Smart cards travel South Yorkshire

[S1 1DJ]

We only really need to accept contactless payment in the future. I mean via bank cards or Android/Apple pay. These virtual wallets will be able to hold season tickets and other data instead of PTEs trying to roll out their own contactless schemes. London has already seen a big shift towards contactless rather than Oyster PAYG.

Edited July 3, 2016 by S1 1DJ

[Annie Bynnol]

what was wrong with the Yorcard?

 

---------- Post added 02-07-2016 at 22:18 ----------

 

 

Do you really think the north is subsidising London. Do you have your map upside down? London subsidises the rest of the country pretty much.

 

Yes of course we massively subsidise public transport in London. $5 billion a year.

A commuter pays £4 for a journey that costs £10. The fares are set by London politicians and RPI +1%- a real time "freeze" according to TfL

 

Children and all over 60s get free travel, paid for by UK taxpayers.

Trains are idle or carrying air for the majority of the day and in many cases two sets of staff are needed for the two peaks.

There has been billions spent on the overground, crossrail, thameslink, train lengthening, platform lengthening, new underground stock, Reading, GWR electrification, London bridge station etc., etc.

 

The buses are also subsidised directly by taxpayers unlike the rest of the UK.

 

Very nearly all buses, all the underground and an increasing amount of the railway are nationalised.

 

The reason Oyster works is that the revenue does not have to be shared between private operators

[Berberis]

Yes of course we massively subsidise public transport in London. $5 billion a year.

 

You're completely wrong. London makes the largest contribution to the Uk economy for any region. £34 billion net positive contribution to UK public finances. Yorkshire on the other hand is in deficit to the UK economy. London subsidises Yorkshire, not the other way round.

[SkyeEdge]

The smart cards are great, the machines are not. There was a problem with my card, something to do with the software and Stagecoach tickets. This meant that the card wouldn't update. I tried once with no joy and received a slip saying I hadn't been charged. The ladies from the interchange tried again, same result. So the third time it was done as a new transaction with a completely new card, this went through fine.

 

Today I check my bank account only to find that the two voided transactions had gone through so I am £98 down. I am absolutely livid. I bet I won't get my money back as quickly as it was taken

[Annie Bynnol]

This thread is about travel.

My comment was specifically about the fact that the "... we massively subsidise public transport in London. $5 billion a year."

 

Any discussion about the overall economic role of London in the UK is for another thread.

 

 

Taking it a stage further, between the time of the Wilson government and the advent of private operation, the vast amount of subsidy needed to pay for the railway system around London came from fares charged to InterCity customers. This led to the stagnation of Intercity and the inability to modernise the regional railways with the continued threat of closure as the Serpell Report required.

 

Currently to avoid the taxpayers wrath, the subsidy required by rail transport around London is hidden in the £38 billion debt of Network Rail.

 

It is in the nature of transport systems in large cities to need an operating subsidy and every such city in the world has this. New infrastructure also requires public capital.

 

The argument I make (as did the Transport Select Committee in 2015) is that their is an imbalance between the every increasing subsidy for the nationalised London system and the ever reducing subsidy of the PTEs and the nil/negligible subsidy in the counties.

[Isabelle]

I have a Travelmaster smart card, I tend to purchase the CityWide monthly tickets because I need to be able to use First and Stagecoach buses. My only gripe is I can't buy online, I had to take a detour on Wednesday to use the machine at Hillsborough and it took me an extra hour to get home.

I know it says you can buy them in certain shops, but last time I tried, they didn't offer the service, despite it being listed on the website and their having a sign on the door saying they did.

[AY1975]

I've discovered a snag with the Travelmaster smartcards, in that if you get on a bus having already got on another bus within the last 10 minutes, the card reader on the driver's ticket machine is programmed to reject your card. This is to stop people from misusing their cards by passing them on to someone else who might then try to use the same card on the same bus.

 

It is entirely legal to make a short-hop journey immediately followed by another journey, so when you load a weekly or monthly ticket onto your card, make sure you keep the receipt and put it in your ticket wallet with your card so you can show it to the driver if the machine rejects your card.

 

Most drivers are OK about you doing that if you tell them that you've just been on another bus, but I once had a Stagecoach driver who was adamant that my card wasn't valid. I offered to show him the receipt, but he would have none of it. I was only intending to go two stops, so I got off and walked instead. I then e-mailed a complaint to Stagecoach, and they got back to me and said the driver involved would be traced and spoken to.

 

If the same happens to you, make sure you write to or e-mail the bus operator involved, and say where you tried to get on and at what time, and describe what the driver looked like. If possible make a note of the fleet number of the bus involved and quote that too. This is usually a 5-digit number displayed on the front and back of the bus, and sometimes inside the bus as well, at the front by the entrance door.

[Andy C]

I have a Travelmaster smart card, I tend to purchase the CityWide monthly tickets because I need to be able to use First and Stagecoach buses. My only gripe is I can't buy online, I had to take a detour on Wednesday to use the machine at Hillsborough and it took me an extra hour to get home.

I know it says you can buy them in certain shops, but last time I tried, they didn't offer the service, despite it being listed on the website and their having a sign on the door saying they did.

 

I think this is a future development - you can currently renew Stagecoach Smart online but not Travelmaster.

 

That said, rumour has it that Stagecoach are getting new ticket machines next year that will accept contactless debit cards which could be something of a game changer...