TFL Together For TFL?

Now TFL have never been my favourite transport company and I think they may be about to fail miserably at yet another scheme. They have a nice slogan “TFL together for London” however unless I am greatly mistaken they are working more for themselves than they are for London.

They bring in the congestion charge to try and get people off the road and onto public transport. Seems like a fairly good idea, but then the public transport hasn’t exactly improved well enough to handle the existing rush hour numbers, let alone these extra people who now can’t afford to use their cars. But hey, there’s free travel if you’re under 13 on buses and trams, no, wait, that’s about to change.

I have never been a great fan of the Oyster card. It seems to simply be a way of TFL to get more money from people who don’t want/need/see the point of having one. I don’t live in London, and as such the Oyster Card is slightly pointless for me. I go into London every so often, visit Forbidden Planet, do other strange things, then go home again. However if I were to get an Oyster Card I would have to get a return to Liverpool Street, then use my Oyster card from there. So I would still need a paper ticket, and the cost would be pretty much the same as what I pay now, as the return attached to the travel card I buy and the overground Oyster Card zone start don’t over-lap. There is also the way that TFL presented Oyster to the public.

TFL told us all that they would in no way force customers to use Oyster if they didn’t want to, however it would appear that they want to make it as difficult as they possibly can for people without them. The fact that the only people who pay on Bendy buses (another thing I don’t like from TFL) is only a small reprieve, and I would never advocate fare dodging. But TFL are about to put their foot well and truly in it, because as expensive as it is for adults without oyster cards, it is about to get worse for kids without them, and they are the future, and the ones TFL want to get in the mindset of using public transport.

The under 5s are fine, they don’t need to worry they can go free on buses, trams, the underground, DLR, everything. Now the 5-10 age group is slightly more confusing, they can go free on buses and trams, and free on the tube, DLR, overground with a fare paying adult, up to four of them can in fact. However should they be travelling alone and want free travel on the trains they need an oyster photo card. That doesn’t seem to bad, but what happens when they reach the 11-15 age band? Well, 11-13 year olds always used to be free on buses and trams (if they looked 11-13 that is, but how many kids actually look they age they really are?), and 14-15 year olds needed an Oyster photo card. They both needed to pay on trains, but hey, what do you expect? they’re big kids now. However this is about to change. As of the 1st of June kids between 11 and 13 become one age group.

Grouping them together is no great problem, it is the change that comes with this that worries me. They all need Oyster Photo cards to get free travel. With that they also get half price pay as you go on all trains run by TFL. and when on off-peak times they can do it all for a capped £1 if paying with a full-fare paying adult. But no Oyster, no free travel.

For a company that is working to improve London they are doing it in a way that seems very confusing, and totally pointless. How can they justify a kid needing an oyster card for free travel? Does a child with a photo card take up less space than one without? Does this count as forcing kids/forcing parents to get their kids and Oyster Card?

The pricing has never been especially cheap, and now it is confusing as well. TFL is a business, I understand that they need to make money. There is, however, no explanation that I can think of for forcing kids to get an Oyster Card to get what they have been offered for a few years. I wonder what Boris Johnson or Brian Paddick would do.

MTFBWY