i checked out the TFL price schemes and more or less, Tube is twice as
expensive. are the running costs of a bus service really that much
cheaper than running the Tube? (the capital cost of building the
underground was forked out 50+ years ago) or is it just that people
are willing to pay more for the convenience of no wait travel? just
curious. thanks.

littilesthobo wrote:
i checked out the TFL price schemes and more or less, Tube is twice as
expensive. are the running costs of a bus service really that much
cheaper than running the Tube? (the capital cost of building the
underground was forked out 50+ years ago) or is it just that people
are willing to pay more for the convenience of no wait travel? just
curious. thanks.

Try including maintenance costs.

Brimstone wrote:
littilesthobo wrote:

i checked out the TFL price schemes and more or less, Tube is twice as
expensive. are the running costs of a bus service really that much
cheaper than running the Tube? (the capital cost of building the
underground was forked out 50+ years ago) or is it just that people
are willing to pay more for the convenience of no wait travel? just
curious. thanks.


Try including maintenance costs.

As well as demand management for the tube (heavily overcrowded) versus
buses (capacity to expand).

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

On 19 Oct 2004, littilesthobo wrote:

i checked out the TFL price schemes and more or less, Tube is twice as
expensive. are the running costs of a bus service really that much
cheaper than running the Tube? (the capital cost of building the
underground was forked out 50+ years ago) or is it just that people are
willing to pay more for the convenience of no wait travel? just curious.
thanks.

AIUI and IIRC, London Buses gets a bigger subsidy than London Underground
- in fact, ISTR that (perhaps until recently) LU got zero operating
subsidy from TfL, whereas LB got quite a bit. This might have been because
LU got its subsidy through some other route, though, or i might just be
completely wrong - YMMV. If it is true, it would be, IMHO, because, as
Dave said, the tube is overloaded and the buses aren't, so it makes sense
to lower the fares on the buses to get people onto them instead [1].

HTH.

tom

[1] Hang on a minute, no it doesn't - everyone knows that getting modal
shift from rail to bus is like getting blood out of a stone; wouldn't it
be better to give the money to LU to improve services?

--
Tech - No Babble

Tom Anderson wrote:

[1] Hang on a minute, no it doesn't - everyone knows that getting
modal shift from rail to bus is like getting blood out of a stone;
wouldn't it be better to give the money to LU to improve services?

As with any road, the railway has a limit to its capacity. The only way to
increase is to build more.

Tom Anderson wrote:
On 19 Oct 2004, littilesthobo wrote:


i checked out the TFL price schemes and more or less, Tube is twice as
expensive. are the running costs of a bus service really that much
cheaper than running the Tube? (the capital cost of building the
underground was forked out 50+ years ago) or is it just that people are
willing to pay more for the convenience of no wait travel? just curious.
thanks.


AIUI and IIRC, London Buses gets a bigger subsidy than London Underground
- in fact, ISTR that (perhaps until recently) LU got zero operating
subsidy from TfL, whereas LB got quite a bit. This might have been because
LU got its subsidy through some other route, though, or i might just be
completely wrong - YMMV. If it is true, it would be, IMHO, because, as
Dave said, the tube is overloaded and the buses aren't, so it makes sense
to lower the fares on the buses to get people onto them instead [1].

HTH.

tom

[1] Hang on a minute, no it doesn't - everyone knows that getting modal
shift from rail to bus is like getting blood out of a stone; wouldn't it
be better to give the money to LU to improve services?

Modal transfer probably isn't that difficult when buses are so cheap
compared to the tube, and it's a relatively short journey. Certainly for
students here, when a weekly bus pass is £6.60 and a Z12 Travelcard is
£14.10, it's usually a no-brainer.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

littilesthobo wrote:

i checked out the TFL price schemes and more or less, Tube is twice as
expensive. are the running costs of a bus service really that much
cheaper than running the Tube? (the capital cost of building the
underground was forked out 50+ years ago) or is it just that people
are willing to pay more for the convenience of no wait travel? just
curious. thanks.

Late comment - sorry.

On buses, if you change, you pay again. On tube you can change as much
as you like without paying again. So if your journey needs 2 buses,
the tube is no more expensive.

This is why buses should sell one-day travelcards.

Colin McKenzie

Brimstone wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:

[1] Hang on a minute, no it doesn't - everyone knows that getting
modal shift from rail to bus is like getting blood out of a stone;
wouldn't it be better to give the money to LU to improve services?


As with any road, the railway has a limit to its capacity. The only way to
increase is to build more.

But then it comes down to scalability of the solution surely? The
trouble with bus scalability is that they share their infrastructure
with the least scalable, in a metropolitan environment, transport in the
form of cars etc. Therefore I would've thought that building more
railways would work better that building more roads (not that you can do
in London anyway).

Dan

Tom Anderson wrote:

On 19 Oct 2004, littilesthobo wrote:

[1] Hang on a minute, no it doesn't - everyone knows that getting modal
shift from rail to bus is like getting blood out of a stone; wouldn't it
be better to give the money to LU to improve services?

I was under the impression by TFL propoganda that this had been
suprisingly successful in London (suprising in the sense that it doesn't
work anywhere else).

Dan

(littilesthobo) wrote in message . com...
i checked out the TFL price schemes and more or less, Tube is twice as
expensive. are the running costs of a bus service really that much
cheaper than running the Tube? (the capital cost of building the
underground was forked out 50+ years ago) or is it just that people
are willing to pay more for the convenience of no wait travel? just
curious. thanks.

I expect the average tube trip, even in Zone 1, is more than twice as
far as the average bus trip.