More than 50% of pay-as-you-go journeys are made with contactless as of April 2018, so I don't think "very few know" is fair (fare, heh).

http://content.tfl.gov.uk/contactless-top-line-figure.pdf

It's mainly regular Londoners who use contactless I think. We're an extremely advanced city when it comes to public transport payments. But at the same time you need to be able to digest the numerous rules around it like daily and weekly caps etc.

I've got so used to this that a few months ago I did a bus journey in a medium sized town and it felt totally backwards having a physical ticket.

I went out east to lakeside one day to do some shopping with my wife; we got as far as Dartford, then there was a bus we had to get, I tapped my Oyster on the reader, it didn't work, the driver gave me an odd look, so I tapped my bank card, it didn't work, another odd look, so I said, "it's not working, do you take cards?" He looked at me as if it'd just offended his mother. "No" the driver replied. So I asked "What do you take?" And he replied "Cash". I was slightly taken aback.

This bus station is in the middle of nowhere just past Dartford, there isn't a building in sight let alone a cash machine, so, I looked in my wallet to find only my single, brand new, plastic £5 note with a palindrome serial number I'd been keeping. With a sigh I handed it over and we got our bus.

Lakeside was crap.

That's exactly the problem. You pass an invisible line somewhere that TfL stops existing and you're getting mugged straight up in redneck country.

Lakeside is indeed crap.

Outside of central London a lot of bus companies either have their own card system or none at all, of course the card for one company rarely works with others.

you could go Fenchurch st to chafford hundred and walk over the pedestrian bridge for I believe £5.90 return.

maybe not ideal for your circumstances but food for thought

I use contactless when I travel to London - as a visitor, it's far more convenient than buying an Oyster and far cheaper than paper tickets.

>But at the same time you need to be able to digest the numerous rules around it like daily and weekly caps etc.

The price caps are quite easy to understand - you just tap your card when you travel and you'll always be charged the lowest applicable fare. You don't have to think about whether you need to buy a daily or weekly ticket, because you'll never be charged more than the daily or weekly fare cap.

The price caps are but it's a bit of a pain if you forget to touch out somewhere or have to use national rail etc.

Plus sometimes it does actually go wrong. I have to request about 2-3 refunds a year where I've done the same route and not forgotten a thing.

> You don't have to think about whether you need to buy a daily or weekly ticket

If you're not wealthy, it's certainly worth knowing whether or not you've reached a cap.