just for clarity, I was not advocating open boarding. It was just used as an example to show how seriously other countries take boarding times. Nevertheless, it is vital to have a huge discount/surcharge on driver payments in urban areas where front door boarding is required. It isn't really too much to ask and has been done in the UK before to eliminate cash payments in London.
In the beginning, Oyster was advertised as a discount but in reality paying by Oyster became the default. Therefore people buying paper tickets from the driver were really being charged a premium. TfL boasted how successful Oyster was because less than 1% of people were buying tickets from the driver at the end but it was really the price difference that made people switch rather than the technology.
I don't have an issue with people being charged slightly more for paying on board, but the 50% premium that you previously suggested is unnecessarily punitive, especially when many passengers are likely to be on low incomes. You need to make it easy for people to choose off-bus ticketing by providing more ways for people to buy them. I remember visiting Edinburgh some years ago and I had the ability to buy a scratch-off day ticket from almost any newsagent or convenience store. in Aberdeen I could buy stored-value tickets from a similar range of shops. While I wouldn't suggest resurrecting the latter system because it was slow and the magnetic-stripe cards were highly error-prone, both of those options removed the need to be fiddling about with coins and having the exact change upon boarding.
You also eliminate the situation where people are boarding with large notes (keeping the thread vaguely on topic) and potentially help small retailers as well; people will likely buy something else when they're there, such as a drink, sandwich etc. Many of these shops already provide PayPoint facilities for topping up pre-pay gas and electric meters., so the infrastructure to top up a smart card is already there.
Urban areas in many parts of Europe and much of the world consider it essential to keep the bus moving as quickly as possible in order to make the service as attractive as possible so that as many people as possible use public transport instead of cars. So many operators allow passengers to board without showing a ticket, despite the high chance of fare evasion. That's how seriously they take it. They would consider London too slow.
You can have the fastest boarding system in the world, but you still need to take into account that some passengers are slower than others and will need time to get to their seats or secure wheelchairs etc. Are you one of those people who huffs and puffs when someone less mobile has the audacity to slow down your journey?
Heaven forbid if anyone dares to say "good morning" to the driver because that's unnecessary interaction and adds milliseconds to the journey time. You would melt if you travelled on one of my local buses!
Offering tap on tap off contactless and having drivers actually point people to use it rather than just selling a traditional ticket will get most people using it, to be honest. Almost everyone under the age of about 40 prefers card payment where it is an option, particularly in the South. And the gap between "people who are old enough to prefer cash" and "people who have a free pass anyway" is getting narrower with every year that passes...
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Heaven forbid if anyone dares to say "good morning" to the driver because that's unnecessary interaction and adds milliseconds to the journey time. You would melt if you travelled on one of my local buses!
It is possible to say "good morning" and tap one's card without breaking stride, I do when I board London buses, though it's usually met with a traditional grunt if anything. But it's not those people who are the problem - the main problem (once you get all ticketing off-bus) is people who don't think it's necessary to have their card or phone in their hand prior to the bus stopping. I think the only way to deal with that is peer pressure, i.e. for other people to be a bit passive aggressive over people who do that, e.g. a pointed and blunt "excuse me" to get them to move out of the way while they do it and let others board. People doing that could at least have the consideration to be last in the queue and prepare while others are boarding, and I think it's fair game to be a bit blunt to them if they delay the bus by boarding first and then spending a couple of minutes faffing without inviting others to pass while they do so. And no, it's mostly not people with disabilities, it's just people who don't respect that other peoples' time is important even if they aren't in a hurry, see also people driving at 30mph on 60mph roads (or worse members of the 40mph club, as they also don't care about killing children as they proceed at 40 through a 20 limit having previously done 40 through a 60).
You get them in all contexts, though, e.g. people who only start rummaging in their bag or pockets at supermarket checkouts once told how much it is rather than being prepared. It's one reason I have a very strong preference for self-checkouts - the single queue for these means someone doing that doesn't really get in the way.
Yes, my view is a bit impatient, but on the basis that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one (thanks Spock!) it isn't acceptable for people to delay buses full of people because they can't be bothered having their fare, card or phone in their hand ready as they board, unless they're elderly or disabled and thus struggling rather than just being inconsiderate and selfish.
