--- Alan J. Flavell said...

When zone-based fares are used, it's always possible to find
anomalies.

Yes, it's "always possible". Always possible, because zone based
systems *always* go against common sense.

Then you'd need some kind of honeycomb
zoning system, like they have in certain other mass conurbations.

Well, once you get to things like honeycombs, it's no longer really a
zonal system anyway; just a sort of point-to-point system but with very
big points that cover several stations at once. So, yeah, you're right,
honeycombs could be a good idea.


Fares for a single journey include not only the distance travelled,
but also an element of the cost of the whole fare "system", including
issuing equipment, issuing staff, ticket inspectors, gate systems etc.
etc. - with the whole thing then modified by political policies,
subsidies and I don't know what.

If you insist on making the system more complex, you could well finish
up with the economic cost of your Morden - Waterloo fare being higher
than you would have previously paid to Mill Hill East. Swings and
roundabouts.

Would having seperate fares for Waterloo and Mill Hill East lead to
*significantly* increased costs for equipment, staff, gates etc.? To
turn the situation on its head -- Ken Livingstone's planning to force
TfL's zones onto NR fares in London. How much will *that* cost for new
equipment, staff, etc.?

And how are people happy when "they can easily understand" that
they're being charged *twice* as much

You mean they aren't happy on the occasions they want to travel
"twice" the distance and it's the same fare? It can cut both ways.

And how many times do people actually want to travel across London on a
long journey? Compare that to the number of times people just want to
travel to Central London. I suspect there are more people getting
ripped off then are getting good value.

The tariff says what they /should/ be charged. Or do you have some
special insight into the economics of the fare system?

The only insight I have is good old fashioned common sense. You should
try it sometime.

--

"A couple of weeks. When I get all these invisible women. Nikki
discovers her obnoxious landlords are competing in a farmhouse?"
-- MegaHal.

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005, Solar Penguin wrote:

The only insight I have is good old fashioned common sense. You
should try it sometime.

Congratulations, your application has been accepted without
needing to refer it to the committee. (TINC).

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 15:29:51 -0000, "Solar Penguin"
wrote:

Would having seperate fares for Waterloo and Mill Hill East lead to
*significantly* increased costs for equipment, staff, gates etc.? To
turn the situation on its head -- Ken Livingstone's planning to force
TfL's zones onto NR fares in London. How much will *that* cost for new
equipment, staff, etc.?

It will probably cost very little for NR to go zonal, because the
existing equipment is capable of issuing and validating everything
that is required to do so (as APTIS can issue most LUL tickets, as I
understand it, and even if it couldn't you could fudge something by
using specified destinations as zones). More Oyster validators will
be required, but that would be the case anyway if Oyster is extended
fully to NR, regardless of what the fares are or who sets them.

For the Tube to go point-to-point there would be a massive cost,
because TfL's ticketing equipment is *not* geared up to
point-to-point. The barriers would probably be easily adaptable, but
there are vast numbers of old-style ticket machines out there with
only zonal buttons, and they'd all have to be replaced.

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 11:41:09 GMT, (Neil
Williams) wrote:

For the Tube to go point-to-point there would be a massive cost,
because TfL's ticketing equipment is *not* geared up to
point-to-point. The barriers would probably be easily adaptable, but
there are vast numbers of old-style ticket machines out there with
only zonal buttons, and they'd all have to be replaced.

Actually this is incorrect. The system was designed before zonal fares
and thus it can [1] cope with point to point tickets on LUL. The big
issue would be the risk of far more confusion for ticket sellers and
much slower ticket transactions as passengers would need to press far
more buttons on the touch screen machines to get the fare on the screen.

With the few fare machines they would become less useful, as you point
out, because their range of ticket values would be very restricted.

If you then add in the possibility of the peak and off peak pre-pay
variants you would have a massive expansion of possible fare values for
the LUL system as a whole. This is before you deal with the through
ticketing from DLR, Tramlink and National Rail issues. The risk of
people paying the wrong fare thus increases causing more delays and
ticket rejections at gates. Also if the system becomes very complex then
the processing time at gates *could* increase marginally thus reducing
throughput - I would accept this is unlikely in most scenarios though.

