Great Western Coffee Shop

So why do we have multi mode Oyster and Travelcards in London but nowhere else in the country.

Northern for instance seems to have tram train tickets in Manchester but I don't think they include bus. 

All of the PTE areas have multi-mode tickets of one sort or another. The Manchester ones (branded as 'System One', see http://www.systemonetravelcards.co.uk/ (http://www.systemonetravelcards.co.uk/)) are available in most combinations of Bus, Tram and Train.

And the very short answer to your question is "subsidy".

Manchester DOES have a travel card. It's called System One and includes train, tram and bus.

In the West Midlands there is a travel card called the Network Ticket which includes train, tram and bus (plus it is eligible for London Midland delay repay too).

In Sheffield there is a travel card called the Travel Master whicj includes train, tram and bus.

Nottingham has a travel card called the Kangaroo card. It covers train, tram and bus.

I learnt the above from 2 minutes on Google. It seems that Londom certainly isn't the only place with multimode tickets.

Glasgow also has a multimode ticket, The Daytripper, valid on Train, Subway, most Buses and Clydelink Ferries. This one though is only available as a family ticket - one adult plus up to two children, or two adults plus up to four children.

There are also ZoneCard Season Tickets in Glasgow, valid across the same modes, from one week to one year.

Glasgow's Roundabout Day Ticket gives unlimited travel on Subway and Rail services in the Strathclyde PTE area.

That's a one-way ticket, yeah? It took me so long to find out, and I found out...

Derbyshire has a bus+train day ticket - see http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/transport_roads/public_transport/tickets_passes/rover_tickets/derbyshire_wayfarer/default.asp (http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/transport_roads/public_transport/tickets_passes/rover_tickets/derbyshire_wayfarer/default.asp). Valid within Derbyshire and out to Sheffield, Burton-on-Trent, Macclesfield, Leek and Uttoxeter.

Includes a wonderful condition for the Family version:

        ^22.00 for a group of up to two adults and up to three children*
        * A dog may travel in place of a child.

As does Bristol and its surrounding local authority areas, with the Freedom Travelpass (also available as a weekly or monthly):

https://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Your-journey/Travel-connections/Freedom-Travel-Pass

I note that most of these products offer fixed-price unlimited travel, as do a lot of single-mode ones as well. However, Oyster is different, in that the cap is set quite a bit higher and only above that are extra rides free. I wonder if that will become more common as contactless cards of all kinds take over from tickets.

I can see a good reason for it. I know that if I have an unlimited travel ticket I use it more, and I'm sure you do too. If a new or much expanded public transport system is not getting enough passengers to justify it, you can see the attraction of this kind of ticketing to help fill it up. And arguably that is not wasteful of resources already used to build it. But once it gets to be crowded, it is probably a mistake to divorce users' decisions to ride from all cost and resource implications. Passenger numbers are then constrained essentially by overcrowding - misery for all, in other words. And when new capacity has to be built, you'd really want to reconsider the ticketing if technology now makes that a lot easier.

There is another point, about bus tickets in particular as well as some multimodal ones. Very few tickets in this country are per journey, defined by time, while that is common in the rest of Europe. The value of urban travel to me is best quantified per journey, as I want to go from A to B quickly and easily. If I have to change bus halfway, that journey has less value to me than a single ride. So why does a bus company want to charge me twice as much? Do they really think I place the same value on sitting in each one of their buses, whether it goes all the way or not? Or are they just charging what suits them or their accountants, and not thinking of serving customers as being their true end product? Fortunately the general availability of all-day tickets for the price of about three singles limits the annoyance of this, but it's still a bit of interesting commercial psychology.

First's Buses of Somerset single and return fares are valid across one or more buses if the journey so requires. One can, for example, board a town service in Taunton and buy a single/return to Minehead, changing onto service 28.

Not only that, but return travel on country services is valid up to 5 days from date of issue.

However, it is possible to load Zonal travelcards onto Oyster, which offers fixed price unlimited travel. Contactless payments now also feature Monday-Sunday capping.

Rather amazingly, TfL this morning have been warning/advising that if using Contactless, there's no need to also top-up your Pay as you Go Oyster too....

Seems some think that Contactless is debiting your PAYG Oyster, rather than their bank account....:-)