A discounted "through" bus fare would be excellent but could be open to
abuse - if it were based on a reasonable time allowance (say, 45 mins
between touching in on the first bus and the second) then you could make
a short bus journey, get off and do something, and get back on the
return bus.

Some while back there was some discussion about capping on the Yahoo!
Tramlink group. At the moment the requirement (*) for passengers to
touch-in before every leg of a tram journey makes Pre-Pay more expensive
than paper tickets for those journeys requiring a change of tram. When
capping comes along this anomaly is supposed to be corrected. We couldn't
figure out anyway this could be done unless time allowances are used in the
way you describe for a possible "through" bus fare in which case the 'abuse'
you describe would inevitably be possible. However I don't think we need to
consider it an 'abuse' at all. It sounds like a very attractive improvement
to the fare model to me.

(*) Why there is such a requirement is baffling of course when the Pre-Pay
card must carry just as much information as a printed ticket, yet just the
latter is accepted for through journeys. Clearly feeder buses might be an
issue, but not changes of tram.

In article ,
Neil Williams wrote:
I wonder does the Oyster store enough information about a bus journey
to disallow "changing" onto the same route as you describe?

That's not sufficent; I could use the 257 in one direction and the
WsomethingIforget the other.

--
Mike Bristow - really a very good driver

On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 10:16:48 -0000, "Solar Penguin"
wrote:


--- Phil Richards said...
Solar Penguin wrote:

And even better still for LUL to adopt point-to-point instead of all
that zone nonsense.

Why not be silly enough to suggest that London Buses go back to a
system of fare tables for each route?

What's silly about that? In the present system, even if you just take a
*local* bus ride, just a couple of stops or so, you have to pay the same
as a journey the *whole length* of the bus route! Think how much money
you could save if you only paid for the short journey you actually
travel, instead of all those miles you don't!


Remember zonal fares in London have been in force for over 20
years now

And that's what scientists call "the Concorde fallacy", i.e. "We've been
trying, without any success, to make this thing work for so many years
now, that it's pointless to give up now, even though when we finally do
get something that works, it won't be worth all the effort we've put
into it!"

Face it, twenty years is *too* long. It's definitely time to get rid of
the zones by now. Long overdue in fact.

I completely disagree. It would be mad to get rid of the zonal system.
The old point to point system was hugely complicated and very costly to
run - both in terms of administration but also in terms of ticket
issuing times. Even with an electronic system as we have now it would
be worse than the current relatively simple structure.

It would also be much harder for passengers to understand and you would
certainly struggle to have innovative features like pre-pay discounts,
counter peak direction discounts or modal through tickets.

We should have a proper integrated fare structure, true. But it should
be based on point-to-point fares, not zones.

Face facts, the zones are just a con to make us pay for distances we
haven't travelled. For example, you get on an East London Line train at
New Cross to travel across the river to Wapping. But you can't buy a
ticket to Wapping. Instead, you have to buy a Zone Two ticket that's
valid beyond Wapping, all the way to Bromley-by-Bow! And no chance of
getting a refund on the unused portion of your ticket.

Sorry but why do you imagine that your fare to Wapping would be less in
the future than it is today. All that would happen would be that fares
would rise overall to deal with the mileage and related cost that you
cling to as some sort of justification for adopting point to points. In
the case of NR fares almost all PTPs are far more expensive than the
Tube equivalent. The only case where this does not apply is with cheap
day tickets where discounts are different to those on LU or with
operator specific tickets.

Another example, you have a choice of fast Metropolitan Line trains or
slow Jubilee Line trains when travelling from Wembley Park to Baker
Street. Common sense says that the faster trains should be more
expensive. That way, any customers who want to save money can use the
cheaper, slower trains. But because of the stupid zonal system, we all
end up paying to travel on the Metropolitan trains, with no option for a
cheaper ticket.

But there is no justification at all for differentiating fares like this
on an urban railway system. It is also completely and utterly
unenforceable. To use your theoretical basis Turnham Green would have
to have two sets of fares to everywhere to deal with the fact that for a
tiny part (early and late) of the day super fast Piccadilly Line trains
stop. These are traditionally off peak times when fares would be cheaper
but in your version they would be more expensive than the slow chug
along District Line which provides the service at the height of the peak
- the most expensive time of the day. Lunacy!

Yes, the zones work for maximising LUL's profit, but are crap at giving
good value to customers. No truly fair fares can ever come out of it.
(Admittedly, the NR TOCs aren't always fair in practice either, but at
least a fair point-to-point system could be made. That's impossible
with a zonal system, and always will be.)

