On Wed, 7 Jan 2004 22:00:22 +0000, Tom Anderson
wrote:

On 7 Jan 2004, umpston wrote:


Phone and utility companies have always billed their customers in this
way,

But they have much simpler ways of charging - standing charge plus x pence
per unit, perhaps with the rate falling if you use more. Travel tickets
are much more complicated. I suppose the right thing to do would be to
reform the fare structure to make it all work (eg a single is 2 pounds or
whatever, but if you buy lots in a month, it's cheaper; you'd have to work
it out so current travelcard holders didn't get charged huge amounts).


BT at least have made their tarriffs more complicated (for commercial,
not technical, reasons). For instance there used to be a low user
refund which kicked in automatically, but this was replaced by a
'supportline' service where you needed to switch explicitly to a low
user tarriff.

Although the fare system is complex, the case that I mentioned isn't
much more difficult than the price-capping one day. It would be a
case of capping the amount that I spent on extensions into zone 3 over
a period, when that amount was equal to the extra cost of a zone1-3
season compared to a zone 1-2 season.

snipped


Maybe one day (reliable vehicle detection technology permitting) you
could pay your congestion charges and Oyster charges on the same TfL
monthly 'travel' bill.

I like it! They could even just bung it on your council tax and have one
big London bill.


I like that one too. As it happens, I've just been reading something
by Stafford Beer (somewhat idiosyncratic and visionary management guru
active in the 1960s and 1970s) proposing something similar way back in
1973

Anyone failing to pay their direct debit would simply have their card
cancelled until they cleared the debt - and lose any accrued discounts.

Ah, but what's to stop them getting another card? You'd need a new bank
account (else TfL could tell it was the same person), but you could still
do it. At least the utility companies have a wire or pipe going into your
house that they can actually turn off.


Banks and mobile phone companies need to check people's
credit-worthiness, and don't have a wire or pipe going into the home.
Both, of course, attract a certain amount of fraud though.

Martin