Oyster Cards are 15 years old today

[A380]

I think one of the earliest ones, and still probably the gold standard, was the Octopus card in Hong Kong, which worked so well that it's now used in all kinds of places including supermarkets etc.

Efforts to replicate it elsewhere have been mixed, IME - there's London, where a version that works fine was introduced reasonably smoothly 15 years ago, and then there's the "Presto" card in Toronto, which is kind of like an Oyster card except it's 15 years late and doesn't work.

The Octopus in HK does work well and does lots of other things - And you can go on the Star Ferries across the harbour for about 15p! Did I imagine that when Oyster launched you could use it to pay for stuff in newsagents? sweets, papers and stuff? Or did I dream that?

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Did I imagine that when Oyster launched you could use it to pay for stuff in newsagents? sweets, papers and stuff? Or did I dream that?

fairly sure you dreamed it.

think the HK Octopus may be valid for more than transport things

 

[Dogsauce]

They have something similar in Sydney. As far as branding goes (colour, city silhouette) they’ve definitely been copying TFL’s homework.

 

[OzT]

We prefered Cabcharge . . . . lol!!

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Bah, I had a beat up unregistered one from the first week, but it got stolen in Bilbao this year.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I have the Japanese version, not cheaper than single tickets just more convenient. Tokyo keeps it simple by only having fairly decent single prices for tickets on all journeys (with my name on it - if you lose these you really do get them back!).

 

[skyscraper101]

I wasn't aware of this, but just discovered this little tip when deliberating on whether to buy a weekly bus pass or just continue on PAYG.

London Bus Tickets | 2019 Single Tickets, Daily or Weekly Passes

Weekly bus capping with an Oyster card
From 17 December 2018, if you have an Oyster card, bus fares will be capped from Monday to Sunday (the same as contactless cards). This means you will not pay more than £21.20, the cost of the standard weekly bus pass.

As the fares are calculated from Monday-Sunday, it mainly benefits people living and working in London rather than visitors. If you plan to visit London for seven days and first use the buses on Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday buy an ordinary weekly bus pass instead.

So seemingly, if you use the buses a lot, there's now no point buying a weekly bus pass because PAYG is capped at the same price. Though obviously as pointed out it may still be beneficial to do so if you're a 7 day tourist arriving on Thurs, Fri, Sat or Sun.