The story I tell that makes a case for using London’s underground is this:
I arrived at Heathrow one morning and didn’t want to mess with public transport. I knew the hotel was fairly close to the airport, so I figured I’d take a taxi. This incurred an incredible £42/$67 charge! I was mortified. So, on my way home, I took the tube for a mere £2/$3. Hence, I avoid taxis like the plague while I’m in London!
Also called “the tube”, London’s underground is a network of connecting stops which give the rider a “hands free” option of getting around London on the cheap.
 |
| London Tube Map (Click the map to see larger.) |
But, how does it work? How do you ride? How do you pay? When should you ride?
How It Works
To ride the Underground, you’ll first need one of the following:
-
A single ticket
-
An oyster card (or oyster visitor card)
-
A Travel Card
-
Contactless (not recommended for U.S. tourists).
Purchasing Payment
To purchase a single ticket or top buy/top up an oyster card, go to any underground station and look for the payment kiosks.
Payment Kiosk
You just follow the instructions. You’ll need to buy single tickets depending on the zones you are traveling from/to. Zones 1-6 cover central and outer London.
Zone Map
Single Ticket
A single ticket gets you from one station to another and is a one-time ride. This will typically cost you more than other modes of payment (the oyster card or contactless). For instance, a trip from Marble Arch to Baker Street using a straight ticket costs (at the time of this writing) £4.90 compared to £2.40 if you use Contactless or the Oyster Card. The straight ticket is only good for the day of purchase up to 04:29 the next day.
To use the paper ticket, insert it into the slot on the front of the turnstyle you enter and it sweeps through the system and up through a top slot for you to pick up.
Ticketing
When to Purchase a Single Ticket
When you are traveling very little by tube during your stay. The cost of a single ticket will be expensive, but not as much as purchasing an Oyster card (which provides for further underground trips). Though your Oyster card can be refunded, you may not want the headache if you are only riding once or twice.
Oyster Card
An Oyster card looks like a regular credit card and can be topped up to pay as you go on the London Underground. This card will get you to all zones that the tube travels as well as London busses and even some overland light rail trips to places like Greenwich and Penge East.
Paying for your Oyster Card
You’ll pay a one-time fee for the card (which is refundable when you return the card). The cost is £5. Once you have the card you can top it off with however much you want to spend on transportation during your stay.
Oyster Card
Once you top up the card, you can then use it for transport. Just go to the turnstyle that allows you into the underground station and place the card on the turnstyle reader.
Using the Oyster Card
Reasons for Purchasing an Oyster Card
Here are the reasons for purchasing the Oyster card:
-
Oyster card – has no expiration date.
-
The £5 fee is refundable at the end of the journey along with any residual funds on the card.
-
Standard Oyster cards can hold seven day and longer Travelcards.
-
It’s Pay as you Go, so don’t put a lot of cash on the card toward the end of your trip.
Where can you Use an Oyster Card?
-
Buses and trams
-
Tube, Docklands Light Rail, Transport for London (TfL)
-
National Rail on suburban trains stopping in Zones 1-9
-
Thames Clippers River Bus Services
-
Emirates Air Line
Visitor Oyster Card
The “benefit” of this card seems to be that you can get it mailed to you prior to your trip. However, there are so many drawbacks to it, that I would just recommend getting the regular oyster card.
-
£3 charge for a Visitor Oyster card is nonrefundable
-
Travelcards cannot usually be loaded on them.
-
Visitor cards cannot be registered: if lost or stolen there is no way to stop the card being used by another person
TravelCards
TravelCards are a paper ticket valid for 1 or 7 days of London travel. These are not pay as you go, but are a set rate.
Drawbacks
If you don’t plan to travel a lot during your stay, you’re overpaying.
There is a price range (depending on zones traveled and number of days) that is from £12.10 for an adult traveling only in zones 1-4 to £32.40 if you’re traveling on a 7-day pass in zones 1-6. For stays of 2-6 days, this may not be the right choice. You’ll have to figure out if you are traveling on the underground enough to make it worth your while.
Pluses
You can load a 7-day pass onto your OysterCard (just not the Visitor Oyster Card).
Contactless – Not Recommended for U.S. Tourists
Contactless refers to using your own credit/debit card as the source of funding using near field contact (NFC) technology. Contactless cards will have a wavy symbol on them. The only card in the U.S. using this technology as of this writing is American Express. Many issuers outside the U.K. have punitive fees for foreign exchange which may make that card unattractive for use purchasing transport in London.
Apple has just begun using NFC chips in the IPhone 6 and Iphone 6 Plus. Some Samsung Galaxy phones also offer NFC. This means that you can now tap in with your bank card or NFC-enabled device. You don’t having to regularly top up like you do for the Oyster card. This form of payment hasn’t really become mainstream in the U.S. and even if it was, you’d have to pay a conversion fee every time you used it.
Summary
As far as actually *riding* London’s mass transit, you can either think of yourself as spoiled for choice or as totally confused. It feels, to me, that the transport board has overthought ticketing a bit. I miss the days when you could either buy a London Visitor Pass or purchase an Oyster Card (or before that, just straight ticketing).
Questions to Ask:
-
What modes of transportation does my card cover?
-
Do I get any discounts transportation (such as the River Bus) with this card?
-
Which zones am I traveling in?
-
How many days of transportation in London will I need?
-
How does a straight ticket compare with the oyster card and Travel Card for my needs?