Following an upgrade that was rolled out yesterday afternoon, you can now top up an Oyster card and collect the credit from any bus, as well as at any Tube or rail station within London.
The upgrades mean that anyone who uses the new TfL app or Oyster Online can add their travelcard or prepay credit to their Oyster card from any yellow card reader 30 minutes after purchase.
Since it launched last month, TfL’s new mobile app has been downloaded over 100,000 times.
Analysis of the first six weeks usage shows that Stratford, King’s Cross and Liverpool Street are the most popular stations for customers to collect their Oyster card top-ups.
The app also enables customers to view the last eight weeks of their journey history, check how much pay as you go credit they have on their Oyster card and sends, for the first time, a ‘low balance’ alert direct to their phone to help ensure they have enough pay as you go credit or an active Travelcard before they travel.
Additional functionality will be added, including better handling of Oyster refunds so customers can apply for them more quickly and easily. TfL is also looking at future phased improvements to the app, such as allowing those with a Zip photocard, Student photocard or 60+ photocard to access their Oyster account through the app.
Throughout 2018, further improvements to the Oyster and Contactless system will also be introduced, including:
- Expanding the Mayor’s ‘Hopper fare’ to allow unlimited journeys on buses and trams within an hour in early 2018;
- Adding the ability to view journey history for Contactless payments through the TfL app;
- Introducing weekly capping on Oyster to bring it in line with Contactless;
In order to use the new TfL app, which is available for Android and Apple smartphones, customers need to have a blue Oyster card and an Oyster Online account.
