London Banter - View Single Post

Tom Anderson · **London Overground from 11 Nov 2007**

On Tue, 13 Nov 2007, wrote:

I've said this before, and no-one beleived me, but the best way to keep
things simple is by abandoning the idea of all route-based fares
(including zones that you pass through on route). Instead fares could
be based on the straight-line, as-the-crow-flies distance between the
journey's start and end points, no matter what route is taken.

Great, so now, to work out how much i'm going to pay for a ticket, i have
to know how far apart my start and end stations are. At present, i can
trace a line along a tube map marked with the zones to work out my fare;
how am i going to do it under your system? Are you going to put up
geographically accurate maps in stations, and suggest people carry tape
measures with them?

Your idea also throws out the financial incentive to avoid zone 1. Since
zone 1 is the most congested bit of the network, and a shift of passengers
to orbital routes is a key part of the strategy to deal with this, that
seems rather perverse.

tom

--
Imagine the damage done if they'd neglected the satsuma