On 25 Jan, 16:31, "Paul Scott" wrote:
"Mizter T" wrote in message

(snip)

And just to prove that things can change for the better, the
"Transfare" ticket scheme has recently been simplified - these are
tickets that allow for through journeys from bus to Metro or vice-
versa. However, perhaps just so as to ensure things don't get too
simple the new Transfare scheme has introduced the new idea of
concentric yellow, green, and grey zones - thankfully these do
actually correspond with the Metro's concentric A, B and C zones, and
they also share the same colours except for Metro zone C being a shade
of violet whilst the outer Transfare zone is grey. I suppose the logic
is that the Transfare grey zone covers much more ground than the Metro
C zone.

Anyhow, here is a page on the new Transfare ticket scheme...
http://www.nexus.org.uk/wps/wcm/conn...es+and+tickets...

...and this leaflet shows the new Transfare yellow/green/grey zones
(PDF)...
http://www.nexus.org.uk/wps/wcm/reso...e4fbc9c/Transf...

The world is complicated!

But it was definitely worth pointing out, if only to demonstrate how easy it
will be to program a national Oyster payg...

Paul S


Perhaps my sarcasm detector isn't working, but I'll take your comment
at face value!

One issue with implementing this Transfare scheme with some kind of
smartcard PAYG system would be the fact that neither bus fares nor
Transfares are flat-rate - look at the leaflet's example of a journey
where a passenger transfers from the Metro at Pelaw in the green zone
and then takes a bus to Washington in the grey zone. The passenger
would have to actively inform the driver of their final destination,
and the driver would have to enter this into their ticket machine and
then have the passenger scan the smartcard so as to ensure the correct
fare was debited. The only other way of doing it would be to implement
a touch-in and touch-out system on buses, which I think would be
totally unworkable.

In fact this has prompted me to start a new thread on utl to ask about
whether Oyster could theoretically support a distance based, non-flat
fare system - the thread is called "Oyster PAYG and differential bus
fares".