Fares please, sorry Madame, can't accept real money.

If it helps @shiney, feel free to PM me any of their questions and I will try my best to assist.

Dead easy - Oyster cards & travelcards are available at stations as well as ticket offices, and many shops, or you can buy a travel card from a machine at the station with your credit/debit card (chip & PIN). TfL's journey planner on their website is actually really good, and gives clear directions as well as the ability to include maps for any walking sections. I used it myself to plan my travel to the O2 last Friday, and it was spot on - - the longest I waited for a bus or tube was 8 minutes, and that was at nearly 1am on the very last leg on the way home.

They also have a live bus departures (countdown) mobile friendly site which you can use to see how long you will stand at a bus stop waiting for a bus (search either by bus stop number or route number). I agree that driving isn't really an option, but then to be fair, when was it ever an option in London?

The improvements in transport integration here over the past ten years has been quite marked - time was that the London Overground trains would not accept Oyster or tube passes (and vice versa), but now it is all one (does not apply to train lines that are not classed as London Overground such as South West Trains), and the daily fare cap applies across all the different modes of transport.

Again, if you find yourself in need of help, you know where my inbox is.......

As above, a lot has changed in recent years, so you might not find it as bad nowadays. Although the payments for buses are automated to a degree, the driver or CSA is still there and still able to be talked to. In Central London during the main daylight hours the NBFL (BorisMasters) have CSA's on board who are there to help you with any travel enquiries, and they are all equipped with iPads to let them show you maps or get information from TfL's journey planner site.

TfL can be criticised for many things, but in truth the public transport network in London is really very good, especially when you consider how stressed/pressured it is (literally millions of people using it every day); it can sometimes seem impersonal, but that is partly due to the fact that it is so busy - self-help is available, as is good old customer service; the key thing is knowing which suits you best, and how to get it.

 

Agreed - I was on the Jubilee and Picadilly lines on Friday, and both were crammed full for the entire journeys in both directions, and yes the stations were a nightmare even just before midnight. Sadly, that is a situation that will never change, there are just so many people using the system, it is stretched to the limit all the time. The only way I can see it really changing is if more lines and stations were built and that would almost certainly mean going even deeper underground, as there can't be much room left down there now as it is.

Having said that, millions of people use the current system very successfully every single day, so the maybe that is why there is nothing really being added on.

 

I don't disagree with you @pete, its not always as easy as it could be; and yes, Londoners are quite an ignorant breed when it comes to helping or even conversing with each other (in fact, its amazing just how different the people and personalities are where I live, just outside of London - - I only need to go a few miles for the rot/ignorance to set in again).

But, there are ways around many of the problems, and the internet is just one of them. There are still station staff (the staff on the Underground are generally quite good in my experience), and I know for a fact that a hell of a lot of work went into picking the right people for the CSA jobs on the NBFL's, and even more work went into training them.

And you don't need to have an Oyster if its just for one trip - just use your credit or debit card, and you still get the fare for the discounted price of £1.45 (currently the cash fare is £2.40), and all you need to do is touch the card on the reader as you board the bus. If you don't currently have a contactless payment card, it is very likely that you will do very soon as many more things are moving toward accepting contactless payments

 

Don't get me wrong, there are things that TfL do that drive me absolutely nuts, both on a personal level as well as a professional level, and quite often they are rightly criticised for some of the things that they do; however, whilst far from perfect, the public transport network is really quite good, and a lot of effort has (and does) go into it to make it work as smoothly as possible, and to try an help as many people get around as easily or cheaply as possible.

The costs aren't all that bad either, especially when compared with other parts of the country. If I was paying by contactless debit card, I could go from my house (kick in the pants off Staines) into the heart of London (lets say Trafalgar Square) for £4.35 (3 bus journeys, and half way across London)

 

Like many things technology wise @pete - its not so much a case of being ahead of the game, but more a case of pushing the technology into use by as many people as possible that it suddenly stops looking like a waste of time/money and suddenly becomes second nature, or prods the providers of the technology into making it more widely available. Also, getting people to adopt change is harder than you might believe, even if it means less work or will save money. Sometimes, you simply have to take the alternatives away, leaving them only the one option

For example, I developed a system at work, part of which enabled us to have an instantaneous job sheet complete with date/time stamp for the time that the job was created, that could be simultaneously be sent as a hard copy to another department within one of our sites, or even one of our other sites, or sent via email in a format readable on a smart phone. The main benefit was for staff working away from site would no longer have to return to site to get their next job sheet, and in the event that they could not be reached by telephone (if they were driving), the ojb sheet could be emailed and would be there for them to see when they were able to look at a phone.

On a number of occasions this feature has been mentioned/suggested and demonstrated by me to others, with no-one willing to take the plunge and adopt it, so the feature lay dormant. That was until very recently when a problem arose whereby a delay between jobs caused by the process of the staff member having to return to base to get the next job, resulted in quite a substantial cost to the department concerned; in the following investigation (what could we have done differently etc etc), I again mentioned/demonstrated the feature in my system that could have helped the other department out - - lo and behold, it is now being adopted with open arms!

 

That's very kind of you, FC but I don't really need help. I have no problem using the system (I know people who are scared of it) but I do it my way. Mrs Shiney travels up to London frequently and I do so occasionally. We have Senior Travel Cards so get our Senior's discount but it costs more to book straight through to Victoria than it does to book to Liverpool St and then to Victoria

Buses are not a problem with our bus passes.

I don't have mobile internet nor a contactless card - but have helped people fight fraud cases who have had their details taken remotely, from their cards! The card companies say they have solved the problems but they're not keeping up with the crooks.

I think the London transport system is very good - there are just too many people that need to travel on it.

I remember the old trolley buses (with their two poles that came off the wires every so often ) and even the trams (with their pantograph).

I had an interesting bus journey a couple of years ago. We caught the bus at Marble Arch (to Trafalgar Sq.) and it was one of the very old ones with the conductor on the platform. He acted as a guide and gave us a running commentary of the places we were passing and the history of them. He was also very humorous. Apparently there are still a few of them going around and I usually try and keep an eye out for them so that I can jump on one if I see it.