As for recommendations for tourists, Oyster is great, but, there's really no need, a contactless bank card is capped at the same day and week rate as Oyster.
I've been commuting for the last year on my bank card, it's not the most financially efficient way, but it's not a lot more expensive (than a pre-paid pass).
Also bear in mind that a bank card will take ~2 seconds to scan at most stations' gates, versus milliseconds for an Oyster. It might seem trivial but at London rush hour it's an annoyance for you and everyone else.
One thing people also don't know is that at most stations, your card won't scan if you're standing between the gates, step back and scan or you'll just hold everyone up until you give up and walk away.
It's designed this way, I imagine, so that you don't scan while someone is still paying through the gate and have it close on you before you pass through.
I was really surprised at how expensive it was! Especially as the pound's value at the time was quite a bit higher than today.
It's great that I can commute to work for a £3 round-trip with a change halfway if I choose not to cycle! Of course, that's in South-West London and even then the traffic can get pretty bad. In central it's probably nightmarish to do it regularly.
Especially for lower paid commuters in London. Driving is also a non-starter if you work centrally so it's really your only option.
The only European city I recall being expensive compared to my usual commute was Geneva, Switzerland.
Eastern-bloc tend to be cheaper while the likes of Germany are closer to our prices.
People presume that Berlin is the center of Germany, when in fact it absolutely isn't. Hamburg is a much more wealthy city that Berlin. Here's [1] the ticket prices for Hamburg [1] and here's [2] the ticket prices for London, are you seeing much difference?
[1] https://www.hvv.de/en/tickets/single-day-tickets/overview [2] https://www.visitbritainshop.com/world/london-travelcard/
For Berlin I pay 760€ for a yearly ticket despite not living centrally (AB zone ticket still covers it). London zones 1-2 yearly ticket[1] is £1404 (=1574.45€) again factor of 2 more expensive.
When we lived in Vienna (a wealthy city, probably similar to Munich or Hamburg) transit prices were similar to Berlin (maybe even cheaper).
Not to mention that because London housing is so expensive most "common people" (who aren't living with room mates or are very wealthy) live in what we would consider a suburb rather than the city (in terms of distance from the city center) thus paying fares from further zones (iirc my friends at the time lived in zone 3 & were middle class professionals not paupers and/or with huge families).
From 8 years of living in Vienna and 5 of living in Berlin transit costs were never significant to me & I never lived in the center of either city.
The numbers quoted from the links above line up with my gut feeling when visiting London (my feeling was even more extreme actually, but a few years ago the GBP was worth a lot more € than today).
I haven't tried with a different bank though, so it could be bank specific.
In NL we've moved to a card system like that some years ago; the amount of people traveling without a ticket in the subways and trains has declined by a lot, and consequently, crime and violence against the train staff that fined them if they were checked. Likewise, staff could be reallocated from appearing as a big gang of ticket checkers at the exits of random stations to other tasks.
They do tend to put at least one guy near the gates though, for one to help out people that have trouble with the system, and on the other to discourage people jumping the gates. They're quite high so that's quite a feat, but there's also a builtin system so that it opens if pushed hard enough (in case of emergency).
Anyway. Ticket machines are big and expensive machines.
The gates are designed so that an adult can force their way through despite the gate being closed, but nevertheless in a fire or other emergency situation you don't want to wait for fleeing people to force the gates, so there must be a trained human available to command the gates to all open immediately. In a tube station there will be a control booth with CCTV of all areas somewhere to direct operations - the gate still must be supervised by someone physically nearby, not solely from the booth. Flow controls that don't prevent you fleeing from an emergency (e.g. the "Do Not Enter!" flashing signs at some tube entrances that can be activated to prevent overcrowding, or the changeable internal direction markers that let them send unfamiliar users over a longer alternate route to their destination) are controlled from the booth though.
There are posters all over London pushing people to use contactless, it's not an attempt to swindle visitors.
I've got so used to this that a few months ago I did a bus journey in a medium sized town and it felt totally backwards having a physical ticket.
This bus station is in the middle of nowhere just past Dartford, there isn't a building in sight let alone a cash machine, so, I looked in my wallet to find only my single, brand new, plastic £5 note with a palindrome serial number I'd been keeping. With a sigh I handed it over and we got our bus.
Lakeside was crap.
Lakeside is indeed crap.
maybe not ideal for your circumstances but food for thought
>But at the same time you need to be able to digest the numerous rules around it like daily and weekly caps etc.
