Pay For Rail Improvements In London By Facilitating Electronic Money

I live in London. And, when I travel on the London transport rail network I use something called an Oyster card. This card, allows me to check-in at the station where I join the network. And then, I check out using my Oyster card when I leave the network. The system charges of my Oyster card the cost of the journey. I don't have to wait in line to buy tickets. Neither do I have to make sure I have enough change or cash.

Now, supposing London transport extended the ability to charge money to an Oyster card by allowing newspaper vendors at stations to charge an Oyster card. Pretty soon, other vendors will also start accepting these cards for small payments. Not long after that shops and businesses in London, realising that just about everybody has an Oyster card will begin to accept them as a way of making school cash payments.

Pretty soon, even people who never travel on London transport will start carrying an Oyster card. And then shortly after that shops and businesses outside of London will also accept Oyster cards. After all, many people who work in London commute from outside.

After a while, London transport will be able to sell the whole Oyster card business to a bank for a significant sum of money. This can be used to pay for improvements to the rail network.