Oyster Card – Electronic Ticketing
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“Time is money, we are told, and increasing mobility is a way of saving time, but how successful are modern transport systems at saving time? “
(John Whitelegg, “Time Pollution”, Ecologist 23, no.4 – 1993)
Service choice reasons
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If you live in London, you will probably know the Oyster Card fairly well. More or less everybody has one.
You use it to pay for bus or tube travel – top up some money on the card and instead of buying a paper ticket each time, just place your card on a yellow reader, and it will work out how much the journey cost and automatically deduct it from your card. It does save a ton of time, and quite a bit of money too (tickets are cheaper on Oyster).
When I first came to London, I found extremely benefcial using the Oyster Card to move around the city and realized how crucial is this service in order to make people travel fast and saving time during their journey.
I come from a place where the concept of “Public Transport” is missed at all. We do not have underground systems, buses are few and always late. In my hometown, Palermo, there are neither tram nor boat services and if you want to cycling you have not to be fussy: bicycle paths are just in the historical centre, which is the “car” kingdom. Last but not least, people are not used to walk even if distances are very short.
I have chosen to analyse the Oyster Card as I honestly think it is a light, useful and well-designed service supporting another service, in other worlds: an electronic ticketing serving the public transport system. Travelling around London, I have been using my Student Oyster Card and I rarely had problems. When it has happened, I have always found punctual and kind help from the London Underground Staff.
In a Metropolis as London is, where our journey is not an easy one, we need to go fast, simplifying all the touch points that allow us to buy a ticket, to board on a bus or to