The price caps are quite easy to understand - you just tap your card when you travel and you'll always be charged the lowest applicable fare. You don't have to think about whether you need to buy a daily or weekly ticket, because you'll never be charged more than the daily or weekly fare cap.
Plus sometimes it does actually go wrong. I have to request about 2-3 refunds a year where I've done the same route and not forgotten a thing.
If you're not wealthy, it's certainly worth knowing whether or not you've reached a cap.
I'm not sure contactless is as ubiquitous as we think it is.
They are designed to discourage you, and to push you towards solutions that are better for TfL and the environment: contactless cards.
Get a contactless bank card, Apple or Android pay on your phone or smart watch, or buy an Oyster card.
If you know you'll be travelling a lot for a week or two, look into a 7 day travel card which you load onto an Oyster card, and gives you unlimited travel for the zones you're interested in.
You can still travel outside those zones, but will pay a fare increment.
There is nothing to stop visitors from using either contactless card payments, Android/Apple pay, or an Oyster card. Oyster cards are easily purchased from all stations, especially places many people arrive like Heathrow Airport. They're promoted on websites aimed at tourists like visitlondon.com, and covered in every guidebook to the city. The £5 deposit and any remaining balance is refundable at many machines, and doesn't expire.
Do you mean "avoidable"?
They do have a 'secret' ticket called a Swiss Transfer ticket which will take you from any airport to any train station and back for a much cheaper price than a normal train ticket. However you cannot buy it in Switzerland, but have to order online before your departure.
Oyster
+ prepaid - load it up and go
+ the system manages the maximum fares
+ automatic refunds for 'minor' corrections/errors
+ app available to track transactions albeit not real-time
+ can be registered online to receive reports and the ability to manage account
+ max fares for no-touch are sandboxed i.e. in red up to a certain amount + no journeys, until they are resolved and/or further funds are added to clear the event
Contactless
All of the above with some caveats
- no limit on credit/debit cards i.e. if the pad fails to recognise touch-in/out events it results in a maximum fare. These events might also incur additional charges depending on your issuer
+ there are nuances due to misaligned systems and thus exists a cheaper way of calculating weekly maximum fare when acting as a 'Travelcard'
= refunds have a similar route but with added protection of consumer laws. YMMV
Oyster/Contactless can also be used on certain river services and the Emirates Air-line.
Due to implementation, there is a high-latency between touch events and notifications from the app. So, it might be prudent for some to limit the expenditure.
As for carrying less plastic, Revolut might be an option? However, as a short to medium term visitor, Oyster makes more sense - even considering the refundable deposit.
You can buy an airline ticket on Emirates... using your Oyster card?
TFL gather together all journeys made per day, so no matter how many journeys are made with the same contactless card there will be one charge made. However, an awful foreign bank might charge $2 per transaction, which could be more than the refundable deposit on an Oyster card.
A slightly better draw is that you also get a Network Rail Gold card, which entitles you to a 33% discount on some train journeys. The partner and I use this quite frequently when visiting various parts of the UK!
For most visitors, contactless will give the same prices as Oyster, and is a lot cheaper than paper tickets.
Just two weeks ago I was finally able to get an oyster-like card from South West Rail that works with the train and the tube. Progress, finally!
For example in Bingley (Yorkshire) where my mother lives, and in Southampton (on the South Coast) where I live, the buses use ITSO smartcards. But you can't take a ride on her bus with my smartcard.
Contactless bank cards do work on both systems though, and on the London transport network. So "Use a credit card" ends up being the "one physical token" solution.
Even if I put some money on that card, via her bus' payment system? As in, I go to a tfl ticket machine, touch, put money on, touch again and then I can use the card on the underground. Then I go to Southampton, go to a ticket machine, touch, put money on, touch again, then I can use the card on the Southampton's transit system.
Literally just tried this with the Southampton card in London against a tfl machine. No Dice.
Shame, but yeah, not really surprising.
Baby Steps!
I think the fragmented nature of the operating companies probably doesn't help. Maybe with time!
A transport network needs to be designed so that everybody can use it - that means being able to access it with cash.
Even Oyster’s £5 deposit per card can be an issue for some people.
https://www.nationwide.co.uk/products/current-accounts/flexb...
My understanding of this is that its actually price discrimination against people buying paper tickets, as they're more likely to have problems at the gates and result in a queue backing up.