In message .com, at
15:00:55 on Wed, 27 Jul 2005, Adrian Auer-Hudson
remarked:
For the sake of comparison, the LACMTA serve the County of Los Angeles.
LA Co. covers an area of some 4,061 square miles. Any single trip on
an MTA (better know as Metro) Bus, or Train is USD1.35 that would be
well under GBP1.00). No transfer is allowed on a single ticket.

Fares are much the same on the Atlanta Marta ($1.75 for a single fare
that could be - and I made that trip frequently - as far as 20 miles
[further than Gerrards Cross to Central London]).

But the Marta fares only pay a third of the cost of the system. The
other two thirds is paid for by an extra 1% sales tax levied on the
residents of certain well-off counties in the metro area.

As far as I'm aware, the lines being compared within the UK don't have a
public subsidy, and have to run at a profit (or even worse, have to pay
the government a levy).
--
Roland Perry