Main menu: Home Features 3D Maps User Guide Support Buy Now Disused Tube Blog

Buses

More spelling mistakes on signs

It seems that the TfL sign writing department have been getting a little slap-dash recently…

In recent months, we’ve seen Willesden Green relocated to the Bakerloo line and a mysterious Shepherd’s Bush Green station on the Central line for example.  And of course we couldn’t mention signs without mentioning the number 15 now could we!

Perhaps, it seems, we should send a dictionary over to the sign-writers, after we happened, purely by chance, to spot this spelling mistake on one of our local bus stops at Henlys Corner…

IMG_1903

We’ll leave you to dig out your dictionary (as we did to be sure we weren’t just seeing things) and have a delve for the correct spelling!

Buses / Signage — — 09 Jan 15

Bus trails

Remember the elephants that came to London a while ago?  Small sculptures placed around key locations in the Capital, part of an art project – well TfL have got on board with the fun, by doing the same with some miniature London Buses.

The press release reads: “Presented in partnership with Wild in Art, the Year of the Bus Sculpture Trails have brought businesses and artists together to create a series of free and accessible public art sculpture trails across London’s streets, parks and public spaces.”

There are three trail installations going live today (Monday 20th October) around London, one in Westminster, one along the Thames, and one in the Olympic Park. A fourth will be added in the new year.

Bus-spotting it may be, but in a nice, artistic, non-anoraky kind of way …

Bus sculpture

Bus sculpture

Art on the Underground / Buses — — 20 Oct 14

Weekly Capping now live on buses

Contactless Card

Contactless Card

With the contactless roll out for all modes of transport still set for Tuesday 16th September – TfL have got ahead of the game a little, by enabling its Monday to Sunday fare capping system for those using contactless cards to pay on buses.

You can read the full press release here, but it’s summarised here in these two paragraphs:

“Bus customers paying for their journeys with a contactless payment card will now benefit from having their fares capped, automatically calculating the best value for their contactless travel over a seven-day period. The added benefit is part of Transport for London’s (TfL) huge range of improvements for customers making it easier and more convenient for them to pay for their travel.

“Daily fares for bus journeys are capped at £4.40, the same as they are for Oyster, meaning that after the fourth journey each day, any further bus travel is not charged. A Monday to Sunday cap now also applies for users of contactless payment cards at £20.20, the equivalent of a weekly Bus and Tram Pass.  The development of this technology is the first step towards the next generation of Oyster. “

Buses / Contactless payments — — 04 Aug 14

Emergency Bus Fares

Emergency Fare TicketWith the buses going cash-free from the 6th July and the fact that you cannot guarantee that your contactless payment card might be rejected as payment if your Oyster card has run out of credit, TfL have this weekend (8th June) introduced “One more bus journey“.

If you have no credit or pass on your Oyster card, you will now be able to make one more journey on a bus.  You then have to top up your pay as you go credit to clear the negative balance before you can use your Oyster card again.

As this Station Master boarded a bus today, we saw “One more bus journey” in action.  The Oyster card of the passenger in front made the ticket machine emit an unfamiliar sequence of beeps and the ticket machine display read “Emergency Fare £1.45”.

The driver called the passenger back and printed out a paper ticket, which the passenger kindly allowed us to photograph.

Buses / Contactless payments / Fares / Oyster — — 11 Jun 14

Contactless on Buses

contactlesscardAfter our post on Contactless payments last week for the pilot on tube trains, we’re still waiting for our ‘membership card’ to turn up in the post – it’s been two weeks now and we’ve still not received it. We had a sneaky go at using our contactless credit card the other day though, and it did correctly charge £2.70 for an off-peak journey from Zone 3 to Zone 3 through Zone 1, with no ‘Error 89‘ that we had got on our previous attempt.

However, we did learn something about contactless on bus journeys at the weekend!  A revenue inspector got on board the bus we were on, and when he did, he showed his badge to the driver, and got him to print out something from the Oyster machine – when I asked what it was, he was happy to show us.

It was a list of the time and last four digits of the payment cards used by the people (in this instance just one person) that had got on board the bus and used a contactless card. Therefore, anyone else showing a contactless card whose last 4 digits didn’t match any on the printout, had NOT touched in properly and would be liable for a penalty fare.

We still don’t see how this is going to transfer and work on tube trains, but it’s interesting to see how it works on the buses anyway.

Buses / Contactless payments — — 20 May 14

No more cash on buses

It’s been coming for a while, but now a date has been set.  You’ll no longer be able to use cash to pay for bus fares as from Sunday July 6th from this year.  You will either have to use an Oyster card, or a bank card that also works as a contactless card, that will charge the same ‘cash’ fare as an Oyster card.

What happens if a contactless bank card fails to work though? In our experience, we see plenty of people wave an Oyster card at the reader on a bus, but it gives the error-beep rather than the ‘happy beep’ and the driver in most cases does nothing about it and the person rides the bus anyway.  Will it be easier to say ‘Oh my bank card should work’ and pretend a non-contactless card is a contactless one, as there are many differing designs of bank cards, but Oyster cards all look the same.

Contactless on buses

Contactless on buses

 

 

Buses / Oyster — — 11 Apr 14