A Credit Card Oyster (Oyster Card)

Member Name: bhayanid

Product:	Oyster Card
Date:	13/06/09 (85 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Convenient, Ease Of Use

Disadvantages: Exagerated Prices

Working in central London is means that the Oyster card is a neccessity for myself and the many thousands of others that also rely on the underground to get to and from work.

Oyster cards were launched back in 2003 and there are two main uses for it. The first is that the prices on Oyster cards are cheaper than buying the standard tickets and the second benefit is that it is a lot more convenient and I will explain more about these two benefits during this review.

The oyster card is just a small credit sized card and hence can be stored with the rest of your cards. To sign up for one now you need to put down a £3 deposit and then it is ready to go, and no other registration is needed unless you are going for specific oyster cards like Pensioners or Students. Accordering to the latest stats from March 2007, over 10mil Oyster cards have been issued and more than 80% of all journeys use the Oyster Card and I would imagine at the current date this figure may even be over 90%, which shows that mainly due to the cheaper prices the Oyster card has definitely taken off.

Now the main thing with the Oysters is the cheaper prices. Looking deeper into this issue I have come to the conclusion that the prices are not cheaper. Yes they are considerably cheaper than paying with cash for a normal paper ticket, however the reaston why Oyster is not cheaper is that over the past few years the standard cash tickets increased dramatically. For example the standard ticket increased from £1 to £3 for a one zone journey over the last few years, whilst Oyster costs £1.10 so technically Oyster is still around the same price as a normal ticket from a few years back if not a little bit more. I think this is quite crafty and a way for the TFL to make some extra money.

The second benefit of course is the convenience. All the exists and entrances of all the stations have a little yellow pod that can be seen on the Dooyoo pic where you simply just touch your Oyster card against and the gate will open. In fact you do not need to even take the Oyster out of your wallet as it can detect it through your wallet, this is even more convenient.

You can get a travel card on the Oyster for different periods, or pay as you go. It really depends on your needs what you want to go for, but it is very simple to set it up on the Oyster. You can go to the service booth, one of the touch screen machines or most convenient of all is to do it from the comfort of your own home.

An interesting fact I found out today was that in China they have a similar card called the octopus card, hhhm this does seem to have quite a similar name to the oyster card.... I wonder which one came first, the Oyster or the Octopus.

Overall this is a very good addition to travelling and does make journeys that little bit more convenient, however the cheaper prices on offer are defenitely an exageration and only cheaper in comparison to the heavily increased prices on the paper old style tickets.

Summary: Makes Journeys Smoother