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London - Kiev comparisons
Just back from two weeks in Ukraine so thought I would share some
comparisons I made. Kiev has a metro system with three lines and three interchange stations (think of a triangle extending at each point). Map he http://www.kiev.info/print/metro_map.htm There is a travelcard system, but, like Paris, you have to buy it in the first week of the month. For most journeys, though, it's like New York - you just buy tokens from the booth and it's one token per trip, no matter how long or how short. I have to say that this really cuts down on queues. When I arrived at Kiev Station after an overnight trip from Lviv, there were enormous queues at the metro ticket windows. I thought I would be there for ages but I had my token within about two minutes, it was just so fast, as people weren't ordering extensions, period travelcards, etc. Has a token system ever been used or considered for the tube? One interesting feature of the Kiev metro system is that the interchange stations have different names for each line. As you can see from the map in the URL above, Zoloti Vorota and Teatralna are actually the same station, but the names are for the green and blue lines respectively. The equivalent here would be Oxford Circus having different names for the Bakerloo, Victoria and Central Line platforms. This seems quite odd to me and I'm still not sure of the point to it. Interchange can be a bit of a trek, but usually fairly direct and nothing like the rabbit warren of some London stations. The trains themselves are showing their age. All have transverse seating. Not that that is any good to anyone, as the trains are PACKED, and I do mean PACKED, at all times of day. I think I got a seat once at 11pm, and that only just. Based on Kiev, London Underground is operating at about 50% capacity in the peaks g. They really know how to cram on, too. The stations themselves all look fairly similar, and the signage is terrible. This is one area where I've consistently found that London stands out. In Kiev the stations only have a name once, somewhere in the middle of the platform. You just have to get used to counting out your number of stops. I don't know why signage is generally so poor, not just in Kiev but in many foreign metro systems. Such a simple thing to get right, and so helpful as well. They reverse our system of having an electronic sign saying when the next train is due; rather, they have a clock showing how long it's been since the last train left. This can only go up to 10 minutes, so I'm assuming that's minimum frequency. I saw it get to 9:57 at one point so it was a tight thing! The size of the escalators is amazing. The make the ones at Angel and Leicester Square look like pygmies. Most people just don't seem to bother walking either up or down as it's just too far. Having said that, there is some sort of half-hearted attempt to have a "stand on the right" policy, but this is widely ignored, although I did see a few people remonstrating and telling people to move so they could get by. They also use the LU method of having two escaltors operating to leave the station but only one to enter the station to control crowds in peak hour. The system seemed to work well and certainly managed to transport huge numbers of people, but I would say in terms of comfort and user-friendliness London does better. |
London - Kiev comparisons
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London - Kiev comparisons
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London - Kiev comparisons
John Rowland wrote:
The names are presumably the names of the roads which the lines are crossing. This system was used in the Underground's early days, and is still used on London buses, where generally the stops for north-south routes will be named after east-west roads and vice versa. It's a major problem with writing bus journey planners, as someone has to go and tie all such stops together in the database so they work as interchanges. In Milton Keynes, the names of the same stop on both sides of the road are not even consistent. This is plainly silly. Better is the European model of giving the same name to a cluster of stops that represent an interchange. Neil |
London - Kiev comparisons
Jarle H Knudsen wrote: On 19 Sep 2006 04:03:59 -0700, wrote: For most journeys, though, it's like New York - you just buy tokens from the booth and it's one token per trip, no matter how long or how short. The New York City subway stopped accepting tokens in 2003. Really? I was last there in 2001 so didn't know. Why did they do this? What do they now accept instead? Patrick |
London - Kiev comparisons
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London - Kiev comparisons
On Tue, 19 Sep 2006 15:09:36 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote: On 19 Sep 2006 05:31:48 -0700, wrote: Jarle H Knudsen wrote: On 19 Sep 2006 04:03:59 -0700, wrote: For most journeys, though, it's like New York - you just buy tokens from the booth and it's one token per trip, no matter how long or how short. The New York City subway stopped accepting tokens in 2003. Really? I was last there in 2001 so didn't know. Why did they do this? What do they now accept instead? They replaced it with the magnetic stored value / unlimited ride pass called Metrocard. A great step forward in my view - once you've learnt the correct swipe speed through the top mounted reader on the turnstile. http://mta.info/metrocard/index.html Tokens were very prone to fraud as turnstiles were jammed or fitted with plastic collecting bags inside the slots. People collected them and then sold them on a cheaper rate than the MTA. In addition there were huge costs in maintain the old mechanical turnstiles and recycling the tokens from turnstiles back to ticket offices. On top of this you had to collect the cash from offices and bank it. IIRC there were special trains that ran on the subway to collect cash and deliver the tokens. I think tokens are a retrograde step when money or "rides" can be collected electronically from a magnetic ticket or a smartcard. It now looks like New York is going contactless too. http://www.mastercard.com/us/paypass/subway/index.html I understood that one of the drivers for the US one dollar coin was for it to replace subway tokens in NY and possibly other cities. However the coin didn't really catch on, US culture wouldn't give up the $1 note that easily; you hardly see those $1 coins now. Whether the NY subway going Metrocard hastened the demise of the coin or whether the demise of the coin hastened the NY subway going Metrocard, I'm not sure, but I'm sure they're linked. |
London - Kiev comparisons
wrote in message ps.com... Just back from two weeks in Ukraine so thought I would share some comparisons I made. Kiev has a metro system with three lines and three interchange stations (think of a triangle extending at each point). Map he http://www.kiev.info/print/metro_map.htm There is a travelcard system, but, like Paris, you have to buy it in the first week of the month. For most journeys, though, it's like New York - you just buy tokens from the booth and it's one token per trip, no matter how long or how short. I have to say that this really cuts down on queues. When I arrived at Kiev Station after an overnight trip from Lviv, there were enormous queues at the metro ticket windows. I thought I would be there for ages but I had my token within about two minutes, it was just so fast, as people weren't ordering extensions, period travelcards, etc. Has a token system ever been used or considered for the tube? One interesting feature of the Kiev metro system is that the interchange stations have different names for each line. As you can see from the map in the URL above, Zoloti Vorota and Teatralna are actually the same station, but the names are for the green and blue lines respectively. The equivalent here would be Oxford Circus having different names for the Bakerloo, Victoria and Central Line platforms. This seems quite odd to me and I'm still not sure of the point to it. Interchange can be a bit of a trek, but usually fairly direct and nothing like the rabbit warren of some London stations. The trains themselves are showing their age. All have transverse seating. Not that that is any good to anyone, as the trains are PACKED, and I do mean PACKED, at all times of day. I think I got a seat once at 11pm, and that only just. Based on Kiev, London Underground is operating at about 50% capacity in the peaks g. They really know how to cram on, too. The stations themselves all look fairly similar, and the signage is terrible. This is one area where I've consistently found that London stands out. In Kiev the stations only have a name once, somewhere in the middle of the platform. You just have to get used to counting out your number of stops. I don't know why signage is generally so poor, not just in Kiev but in many foreign metro systems. Such a simple thing to get right, and so helpful as well. They reverse our system of having an electronic sign saying when the next train is due; rather, they have a clock showing how long it's been since the last train left. I understand that this is fairly common on 'soviet' systems. tim |
London - Kiev comparisons
In message , Paul Corfield
writes For most journeys, though, it's like New York - you just buy tokens from the booth and it's one token per trip, no matter how long or how short. The New York City subway stopped accepting tokens in 2003. Really? I was last there in 2001 so didn't know. Why did they do this? What do they now accept instead? They replaced it with the magnetic stored value / unlimited ride pass called Metrocard. A great step forward in my view - once you've learnt the correct swipe speed through the top mounted reader on the turnstile. http://mta.info/metrocard/index.html The only downside I found when I was there last year... I bought a Metrocard with a 1 week 'travelcard' loaded the first week. Then I realised as I was staying in Downtown Manhattan I was walking virtually everywhere, so I thought I would just load some prepay on it the second week like Oyster. No, you have to get a whole new card even though it looks exactly the same and comes from the same machine. I think they're missing a trick there as there were loads of dead Metrocards lying about the place. -- Steve Fitzgerald has now left the building. You will find him in London's Docklands, E16, UK (please use the reply to address for email) |
London - Kiev comparisons
Paul Corfield wrote:
It now looks like New York is going contactless too. http://www.mastercard.com/us/paypass/subway/index.html Interesting that it's a national scheme run by the banks, which means it'll probably eventually manage universal acceptance (unlike Oyster). Neil |
London - Kiev comparisons
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London - Kiev comparisons
They reverse our system of having an electronic sign saying when the
next train is due; rather, they have a clock showing how long it's been since the last train left. ... A passenger information system that works on the presumption that everything is running smoothly and trains really do come every ten minutes... how bizarre! Or a passenger information system that provides the information that's easy to provide instead of the information people actually want. -- Mark Brader | "People tend to assume that things they don't know Toronto | about are either safe or dangerous or useless, | depending on their prejudices." -- Tim Freeman |
London - Kiev comparisons
Mark Brader wrote:
Or a passenger information system that provides the information that's easy to provide instead of the information people actually want. Quite possibly, and quite possibly it's existed since before it was practical to provide more than a split-flap display showing the destination, but not the time, of the next train - or, indeed, nothing at all. The UK has, these days, pretty advanced electronic passenger information systems at a lot of stations. Some of this is due to updating, but a lot is because there wasn't anything (at all) there beforehand. Neil |
