Last week TfL announced a delay to the Night Tube whilst it tries to reach an acceptable settlement with the Unions representing the staff. At the same time as this announcement was made, TfL also quietly confirmed:
– They are going to close ALL remaining ticket offices. This means 900 people will lose their jobs and passengers will have to use the automatic machines located in stations. This is disappointing especially in locations where tourists need more help.
– The planned changes to night buses, which will reduce frequencies, will go ahead in some areas despite the Night Tube (which was supposed to take up the slack), not being launched yet.
So, there are lots of changes to London’s transport systems over the next few months and I will make sure you keep up to date with them via the blog.
Will the closure of ticket offices impact those coming from US without a Chip & Pin card?
@Nigel – Yes I fear it will. The machines are set up to take Chip and PIN cards. I understand some US banks allow you to get a C&P card – I suggest you do that if you are coming over.
Almost all US debit/credit cards will be chip and PIN by the end of October. Card processors in the US will not cover merchant losses due to fraud on mag swipe transactions after 1 November, 2015, so the push is on to get all cards converted by then. Similarly, merchants are already starting to require chip and PIN use.
The mag stripes on chip and PIN cards identify the cards and so terminal software will reject mag swipe use when they detect a chip. If you’ve been to a Target store in the last month, you’ll already have seen this change. Other merchants should be updating their terminal software before the beginning of November.
@malthus – yes I had that problem at a Target in LA. Worse thing was that the machine didn’t recognise my PIN code even though it was valid. I just paid cash.