What profit? This is nothing to do with profit maximisation - if it was
then LU fares would be far higher than they are now. This is about
trying to price on the basis of a relatively simple system which charges
more for travel in the most congested part of the network (Zone 1) which
also providing tickets that will encourage usage and mobility in the off
peak. Whether you like it or not I cannot envisage the day when a zonal
basis for fares in London will be abolished. The public hostility would
be too great as it would be seen as a step towards abolition of
Travelcard which is a politically protected product under the rail
privatisation legislation.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 12:31:47 +0000 (UTC), Mike Bristow
wrote:

That's not sufficent; I could use the 257 in one direction and the
WsomethingIforget the other.

OK, how about a radical change? Replace the single with a 2-hour
ticket, and legitimise what you suggest. They do that in Prague.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

(Neil Williams) wrote in
:

I wonder does the Oyster store enough information about a bus journey
to disallow "changing" onto the same route as you describe?

I will detect that you get on the same bus twice.
I was on a bus that was delayed whilst a policeman issued a ticket to
the driver (jumping a red light). I got off and walked to the next stop
hoping another bus would come. When I got on the original bus it
gave an error message

A

Dave Arquati wrote in :


I believe TfL are planning a reduced fare for a combined bus + Tube
journey using prepay, but this could be a while off as they wait for
each new Oyster product to "embed" itself (initial prepay, then bus
prepay, then peak bus fares, and then probably capping).

A discounted "through" bus fare would be excellent but could be open to
abuse - if it were based on a reasonable time allowance (say, 45 mins
between touching in on the first bus and the second) then you could make
a short bus journey, get off and do something, and get back on the
return bus.


I assume it is too much to expect this to mean that one fare would allow
unlimited travel for an hour (the way many continental systems work) but we
will see yet more complexity added to an already over complex system?

(some systems, I think Berlin, now explicitly disallow a return journey for
the one fare, even if within the hour)

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 23:41:06 +0000 (UTC), David Jackman
wrote:

(some systems, I think Berlin, now explicitly disallow a return journey for
the one fare, even if within the hour)

Hamburg's system is oddly "slack" in that it doesn't have a specified
time limit - it's just valid for a single journey on as many modes as
you like for as long as it takes. Other than the fact that most
people buy day tickets or passes, I hate to think how much fraud that
results in.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

"Solar Penguin" wrote in message
...

What's silly about that? In the present system, even if you just take a
*local* bus ride, just a couple of stops or so, you have to pay the same
as a journey the *whole length* of the bus route! Think how much money
you could save if you only paid for the short journey you actually
travel, instead of all those miles you don't!

But this is one of the great strengths of a zonal fares system: it
encourages people to walk instead of clogging up PT for short journeys.

D A Stocks

I assume it is too much to expect this to mean that one fare would allow
unlimited travel for an hour (the way many continental systems work) but
we
will see yet more complexity added to an already over complex system?

(some systems, I think Berlin, now explicitly disallow a return journey
for
the one fare, even if within the hour)

It seems to me that once you start having tickets with certain time limits
on them (e.g. single tickets on Tramlink being valid for 90 minutes from
issue) this has to be the way you go.

What is the situation with tickets issued from kerb side ticket machines in
the central London pay before boarding area and at stops served by bendibus
routes? Presumably they must have a time limit on them. Are they also only
valid from the stop they were issued from? What is the mechanism to stop
them being presented more than once or isn't there one?

G.

Graham J wrote:
I assume it is too much to expect this to mean that one fare would allow
unlimited travel for an hour (the way many continental systems work) but

we

will see yet more complexity added to an already over complex system?

(some systems, I think Berlin, now explicitly disallow a return journey

for

the one fare, even if within the hour)


It seems to me that once you start having tickets with certain time limits
on them (e.g. single tickets on Tramlink being valid for 90 minutes from
issue) this has to be the way you go.

What is the situation with tickets issued from kerb side ticket machines in
the central London pay before boarding area and at stops served by bendibus
routes? Presumably they must have a time limit on them. Are they also only
valid from the stop they were issued from? What is the mechanism to stop
them being presented more than once or isn't there one?

The time limited ticket has many advantages but also some disadvantages.
For example, the continental cities where they are used may well have
more reliable systems than London; your 90 minute ticket may expire
whilst you are stuck on the Tube, which would upset the ticket holder
greatly as the circumstance is beyond their control.

On Oyster it might be possible to extend the time limit from certain
origins when delays are reported, but that would require some
complicated logic and relies on delays being reported accurately.

The disadvantage of Oyster is that you can't see what's on your ticket;
if you don't know the expiry time, then it can be hard to make an
interchange choice mid-journey if you don't know when your ticket expires.

I like TfL's idea of discounts for Tube-bus or bus-Tube through
journeys, but it may be difficult to implement. There would have to be a
limit on the time allowed for a bus journey to a Tube station, and a
limit on the time allowed to catch a bus after getting off the Tube.

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