Top-Up Trouble

Posted in Tubeworker's blog on ,

The Department of Daft Ideas is certainly having a busy festive season. On top of the silly one we reported a few days ago - getting CSAs to collect excess fares on the gateline on an Oyster card - they now want to impose a £5 minimum on customers topping up their Oysters at the window.

So, imagine the scenario ... A customer queues up to put £3 on their Oyster. They don't notice the poster saying there is a £5 minimum at the window, because (a) the queue goes way past the poster, or (b) they don't read English, or (c) they are too busy keeping their bored and frustrated young children in line, or (d) numerous other reasons. They finally arrive at the window and ask for £3 on their Oyster, which will be just enough to get them home.

You, the hard-working SAMF, have to explain to them that under management's daft new policy, they can not do that any more, they have to either put a fiver on their Oyster or go and top it up on the POM instead. They have a fiver, but they need the other two quid to get some bread and milk on the way home. The POM is in exact fare only mode. Or there is a queue at the POM and having already queued at the window they are not keen on joining it.

What do you think the chances are that this person will happily accept the situation, thank you for your time and be on their merry way? Pretty much zero, we'd say. Much more likely, either you the SAMF or the CSA in the ticket hall (if there is one) will get the brunt of their justified annoyance.

There is a more sinister agenda here, too. This is yet another one of LUL's attempts to drive its own customers away from its ticket offices to other facilities. Then we will have them come back to us and say "There are fewer transactions at the ticket office windows, so we are going to close them."

So, not just a daft idea, but a dangerous one too.

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