The capital is your Oyster - train travel just got a whole lot easier

London

In the London scale of things, it ranks as but a minor irritant, much like the battery running out on your mobile phone or temporarily misplacing the television remote control before Match of the Day.

But last week one of London's more irritating enigmas was finally cracked: the rail companies agreed in principle to integrate their ticketing operation inside London with the public transport smartcard used by virtually all Londoners and millions of tourists: the Oyster card.

It ranked as a small inconvenience to regular suburban commuters used to switching daily between paper tickets on the trains and smart cards on the Tube and buses. But to occasional users it was infuriating. Especially the GBP10 (HK$158) fine.

Occasional rail travellers not used to such discrepancies are regularly held at suburban ticket barriers to have their details laboriously noted and a fine issued.

Perhaps the worst offender was the Silverlink-run North London Line service, closely linked with the Tube network and one that features on the London Underground map, but which ran a bizarre ticketing system that ignored the Oyster, even though its stations connected scores of Tube stops in a long loop from gritty North Woolwich in the southeast through north London to leafy Richmond in the affluent southwest.

When politicians spoke of an 'integrated transport network', anyone once held and fined at ticket barriers on the North London Line laughed.