While I vaguely understand the "we're being overcharged" argument from
the pro point to point people I think adoption of such a system on LUL
would create huge disbenefits. LUL has been trying to get a fare /
product range in place that gets rid of the need for a fare purchase
(and thus a queue) every trip. Now we're on the verge of getting to
something that is reasonable (though not ideal in my view) people want
to push us back to square one. Brilliant eh?

[1] it was certainly the case when I used to run the fare computer! It
is possible it has changed as a result of Prestige but I somehow doubt
that LU would have removed that part of the system design.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 12:07:49 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:

[1] it was certainly the case when I used to run the fare computer! It
is possible it has changed as a result of Prestige but I somehow doubt
that LU would have removed that part of the system design.

It's not so much whether the "mastering" system can cope, but the vast
array of 10-button "simplified" ticket machines certainly cannot, and
would all have to be replaced.

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
:

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 12:07:49 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:

[1] it was certainly the case when I used to run the fare computer! It
is possible it has changed as a result of Prestige but I somehow doubt
that LU would have removed that part of the system design.

It's not so much whether the "mastering" system can cope, but the vast
array of 10-button "simplified" ticket machines certainly cannot, and
would all have to be replaced.

Neil


Why couldn't the existing system remain for Cash fares but a distance based
one applied for Pre-pay?

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 12:40:50 +0000 (UTC), David Jackman
wrote:

Why couldn't the existing system remain for Cash fares but a distance based
one applied for Pre-pay?

It probably could - but is it really worth it?

That said, it could make certain revenue enforcement easier - you
could just say that the price from A to B was X, regardless of which
route you took.

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 12:20:30 GMT, (Neil
Williams) wrote:

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 12:07:49 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:

[1] it was certainly the case when I used to run the fare computer! It
is possible it has changed as a result of Prestige but I somehow doubt
that LU would have removed that part of the system design.

It's not so much whether the "mastering" system can cope, but the vast
array of 10-button "simplified" ticket machines certainly cannot, and
would all have to be replaced.

I acknowledged this point but if you have any memory of the Tube prior
to zonal fares and I just about do then the old set up had arrays of
free standing single fare machine with huge signs above them saying
which stations for that fare. If you were very lucky you had a machine
with 10 buttons on it. It was the case that the same fare applied to a
number of stations even if there were not zones.

There is no direct reason why the most popular cash fares could not go
on the few fare (10 button) machine and the rest would be on the multi
fare. I don't accept that LU would have to replace all the machines -
after all NR ticket machines cannot sell you a ticket to every station
on their part of the network.

--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Paul Corfield writes:

I acknowledged this point but if you have any memory of the Tube prior
to zonal fares and I just about do then the old set up had arrays of
free standing single fare machine with huge signs above them saying
which stations for that fare. If you were very lucky you had a machine
with 10 buttons on it.

Also, IIRC, there were some larger machines which had a button for
every LUL station.

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 17:13:19 +0000, Graham Murray
wrote:

Paul Corfield writes:

I acknowledged this point but if you have any memory of the Tube prior
to zonal fares and I just about do then the old set up had arrays of
free standing single fare machine with huge signs above them saying
which stations for that fare. If you were very lucky you had a machine
with 10 buttons on it.

Also, IIRC, there were some larger machines which had a button for
every LUL station.

Well yes but they were part of the Underground Ticketing System
equipment. I was referring to the old stand alone machines in the middle
of ticket halls which printed the yellow oxide tickets.

My first "proper" job with LU involved creating and testing the ticket
machine data. As part of that I had to stand at a machine and press
every ticket combination on the multi fare machines, read out the fare
to the colleague who checked that it was right. You could say I've
bought a ticket from every station to every other one on the
Underground! You got rather sore fingers and arms ;-)

--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!