On 14 Jun 2006 02:49:01 -0700, "Jonathan Morris"
wrote:

Having used the new station entrance for the H&C, Circle and Met lines
at Kings Cross, I've been using the new style barriers regularly and
must question who designed them or allowed them to be put into use?

Sure, they're smaller which means more barriers, but they open so slow
that they;

a) Make you wait to pass through, which causes delays and frustration
if you're in a hurry to make a connection.

b) Take ages to close, which means I've had a guy double up with me on
two separate occasions in a week. I've never had *anyone* double up
before, and on the second time I tried to walk slowly in the hope the
barrier would close on him. However, it stays open long enough that I
bet two people could double up. The police are usually there, but don't
seem interested - after all, they're looking for terrorists.

"Doing a lambada" at ticket gates can happen anywhere with any type of
gate. The electric gates have a more "swept" movement than the old air
gates which are at Kings Cross.

Your observations are not new but the latest small gates are not
indicative of a policy change. It is fair to say that the operation of
ticket gates and the paddle movements are a compromise between the
engineering design, throughput and safety. The end result will never be
ideal and I have yet to see a gate or turnstile anywhere in the world
that cannot be evaded by someone determined enough.

I would imagine that in time the manufacturers will review the setting
of the gates and could fine tune to reduce "lambadas" if it is
considered necessary.

So, along with the bendy buses problem, it seems that fare evasion
isn't difficult in London - and presumably these 'new' barriers will be
rolled out to all stations in due course.

The gates - not barriers please - will only be installed as and when the
air supply is no longer available as it feeds from the signalling system
or as in this case where new station areas need to be equipped. I
cannot recall the design life of the air gates but as they are modular
they can continue in service for a long time provided the air supply
remains available.

I picked up an interesting comment in another thread about fare evasion
on buses, from Paul Corfield, which points out that with many new
measures and initiatives in place, it's quite possible that TfL believe
they no longer need to try too hard to enforce what they believe is no
longer a real issue;

I don't think that is the case at all.

[snip]

It's a very valid point. However, even if TfL aren't too concerned,
what about passengers paying high fares and watching others going for
free?

I think you need to make sure you are quoting me in the correct context.
The comment I made was in the context of bus fraud and the ticketing
structure. That structure does not apply to the Tube and many forms of
fraud remain on LUL that are not present on buses. Ticket gates are an
excellent way of dealing with such frauds. Gates are also an excellent
tool to ensure that people do validate on entry and exit with Oyster so
that pre-pay and capping and auto extensions and auto add value / ticket
upload work.

As I am the person who was the LU business client for network wide
gating I cannot accept you attributing a quote of mine in the context of
LU's revenue collection policy or TfL's view of the same when that is
not what I was talking about.

I am also the person who spent a lot of time explaining the benefits of
gating and the business case issues to a wide range of TOCs as well as
the first private owners (Prism) of what is now C2C. While it is
obviously for each TOC to decide if they want gates I like to think that
I was pretty instrumental in getting them adopted on the national
network. Naturally I think they work well and after a period of
difficulty with both passenger and staff acceptance I am of the view
that we did an excellent job in getting network gating delivered on the
LU system.

It may be considered acceptable to allow a small percentage of
fraudsters, but this is infuriating - especially on overcrowded trains
or buses that wouldn't necessarily have to BE so crowded if you could
remove the free-riders. There is almost no chance of these people being
caught and, if as another poster said, there are regular checks in
certain areas, the chances are even lower once they know to avoid them.

No one said it is acceptable. I said that the business case for bendy
buses is such that a higher rate of evasion due to open boarding would
not destroy the case for having the form of bendy bus operation we have.
I also said that the nature of fraud risk had materially changed on the
buses due to structural change in the ticketing product range.

Barriers were supposed to address the problem, and these will be the
ones rolled out on National Rail stations in the future (e.g. First
Capital Connect) so, for the ones not paying, they'll present almost no
barrier at all.

Sorry but not correct. There are many different suppliers of gates and
while Cubic have the biggest share of the market they are not without
competitors. The TOCs have procured gates from different manufacturers.
There is also no requirement at all for TOCs to have gates to the same
settings as those used on LU. In many cases there is justification for
them being different as the throughput requirement at Kings Cross Tube
is rather different to say Enfield Chase on FCC (to pull an example out
of the hat).
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!