Saturday, November 21, 2009

Cheaper way to travel on London Underground - Oyster card

If a commuter pays by cash to buy a ticket on the London Underground, the standard fare is 4 GBP (SGD 10) regardless of distance. This is very expensive, especially for short trips.

The commuter has the option to buy an Oyster card and pay a lower fare, starting from GBP 1.60 for travel within zone 1 (in Central London) or GBP 1.10 within the same zone outside of zone 1. The fare increases according to the number of zones travelled, but is still lower than GDP 4.

I did not realise about the big difference when I paid GBP 4 for a short trip of about 5 stations within zone 1. The station staff did not tell me about this option, when I bought the ticket from the counter. This was poor service.



1 comment:

  1. I must agree with you, Mr Tan in regards to UK's approach with Oyster Card.
    \
    Back in 2006, when there were magnetic swipe card and oyster, we didn't care much about the differences. And we paid double the price for a swipe card than a oyster card.
    Then my mum's friend told us using oyster card is more efficient as it is cheap.

    We were sad to learn that neither the lady from the counter nor the station master told us about the differences in the rates (probably because we looked like tourists). But, oyster card is really an efficient way for UK's public transport and i really find that Singapore can learn UK's transport system, especially the 'zones' that was imposed.

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