On 07/11/2012 20:14, Mizter T wrote:

On 07/11/2012 20:03, Arthur Figgis wrote:

On 07/11/2012 19:49, Paul Corfield wrote:

Clearly the big gripe is that ever increasing fares become
progressively more unaffordable for people on low or fixed incomes and
that the Mayor hasn't done anything about it. I doubt this assessment
will stave off all the questions given the typical reaction from
various quarters today. However it does get the Mayor off the hook of
not having done the assessment at all.

Although a fair number of people on low or fixed incomes don't directly
pay the fares (eg pensioners) or might not travel as much (would there
be much point in an non-working person travelling in the morning peak
every weekday?).

Though people on low incomes aren't necessarily non-working - I
appreciate you allowed for that, but nonetheless it's worth emphasising
anyway. I overheard a conversation on the train the other day where the
two participants seemed to wildly overestimate the pay of those in lower
income brackets. (I await a Figgis demolition of my fussy sentence!)

Definitions are always a problem, from either end, and I think it helps
to spell out what is meant because of the pensioner/housebound/etc
issue, plus working usually paying more than not working.

Some of my mates up north assume that almost all Londoners are in abject
poverty - at home people aspire to a decent job so that they won't have
to live in a flat or overlooking old docks.

A few weeks ago I got a bus somewhere in darkest Sussex. It was much
more expensive than a London bus, but only one other passenger actually
paid a fare.

One of the negative outcomes of the ENCTS (aka the older folks freebie
bus pass) seems to have been bus operators pushing up single fares, as
(AIUI) their recompense for ENCTS users is based on a percentage of said
fares.

It does look like it. Or introducing flat fares, at an upper end.
--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK