On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 22:18:50 GMT, Richard J. wrote in
, seen in uk.railway:
Ross wrote:
[snippage]
I've used both. Mobilis is useful for one-day visits, but I doubt
that most visitors to Paris are only there for one day, so for most
visitors purposes Paris Visite is probably more useful.

For most visitors, the Carnet is more useful: 10 Metro/Bus tickets for
EUR 10.50, that's about 73p each.

Indeed.

I was doing a fair amount of back-and-forwarding when I went, and I
actually bought a Visite (from E* at Waterloo) simply because it was
easier at the time.


[...]
The card they *don't* tell the tourists about is the Carte Orange in
its weekly form.

Granted the Carte Orange is only valid from Monday to Sunday (and
you need a photo for the ID card), but the zone 1-5 Carte Orange costs
EUR 30,20 against EUR 45,70 for a 5-day zone 1-5 Paris Visite.

A 3-day 1-5 Visite costs EUR 37,35, so as the weekly Carte Orange is
sold until Wednesday, a 3-day midweek visitor would be better off
buying the Carte Orange!

... if arriving by air to CDG.

Or if staying outside Central Paris, although I accept that most
tourists will be staying centrally.


But most Eurostar tourists will need
only Zones 1-2, which is EUR 15.40 for a weekly Carte Orange or EUR
15.90 for 3 Mobilis 1-day tickets.

Plus, presumably, an excess of some sort for the obligatory visit to
Versailles. ;-)

--
Ross, a.k.a.
Prof. E. Scrooge, CT, 153 & bar, Doctor of Cynicism (U. Life)

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 22:25:37 +0000, Dave Arquati wrote in
, seen in uk.railway:

[...]
A point-to-point bus fare system would really put me off bus use. One of
the things I really liked about buses in London when I arrived here,
versus back home, was an easy flat fare structure. (That and about
twenty times the frequency...)

As an irregular visitor, I like two things: the frequency and the one
day bus pass.

Three-squids-fifty ain't bad when you consider that here in Lincoln
the return fare on my local service from the city centre out to ASDA,
a journey of 20 minutes each way or so, is two-squids-twenty.

The theoretical frequency of most services (practice is something
else) means I can do things without watching the clock, and compared
to the sort of timetables I've gotten used to out here in the sticks,
'tis wonderful.

--
Ross, a.k.a.
Prof. E. Scrooge, CT, 153 & bar, Doctor of Cynicism (U. Life)

Ross wrote:
On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 22:25:37 +0000, Dave Arquati wrote in
, seen in uk.railway:

[...]

A point-to-point bus fare system would really put me off bus use. One of
the things I really liked about buses in London when I arrived here,
versus back home, was an easy flat fare structure. (That and about
twenty times the frequency...)


As an irregular visitor, I like two things: the frequency and the one
day bus pass.

Three-squids-fifty ain't bad when you consider that here in Lincoln
the return fare on my local service from the city centre out to ASDA,
a journey of 20 minutes each way or so, is two-squids-twenty.

Three squids fifty? You're being overcharged mate :-) Even more of a
bargain at three squids.

The theoretical frequency of most services (practice is something
else) means I can do things without watching the clock, and compared
to the sort of timetables I've gotten used to out here in the sticks,
'tis wonderful.

In this bit of London, the practice seems to be pretty decent too. The
49 used to be a problem but since it went double-decker, reliability
seems to have dramatically improved.

The other buses I use semi-regularly are also pretty reliable. The
number 9 seems exemplary during the day; the wait at night at Trafalgar
Square can be frustrating when you're freezing your bits off!


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

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 17:33:22 +0000, Dave Arquati
wrote:

Counting zone boundaries crossed is useless if you want to discourage
people from entering or using a particularly busy part of the network if
they don't need to. Under that system, a journey from Shadwell to New
Cross would be priced the same as one from King's Cross to Victoria.

OK, so you charge X per zone boundary crossed, plus Y if you cross
zone 1. That said, I don't think that in general charging more to go
through zone 1 will dissuade all that many people from doing so, just
as hiking the fuel tax doesn't stop people travelling by car. I would
think that the majority of journeys on a system like TfL are more
time- than price-sensitive, TBH, certainly the peak ones.

The point was that you can define a zonal (or similar) fares structure
with rules to fit whatever pattern of usage you like. "Fairness"
doesn't really come into it, because as with a national telephone call
these days there is no directly-attributable cost to a given journey,
because the buses, tubes and trains are going to run whether that one
specific journey was being made or not.

I would say that it is better for an urban network to define your
fares structure in simple terms like that than it is to have someone
sit down and arbitrarily price fares from A to B and C to D
separately.

That's true, but it doesn't stop the fares system from being used to
restrain demand.

Indeed it doesn't.

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.

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 18:32:58 +0000 (UTC), "Peter Masson"
wrote:

A Zones 1-6 ODTC, normally GBP6.00, is discounted to GBP4.80 using a Gold
Card.

Indeed it is - or a YP Railcard.

