It's the Behavioural Economy, Stupid

Like clunky TV exposition or the smell of marijuana, Behavioural Economics is one of those things that as soon as you know what it is, you notice it everywhere.

Case in point - topping up your Oystercard at a ticket machine. I think TfL are missing a trick. Because every time I top up my card, it goes through the same process:

- touch card to reader
- machine displays balance
- select top up and amount
- make payment with card
- touch oyster card to reader again
- off you go

Except it doesn't happen like that. Every time it tells me "your card has been successfully updated", for some reason I don't trust it, and I have to wait for it to go to the new customer screen, and touch the card to the reader again to display the balance. Just so I can be 100% sure it works.

I'd put this down to my own distrustfulness, but I've now started seeing other people do it as well. The 2 girls in front of me in the queue did the same thing.

So, what's the solution? Surely all it needs to do is say "Your card has been successfully updated - your new balance is £xx.xx" - and I think most people would trust it. I'm pretty sure I would. It doesn't sound a lot, but when you consider the number of transactions made at ticket machines every day, it could be quite a timesaver.