European community for mobility management

Oyster cards can now be bought from ticket machines at almost every station on the London Underground network.  The machines, fitted with a new dispensing mechanism, can issue Oysters cards as quickly as paper tickets, said a Transport for London spokeswoman.

“The new service is particularly useful for busy Londoners who may have forgotten or lost their old Oyster and need a quick replacement,” said the spokeswoman. But she said those using the machines should register their card online to ensure their credit balances are protected should they lose the card. Each of the upgraded machines can hold 400 Oyster cards, in addition to the paper tickets they already contain. “The limited space inside the existing machines presented the biggest challenge and the cassette, which holds the Oyster cards, was a sizeable piece of equipment to locate inside the machine,” said the spokeswoman.

The new service also required a change of software, which involved a detailed testing period before being rolled out to the wider network. “The new dispensing functionality had to fit with the existing operating system and not impact on the performance of other functions already available to the customer,” she said. More than half of all new Oyster cards at Aldgate East, Holland Park and Lambeth North are now bought from the machines rather than the ticket office and more than a third of new Oyster card purchasers at other stations, including Euston, King's Cross, Belsize Park and Putney Bridge, have used the machines.

Richard Parry, London Underground’s strategy & commercial director, said: “Customers have embraced Oyster in recent years, with just one in 20 Tube journeys now starting with a ticket office purchase.....“The ability to vend Oyster cards is a natural progression for the self-service machines across the Tube network, which were also upgraded in 2010 to allow customers to buy tickets to a greater range of National Rail destinations, as well as with Railcard discounts.”

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