That's the whole point. Look at the cities which have no or almost no driver payments. In these areas, there is virtually no reason to buy a ticket from the driver, assuming it is allowed. There might be a nominally expensive ticket that you can get from the driver but it is almost irrelevant for everybody except very occasional passengers. This isn't rocket science and isn't dependent on technology. Plenty of cities have had zero or near zero driver sales for many decades, long before smartcards, contactless cards, phone apps etc.
Sadly for many years Stagecoach had the policy that if the driver didn’t have change the passenger could just have a free ride, this then led to loads of people trying it on with £20 notes.
If it’s the video where the passenger tries to argue that he’s got a disabled son at home and needs to get back then it was filmed at Piccadilly gardens at the 36/37 stop. Directly opposite the stop is a spar shop where the passenger could have gone and got change.
Common sense is lost amongst us these days.
Heaven forbid if anyone dares to say "good morning" to the driver because that's unnecessary interaction and adds milliseconds to the journey time. You would melt if you travelled on one of my local buses!
Have you ever been on a bus in the Netherlands? If so, you will know that it is the norm to say "goedemorgen", "goedenavond" etc. when boarding. You basically know who is a foreigner because they don't say that. But it doesn't affect boarding times as they say that while swiping the card reader as they board.
I don't have an issue with people being charged slightly more for paying on board, but the 50% premium that you previously suggested is unnecessarily punitive, especially when many passengers are likely to be on low incomes. You need to make it easy for people to choose off-bus ticketing by providing more ways for people to buy them. I remember visiting Edinburgh some years ago and I had the ability to buy a scratch-off day ticket from almost any newsagent or convenience store. in Aberdeen I could buy stored-value tickets from a similar range of shops. While I wouldn't suggest resurrecting the latter system because it was slow and the magnetic-stripe cards were highly error-prone, both of those options removed the need to be fiddling about with coins and having the exact change upon boarding.
You also eliminate the situation where people are boarding with large notes (keeping the thread vaguely on topic) and potentially help small retailers as well; people will likely buy something else when they're there, such as a drink, sandwich etc. Many of these shops already provide PayPoint facilities for topping up pre-pay gas and electric meters., so the infrastructure to top up a smart card is already there.
You'd think, but ring my way there was a gap between day tickets being available from hundreds of local shops and apps being able to add them to smartcards (and some being available to buy on the bus).
I tried around 8 times to buy at my Paypoint but never managed to. There was always some excuse why they couldn't and a £2 fare for me to get somewhere that could.
When I complained my local transport authority took that shop off the list of those that provided the tickets rather than actually get them to do it. Other shops had inaccurate times on the Paypoint website so were closed when I visited them.
From 26th May 2026, express services 1X, 3X & 25X will only accept non-cash payments on board.
www.buses.co.uk
From 26th May 2026, express services 1X, 3X & 25X will only accept non-cash payments on board. Cash is still accepted on all other services, including routes 1 and 25.
Why is this changing?
Cashless boarding reduces delays and keeps buses running more reliably by speeding up payments, which leads to quicker boarding, shorter stop times and more punctual journeys.
However that won't save much time if the driver just sells paper tickets by card. They need ban the sales of paper tickets from the driver where tap in tap out is an alternative.
That's the whole point. Look at the cities which have no or almost no driver payments. In these areas, there is virtually no reason to buy a ticket from the driver, assuming it is allowed. There might be a nominally expensive ticket that you can get from the driver but it is almost irrelevant for everybody except very occasional passengers. This isn't rocket science and isn't dependent on technology. Plenty of cities have had zero or near zero driver sales for many decades, long before smartcards, contactless cards, phone apps etc.
Agreed, but you need to have a network of local outlets from which people can buy tickets. This could be ticket machines provided at main bus stops on routes with frequent services, a network of local shops or both. You need to offer carrots before you can wield the stick.
You'd think, but ring my way there was a gap between day tickets being available from hundreds of local shops and apps being able to add them to smartcards (and some being available to buy on the bus).
I tried around 8 times to buy at my Paypoint but never managed to. There was always some excuse why they couldn't and a £2 fare for me to get somewhere that could.
When I complained my local transport authority took that shop off the list of those that provided the tickets rather than actually get them to do it. Other shops had inaccurate times on the Paypoint website so were closed when I visited them.
That's rather frustrating. Is it a case of insufficient training being provided to retailers on how to issue the tickets or is there insufficient financial incentive to the retailers? I honestly don't know how this works, but I suspect that the likes of Paypoint will rely on its retailers to provide updates on their trading hours and if there's no real financial incentive to provide the service in the first place, why would they care?
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