Just received the latest TfL magazine (renamed from "Tube" to "London
Loop", which contains the following item on page 35:

ONE-WAY TREAT

London Loop has found that, in real terms, the Tube will soon rank among
the cheapest underground systems in Europe.

We compared cities by taking into account the price of a new Oyster
single far and the potential number of stations on any one journey.
Berlin and London proved the cheapest:

LONDON
Stations: 275
Single Oyster fare (Zones 1-6): £3.50
Price per 10 stations: 13p

BERLIN
Stations: 170
Single fa £1.80
Price per 10 stations: 11p

COPENHAGEN
Stations: 93
Single fa £1.55
Price per 10 stations: 91p

HELSINKI
Stations: 16
Single fa £1.35
Price per 10 stations: 84p

===

Can anyone please tell me how counting the total number of stations one
could theoretically go to on one's journey can in any way be related to
the journey's cheapness?

Likewise, how can a £1.35 fare be called "more expensive" simply because
there aren't as many stations you could go to than a £3.50 fare with a
wider choice of destinations?

Is this completely mad, or am I missing something obvious?

If someone could define the extra-bizarre phrase "in real terms" in this
context, I'd be delighted!

If the purpose of a tube journey was too see how many stations you could
pass through on one ticket, I'd vaguely understand the rationale, but I
don't see how anyone in their right mind could use that as the basis for
calculating value.

Dave Newt wrote:
Just received the latest TfL magazine (renamed from "Tube" to "London
Loop", which contains the following item on page 35:
snip

If the purpose of a tube journey was too see how many stations you
could pass through on one ticket, I'd vaguely understand the
rationale, but I don't see how anyone in their right mind could use
that as the basis for calculating value.

Don't know, but the Metro in Barcelona is 78p per trip - and there are over
100 stations!

Dave Newt writes:

Likewise, how can a £1.35 fare be called "more expensive" simply
because there aren't as many stations you could go to than a £3.50
fare with a wider choice of destinations?

It might also be worth pointing out that the comparison is based
on cash fares in the other cities (for instance, in Helsinki, the fare
with the local Oyster equivalent is £1.05 (EUR 1.70)) which all also
include free bus/tram/local train transfers within 60 to 120 minutes.

"Dave Newt" wrote in message
...
Just received the latest TfL magazine (renamed from "Tube" to "London
Loop", which contains the following item on page 35:

ONE-WAY TREAT

London Loop has found that, in real terms, the Tube will soon rank among
the cheapest underground systems in Europe.

We compared cities by taking into account the price of a new Oyster single
far and the potential number of stations on any one journey. Berlin and
London proved the cheapest:

What a ridiculous way to calculate something!


LONDON
Stations: 275
Single Oyster fare (Zones 1-6): £3.50
Price per 10 stations: 13p

COPENHAGEN
Stations: 93
Single fa £1.55
Price per 10 stations: 91p

This is obviously the wrong number of stations. For this price
the number should be 17. (which by counting the Metro and
the S-Tog station at Norreport separately, is the central zone).
But the cental zone at Copenhagen is stupidly small.

So for a better comparison, what can you do for 3.50?
Well, the all zone 'prepay' ticket costs 35Kr which is 3.21
and for this you get all 189 (I think) stations making a
price per 10 of 17p.

But you can also go to countless bus stops with the same
ticket

Is this completely mad, or am I missing something obvious?

Yes, No.

tim

Dave Newt wrote:
Can anyone please tell me how counting the total number of stations one
could theoretically go to on one's journey can in any way be related to
the journey's cheapness?

I suspect it was done as a light hearted (I've not read the article so
cannot tell its tone) item.
However to try and justify it a bit I suppose the number of stations
could be a proxy for both network complexity and the probability that
you would have easy access to a station at your starting and finishing
point.

An alternative (involving other challengable assumptions) might be to
work out the cost of an 'average' commute of x miles on each network
including a cost of time calculation and a value of risk (of delay)
calculation and compare them - but somehow I cannot see that work being
much use in a 'popular' publication.


Likewise, how can a £1.35 fare be called "more expensive" simply because
there aren't as many stations you could go to than a £3.50 fare with a
wider choice of destinations?

It cannot literally. However if there are less stations in a given area
then, ceteris paribus, I would likely need to spend more time walking
for a given journey. If I valued my time sufficiently highly that might
make the whole commute "more expensive" even if the train fair were less.

If someone could define the extra-bizarre phrase "in real terms" in this
context, I'd be delighted!

I suspect it is just nonsense. Possibly the prices from other countries
have been adjusted for inflation (the usual meaning of "in real terms").
Possibly it could mean that prices were converted into £ using a PPP
exchange rate (although this would be an oddish usage of "real terms").



