On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 11:53:43 -0000, "Dave Liney"
wrote:
"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
.. .

Yes there are benefits for TfL from Oyster but a lot of those are about
providing a better service and more tailored fares products for
passengers. These should encourage usage of public transport -
especially off peak - and isn't this something that is considered to be
"a good thing"?

What are these more tailored fares products? I've not seen any new form of
ticket available on Oyster that I couldn't get on a paper ticket. The 2003
fares in 2004 and reduced off-peak fares could have been introduced for
paper ticket users, but were reserved for Oyster to encourage take up and
presumably to enable a "78% of trips made on LU are done with Oyster, isn't
it a success" poster campaign (no doubt with a picture of Smiling Ken on it,
as if he had anything to do with it).

Well when we did the spec we allowed for off peak discounted fares,
against the peak flow discounted pricing, through ticketing on one fare
for bus to bus or bus to tube as well as One Day tickets on the card
etc. These are quite complex products and will not be introduced on day
one but I expect some of them to emerge in time - the Long Term TfL
Fares Policy document suggests that they will.

Capping wasn't something we thought of initially but fares policy in
London has changed considerably since Ken took over. Also I expect the
idea of capping to One Day prices emerged from market research into how
people would react to a Stored Value product. Certainly before Oyster
emerged it was clear from questions on this group that people were
reticent to commit to a stored value card if they ran the risk of
"overpaying" relative to a One Day ticket they were already familiar
with.

There are further big changes proposed with a big increase in
interavailability with National Rail routes - this being partly linked
to the development of the Overground Network.

Of course there is an incentive to get people onto Oyster - it is about
reducing the need to queue and allowing the card and gates to do the
fare calculation. Unless the ticket machine fare tables have been
re-engineered (and they might have been) then it is not possible to have
differentially priced single fares for the peak and off peak. Well it
*is* but everyone would have to buy tickets from ticket offices which is
not exactly a good idea.

As for a Ken poster then so what? He's in charge now - he wasn't when we
designed the system and negotiated the contract. When did issues like
that ever stop a politician taking the credit for current events?
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!