Oyster Card updates

The are a couple of stories in the news today relating to the prepay Oyster card used by millions of people in London when travelling on buses or the London Underground.

The price of a single bus or tram journey when paying by Oyster card has dropped from £1 to 90p, a rare cut in pricing on public transport in Britain which always seems on a steep trajectory upwards. A single journey that’s paid for in cash will still cost a minimum of £2 though, even if its just a few hundred yards, so if you’re on a trip to London buying an Oyster card or at least a one-day or weekly travelcard will save a lot of money over the course of your stay.

In another Oyster card development the overground train operating companies have agreed to allow passengers to pay for their journeys in London using the card. Millions of people travel to suburban areas of London on mainline rail services, but they’re run by a large number of different companies who were bulking at the expense of installing card reading technology at their stations making it a hassle for travellers who couldn’t use the card for sections of their journey’s.

Now Transport for London and the Association of Train Operating Companies have reached a deal where card reading equipment will start being installed next year and should be at all train stations by 2009.