[paganel]

> Hundreds of thousands of Londoners are being overcharged for travel, while London Centric spoke to one teenager who is having to skip meals because of cashflow issues brought on by the cyberattack.

This is just crazy, why not make public transport as cheap as peanuts to begin with? Why does everything have to be so damn expensive? Why the heck does a monthly transport pass have to cost, let me check, around 200 pounds?, what the fricking fuck?!?! Why don't the common people in the West rise up against this perverted shit? 2400 pounds per year just to have the privilege to take the bus/metro?

[HL33tibCe7]

I don't live in London, but most people I've talked to who do don't have any monthly transport pass or anything like that. They just tap in with contactless. The transport is cheap enough that if you don't travel many times per day, there is really no need. As one example - a bus journey is 1.75 GBP regardless of the distance and number of individual buses taken, as long as all initial tap-ins are within one hour.

Looking at the TfL website, people on benefits get 50% rate discounts; students get 30% off; pensioners and children get completely free travel. It's really quite a good system actually.

[cutler]

Not so fast. Contactless accounts for a huge volume of compensation claims due to faulty or badly-designed interchanges. I've lost count of the number of times my partner has been overcharged when travelling from Wimbledon to Waterloo.

[shamiln]

Is your partner not following the signs saying where to tap in?

[cutler]

Been there. Done that. Even the guards admit it's unreliable.

[avianlyric]

> Why don't the common people in the West rise up against this perverted shit? 2400 pounds per year just to have the privilege to take the bus/metro?

Still cheaper than owning a car. The average driver in London pays £3200 a year for the privilege. Most Londoners don’t bother, cars are slowest, most expensive, and least pleasant way to move around the city.

As for the cost, that because a series of Tory governments stripped TfL of all its government funding. TfL has to cover all its cost from fares, advertising, and some other ancillary business. Hence the higher than average ticket prices.

I would also say that there’s nothing wrong with taking the bus/metro. Busses turn up every 5 mins, metros every 90s-180s. Everything is clean, comfortable (we have fabric and padding on our busses and metro seats) and reliable. Although rush hour can get very cramped and sweaty at its peak.