--
To contact me take a davidhowdon and add a @yahoo.co.uk to the end.

nDave Newt typed:
Just received the latest TfL magazine (renamed from "Tube" to "London
Loop", which contains the following item on page 35:

ONE-WAY TREAT

London Loop has found that, in real terms, the Tube will soon rank
among the cheapest underground systems in Europe.

We compared cities by taking into account the price of a new Oyster
single far and the potential number of stations on any one journey.
Berlin and London proved the cheapest:

LONDON
Stations: 275
Single Oyster fare (Zones 1-6): £3.50
Price per 10 stations: 13p

BERLIN
Stations: 170
Single fa £1.80
Price per 10 stations: 11p

PARIS METRO
Stations: 297 (not counting RER stations and bus stops where the tickets
are also valid)
Single cash fa £0.97 (1.40 euros)
Price per 10 stations: 3.3p

So, not only is this a ludicrous way of measuring transport cheapness,
but London is nearly 4 times more expensive than Paris on this measure!

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

David Howdon wrote:
Dave Newt wrote:

Can anyone please tell me how counting the total number of stations
one could theoretically go to on one's journey can in any way be
related to the journey's cheapness?


I suspect it was done as a light hearted (I've not read the article so
cannot tell its tone) item.

I've quoted the entire article verbatim. (There were no other captions
or illustrations either - you have the full text here.)

[snip]

Likewise, how can a £1.35 fare be called "more expensive" simply
because there aren't as many stations you could go to than a £3.50
fare with a wider choice of destinations?


It cannot literally. However if there are less stations in a given area
then, ceteris paribus, I would likely need to spend more time walking
for a given journey. If I valued my time sufficiently highly that might
make the whole commute "more expensive" even if the train fair were less.

True, but without mentioning that at all, it's pushing the boundaries a
little to think that's what they could possibly have meant.

If someone could define the extra-bizarre phrase "in real terms" in
this context, I'd be delighted!


I suspect it is just nonsense. Possibly the prices from other countries
have been adjusted for inflation (the usual meaning of "in real terms").
Possibly it could mean that prices were converted into £ using a PPP
exchange rate (although this would be an oddish usage of "real terms").

I prefer your interpretation in the first sentence in this paragraph :-)

In article , Richard J.
writes
nDave Newt typed:
Just received the latest TfL magazine (renamed from "Tube" to "London
Loop", which contains the following item on page 35:

ONE-WAY TREAT

London Loop has found that, in real terms, the Tube will soon rank
among the cheapest underground systems in Europe.

We compared cities by taking into account the price of a new Oyster
single far and the potential number of stations on any one journey.
Berlin and London proved the cheapest:

LONDON
Stations: 275
Single Oyster fare (Zones 1-6): £3.50
Price per 10 stations: 13p

BERLIN
Stations: 170
Single fa £1.80
Price per 10 stations: 11p

PARIS METRO
Stations: 297 (not counting RER stations and bus stops where the tickets
are also valid)
Single cash fa £0.97 (1.40 euros)
Price per 10 stations: 3.3p

So, not only is this a ludicrous way of measuring transport cheapness,
but London is nearly 4 times more expensive than Paris on this measure!

But we have to pay for the American factor - presumably once we have
paid for the golden handshake the price will come down???

--
John Alexander,

Remove NOSPAM if replying by e-mail

Can anyone please tell me how counting the total number of stations one
could theoretically go to on one's journey can in any way be related to
the journey's cheapness?

Quite. It seems to me that the number of stations one can go to on an
Oyster single is one. You have a choice of which one but it is still one.
I am sure some other systems will have tickets that are valid for a fixed
period of time, e.g. an hour, and so can be used for multiple journeys.

G.

Graham J wrote:

Quite. It seems to me that the number of stations one can go to on an
Oyster single is one. You have a choice of which one but it is still one.
I am sure some other systems will have tickets that are valid for a fixed
period of time, e.g. an hour, and so can be used for multiple journeys.

As, of course, does LUL - the ODTC or Oyster cap. Just not a "short"
one.

The latter is, of course, a London "quirk" - while, say, Singapore's
EZLink Oyster-a-like system is vastly cheaper in terms of single fares,
there's no cap (nor any other kind of period ticketing below a week),
so in a day of riding around that system to see as many places as
possible I spent a heck of a lot more than gbp6.50.

It does have discounted bus/train to bus/train transfers, however,
which would be nice to see on Oyster, and would avoid the silly
situation where one is penalised for the situation where there isn't a
direct bus. It would be good to see gbp1.50 being for *any* bus single
journey so long as you transferred within 30 minutes (say), or so long
as the second ride wasn't on the same route as the first, and a similar
situation (based more on Tube fares) for bus and Tube combined.

Neil