A piece in thelondonpaper tonight highlighted the fact that, according to the BBC, commuters pay £360,000 extra a week for not using their Oyster cards correctly. Apparently, these extra charges tot up when the seventy-five per cent of Tube travellers who use the swipe card, fail to wave the plastic pass over the readers at the end of each journey. Oyster card users must ‘touch in’ and ‘touch out’ to avoid paying the minimum single cash fare of £4.00 for each journey, therefore only being charged £1.50 instead. BBC London reported that around 18,000 Tube commuters pay the maximum daily fare.
But, what can be done when the ticket barriers are out of service, or as I experienced yesterday in Holborn, open due to a power cut? After arriving at the office by Tube (I normally walk from Liverpool Street to Holborn, but was feeling decidedly peaky), I was told to go home. So, I went back to the Liverpool Street on the underground, not having touched ‘out’ and ‘in’ for the inward and outward journeys respectively. Presuming that my Oyster card wouldn’t work on arrival at Liverpool Street due to not having swiped at Holborn, I warned the steward of this. He said that it was out of credit anyway, and that it was showing a debit owing to Transport for London of -£1.10.
Yes, I’m not sure exactly how much credit I did have on it to begin with, but I think the only reason the card went into a debit balance was because I ended up paying for two £4.00 single journeys, due to the Holborn barriers being open. Yes, we could queue and report our cards used, but, with ten minutes to catch a train back home, a tired and aching body, and instructions from the steward to top up my Oyster that instant due to how much I owed, I’m afraid the steward got the full wrath of my frustrations, complete with expletives.
So, I was back walking the paths, streets, and skywalks today.