PalQ

NEW TRAVELCARD: Transport for London will soon sell a 3-day TravelCard, supplementing the current one day and 7-day and longer cards. London Visitor Travelcards will be eliminated - these cards were only to foreign tourists. Buy cards at the tube stations ticket windows, ticketing machines or many news shops. Cards pay off if you only ride a few times a day. Economize by buying for two pounds a bus pass, valid on most buses throughout the Great London area (all six zones); buy this at bus ticket machines at most stops.

PalQ

Photos Not Needed
Several times in this forum the question of whether photo cards are needed or not for some travelcards. According to Transport for London's fares brochure 2004 they are not needed for one day cards or for 7-day cards for zones 1 and 2 but are for other zones. Discounted fares for students and kids may also require photo cards, which apparently you can get at tube stations that issue the travelcards.

Robespierre

If the £2 1-day bus pass is a bargain, the £9.50 7-day pass has to be the Deal of the Century. For £1.36 a day, you can cover all of Greater London!

Downside: subject to traffic delays (but if all you're doing is sightseeing from the upper deck, who cares?)

PalQ

Yes the bus pass is a great deal and one should not automatically neglect the albeit slower buses for the tube, especially for short journeys. On the bus you can sit on the upper deck, maybe right over the driver if you're lucky to find these exciting seats occupied, and really see London as it passes by at about 3 mph through the heavily trafficked roads below (traffic in central London is said to travel at average speeds they had in the horse-and-buggy era), but what's the rush - you see zilch on a subway except insipidently inane advertising posters, and it takes time to plunge into its depths, especially on lines like the infamous Northern Line, which runs often at a hundred feet or more underground. Plus a recent fear of mine with the Tube is that a fire or terrorist bomb or power outage (such as in August 2003 when many folks were stranded in rush hour crowded tubes for a few hours) and the often horrendous overcrowding at peak periods (at Victoria you may have to wait and shove for 2 or 3 trains sometimes to get on) - buses run along the street, you just hop on. buses run a myriad of routes connecting almost any two points in central London. The classic London double-decker in most folks minds is the infatigable RouteMaster, antique-looking fumne-belching monsters that have been rumbling along London streets since the 1930s, their motors wheezing as if they would stall at any moment. TFL (Transport for London) recently announced the imminent demise of these conveyances, being replaced by more sleek modern two-deckers. But for now don't neglect hopping on these soon to be made redundant creatures, where there is no door, you just hop on, often whilst the bus moves away from the stop! (Recent US media reports of the scrapping of RouteMaster buses often had the misleadin headline, 'London scrapping double-deckers', whereas it's not all double-deckers being sent to the scrapheap but just these antiques, often replaced by larger double-decker modern conveyances.)
Mayor 'Red' Ken Livingstone has held the line on bus prices while raising tube rates - leading some to complain that now the lower class rides the bus and higher classes can afford to tube it. Indeed, buses i've been on recently are an intriguing mosaic of lower-class Londoners - many immigrants from a panpoly of cultures, riding the bus because it's cheaper - the English class system now manifest in buses vs tube. Anyway, riding a bus in London is always exciting, as is taking the tube, and don't neglect buses when in London. Note: one-day bus passes are now 2.50 pounds a day, not two pounds. Single journey bus tickets are 1 pound (70 p if bought using pre-pay Oyster Cards) so over two journeys warrants a pass unless you have an Oyster Card. Note that Travelcards, covering travel on bus, tube, tram and Docklands Light Rail, can be used throughout Greater London on buses even if they are good only for central zone - some buses outside Great London are even included.
Anyone have any good London bus stories?

PalQ

Oyster Cards Save Money
The fairly new Oyster Card, a pre-apid card you buy then just flash at a tv screen in the stations to get your ticket saves money for individual tube or bus rides - about 30p a ride plus it's quick. Though you can't buy one-day travelcards with the card, you can buy 7-day and longer. Buy Oyster cards at tube stations or shops selling tube tickets. Note if riding three times a day on the tube - min fare 2 pounds, it's better to buy a one-day travelcard even with the Oyster discount.

Miff

Correct me if I'm wrong.

If my 3 adults have 7 day travel cards loaded on their Oysters, my 3 kids (ages 14, 13, 10) will travel tubes for a maximum of 1 quid per day.
Right so far?
Do we have to pass through a special gate - or just how do the kids "touch in and out"?

audere_est_facere

Kids are let through the gate at the side of the barriers.

Robespierre

It sounds from this as though Kids for a Quid get one-day Travelcards:

<b>Your Travelcard, which can be of any zonal combination, entitles you to buy child rate Off-Peak Day Travelcards (valid in all zones) at a reduced price of &pound;1 for up to 4 children (aged 5-15 years inclusive), when they travel with you.</b>

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tick.../kids-for1.asp

Fidel

Thank you for the Tube News.

The transport site is sometimes confusing to me; do I read correctly that an Oyster single Fare is 1.50 and a single-day Off-Peak Travel Card 5.10 (Zones1-2)? Isn't the Oyster more economical for a three-ride day?

Keith

If you unexpectedly discover you need a photo (for example for a 7 day card that covers more than 2 zones), just ask your hotel to make a copy of your passport photo.

Keith

Robespierre

For Westminster to Greenwich (as an example of a Zone 1-2 fare), Oyster is &pound;2 peak or &pound;1.50 off-peak.

A one-day Travelcard costs &pound;5.10, so the Oyster cap is &pound;4.60 per day.

Oyster is more economical for 3 days because no 3-day off-peak passes are sold. The Peak Travelcard is &pound;16.40 and three days of PAYG with Oyster caps is &pound;13.80

Miff

Okay, I think I've got it.....maybe.

Arriving Heathrow -
3 adults
3 kids, ages 14, 13, 11.
Buy:
a. 7 day travel card for each adult (peak travel)
b. 1 day (quid for kid) travel card for each child.
c. plain vanilla tickets for tube travel into town for adults.

Question: Can I buy the kids' one day tickets for all of our 7 day stay, or do I have to buy them each day?

Question: Can I still buy a &quot;carnet&quot; of tickets for any morning &quot;peak&quot; travel for the kids?

alanRow

&lt;&lt;&lt; c. plain vanilla tickets for tube travel into town for adults. &gt;&gt;&gt;

NO, you add a few pounds onto your 7 day Travelcard (which comes on an Oystercard) so it can also be used as PAYG

&lt;&lt;&lt; a. 7 day travel card for each adult (peak travel) &gt;&gt;&gt;

What zones? Most people will only need Zone 1-2 - and why peak travel, using the Tube system before 9:30am isn't very pleasant (hint several million people are trying to use them also) except at weekends - when the peak rates don't apply

Robespierre

Here's the official kids' brochure for you to claw your way through:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tick...-discounts.pdf