Greater numbers of parents and carers would feel safe and more secure if they had access to a card reader in the pushchair zone on all single access buses.

Currently, parents and carers pushing prams with one or more of their babies experience difficulties in using buses with single access entry at the front door, and often need to gain access through the middle-doors instead. However, the parents or carers, once they have set the pushchair in the pushchair zone, often need to leave the pushchair containing the baby, together with any small children, maybe a dog, and their personal possessions such as shopping bags, to push past people standing in the bus isle in order to swipe their Oyster card on the yellow contactless card reader at the front of the bus, beside the other door.

This practice is unfair, unsafe and unacceptable to parents and carers who must try to act quickly, knowing they have left baby, animal and possessions unattended, and is especially upsetting to babies and animals in unfamiliar surroundings who don't know where their carer has gone. It also provides an opportunity for would-be wrong-doers to take advantage of temporarily unaccompanied children and unguarded possessions, as well as delaying the departure of the bus while the driver waits for all the passengers to swipe their cards.