I've always found this strange, as none of the PTEs offer railcard
discount on their all-modes travelcard tickets, and I wouldn't have
thought that TfL got any money from the issue of a YP card. I do
wonder if it's just an easier way of enforcing "student/young person's
discount" because the card already exists, so it's one less scheme for
them to administer?

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.

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005, Clive D. W. Feather wrote:

Now explain 2-for-1 offers, which our Tesco does a lot of. I can even
point at items where N+1 cost *less* than N. How does this fit your
conspiracy theory?

It gets price(N) off someone who came into the shop intending to spend 0,
but who was seduced by the bargainous cheapness on offer. As long as
price(N) 2 * cost(N), tesco wins.

And more importantly, it means they get your credit card number, which
contains SECRET SOLOMONIC KNOWLEDGE encoded by EXTRATERRESTRIALS working
for the GNOMES OF ZURICH, which they then use to get your address from the
SECRET GOVERNMENT MAINFRAME BURIED UNDER STONEHENGE and pass it on to the
MASONS so that they can keep you informed of EXCITING NEW PRODUCTS AND
SERVICES.

And as for the N+1-cheaper-than-N case: believe me, you *really* don't
want to know.

tom

--
Restate my assumptions

Neil Williams wrote:
On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 17:33:22 +0000, Dave Arquati
wrote:

Counting zone boundaries crossed is useless if you want to discourage
people from entering or using a particularly busy part of the network if
they don't need to. Under that system, a journey from Shadwell to New
Cross would be priced the same as one from King's Cross to Victoria.

OK, so you charge X per zone boundary crossed, plus Y if you cross
zone 1. That said, I don't think that in general charging more to go
through zone 1 will dissuade all that many people from doing so, just
as hiking the fuel tax doesn't stop people travelling by car. I would
think that the majority of journeys on a system like TfL are more
time- than price-sensitive, TBH, certainly the peak ones.

Perhaps that's the case for a large (richer) proportion of the
travelling population. However, the explosion in bus use has shown that
people are attracted to a cheaper option if it can deliver the goods.
I'd say four out of five times, I use the bus to reach the West End
because it's a lot cheaper (my return bus journey costs less than a
single Tube journey).

The different with the Tube is that there is often not an option to
avoid Zone 1 - this will change when Silverlink services are brought
into the TfL fares structure, which I believe will happen fairly soon.

If the East London line northern extension is in Zone 2, it will offer
an attractively-priced alternative for journeys to the Liverpool St area
for travellers who are more price- than time-sensitive.

The point was that you can define a zonal (or similar) fares structure
with rules to fit whatever pattern of usage you like. "Fairness"
doesn't really come into it, because as with a national telephone call
these days there is no directly-attributable cost to a given journey,
because the buses, tubes and trains are going to run whether that one
specific journey was being made or not.

I would say that it is better for an urban network to define your
fares structure in simple terms like that than it is to have someone
sit down and arbitrarily price fares from A to B and C to D
separately.

I agree with the simple terms, and I think the current system is
appropriate. There are only 8 different single fares within zones 1-6 on
prepay.

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

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sun, 13 Feb 2005, Clive D. W. Feather wrote:


Now explain 2-for-1 offers, which our Tesco does a lot of. I can even
point at items where N+1 cost *less* than N. How does this fit your
conspiracy theory?


It gets price(N) off someone who came into the shop intending to spend 0,
but who was seduced by the bargainous cheapness on offer. As long as
price(N) 2 * cost(N), tesco wins.

And more importantly, it means they get your credit card number, which
contains SECRET SOLOMONIC KNOWLEDGE encoded by EXTRATERRESTRIALS working
for the GNOMES OF ZURICH, which they then use to get your address from the
SECRET GOVERNMENT MAINFRAME BURIED UNDER STONEHENGE and pass it on to the
MASONS so that they can keep you informed of EXCITING NEW PRODUCTS AND
SERVICES.

Damn... I wondered why I was getting leaflets in German offering me
tax-free baked beans.

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

John Ray wrote to uk.transport.london on Mon, 14 Feb 2005:

Paul Corfield wrote:

Or simply purchase a Mobilis ticket which is their version of a One Day
Travelcard. You get a form of "ID" card which you keep and then simply
buy a magnetic ticket as necessary. You then date it and write on the ID
card number.

I used one of those a few years ago, but not on buses. It was good value
for the trips I made on the day, and I was surprised that it isn't
publicised to tourists (or not noticeably). They plug the Paris Visite
pass in the tourist literature, but not Mobilis.

The Paris Visite pass is quite useful if you are on a tourist visit, as
you get into most museums, etc, for free, too....
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 23 January 2005 with new photos

Dave Newt wrote to uk.transport.london on Mon, 14 Feb 2005:

Paul Terry wrote:

You freeze [...] cheese ?

If it's cheddar-ish, rather than Brie-ish, then yes.

The Brie-type freezes very well - I buy Reblochon en masse when in
France & freeze it when I get home - lovely for tartiflettes.....
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 23 January 2005 with new photos