London - Kiev comparisons
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London - Kiev comparisons
On Tue, 19 Sep 2006, Steve Fitzgerald wrote:
In message , Paul Corfield writes For most journeys, though, it's like New York - you just buy tokens from the booth and it's one token per trip, no matter how long or how short. The New York City subway stopped accepting tokens in 2003. Really? I was last there in 2001 so didn't know. Why did they do this? What do they now accept instead? They replaced it with the magnetic stored value / unlimited ride pass called Metrocard. A great step forward in my view - once you've learnt the correct swipe speed through the top mounted reader on the turnstile. http://mta.info/metrocard/index.html The only downside I found when I was there last year... I bought a Metrocard with a 1 week 'travelcard' loaded the first week. Then I realised as I was staying in Downtown Manhattan I was walking virtually everywhere, so I thought I would just load some prepay on it the second week like Oyster. No, you have to get a whole new card even though it looks exactly the same and comes from the same machine. I think they're missing a trick there as there were loads of dead Metrocards lying about the place. Is that such a big deal? Since the cards are flimsy little bits of plastic, it's no worse than people binning paper tickets here. I'm sure they will adopt non-contact reusable smartcards soon (and are trialling it, as has been pointed out), though, for the same reasons we have. The really dopey thing, i found, was that the ticket machines didn't sell unlimited ride cards, only the carnet-like cards. And had a 6 USD limit to the amount of change they'd give you, which, given that a six-ride card is ten bucks and ATMs all give you twenties, is bloody annoying! tom -- They didn't have any answers -- they just wanted weed and entitlement. |
London - Kiev comparisons
Clive D. W. Feather wrote:
Bucuresti[*] has an interesting variation on this: the stations are "whatever I" and "whatever II", in the order the stations were built, *not* the order of line number. This occurs on street signs (never seen it on a station) where place names are duplicated in Germany, sometimes very close to one another. Neil |
London - Kiev comparisons
Clive D. W. Feather wrote: Bucuresti...Often called Bucharest for some reason. Surely "Bucharest" is the English version of the city's name, in the same vein as Cologne/Köln, Florence/Firenze etc. etc. Patrick |
London - Kiev comparisons
On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:33:47 +0100, "Clive D. W. Feather"
wrote: In article om, writes One interesting feature of the Kiev metro system is that the interchange stations have different names for each line. This seems to be common in Eastern European systems. Bucuresti[*] has an interesting variation on this: the stations are "whatever I" and "whatever II", in the order the stations were built, *not* the order of line number. [*] Often called Bucharest for some reason. Probably for the same reason that Roma is called Rome, Moskva is called Moscow, and Paris is pronounced wrongly. Etc., etc., etc. -- James Farrar . @gmail.com |
London - Kiev comparisons
James Farrar wrote:
On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:33:47 +0100, "Clive D. W. Feather" wrote: In article om, writes One interesting feature of the Kiev metro system is that the interchange stations have different names for each line. This seems to be common in Eastern European systems. Bucuresti[*] has an interesting variation on this: the stations are "whatever I" and "whatever II", in the order the stations were built, *not* the order of line number. [*] Often called Bucharest for some reason. Probably for the same reason that Roma is called Rome, Moskva is called Moscow, and Paris is pronounced wrongly. Etc., etc., etc. Err, do we all have to refer to the 東京 Subway from now on?! |
London - Kiev comparisons
Buenos Aires also does that multiple names for the same station thing.
The New York Metrocard is paper, not plastic - I have one here as a bookmark somewhere. What annoys me is that you need a US zipcode to buy one with a credit card (and I'm pretty sure you can buy top-ups too) - US banknotes hardly ever work in machines, so it's hard for foreigners to get hold of one. |
London - Kiev comparisons
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London - Kiev comparisons
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London - Kiev comparisons
Tom Anderson wrote:
The really dopey thing, i found, was that the ticket machines didn't sell unlimited ride cards, only the carnet-like cards. And had a 6 USD limit to the amount of change they'd give you, which, given that a six-ride card is ten bucks and ATMs all give you twenties, is bloody annoying! That is most certainly not the case! All MetroCard Vending Machines owned by New York City Transit dispense both pay-per-ride and unlimited MetroCards. In fact, the (overpriced) one-day Fun Pass is /only/ available at machines and at out-of-system vendors, not at booths. Perhaps you encountered an MVM owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Fares on AirTrain and PATH are also paid by MetroCard, but only pay-per-ride cards (and, in the case of AirTrain, special AirTrain unlimited cards) are accepted. PA-owned MVM's don't sell NYCT unlimited cards. (In fact, if I try to find out when my 30-day NYCT unlimited card expires by slipping it into an AirTrain MVM, the MVM tells me that my card is invalid!) This leads to a somewhat confusing situation at Howard Beach, one of the transfer points between AirTrain and the subway. The mezzanine is divided into three sections: AirTrain fare control, subway fare control, and outside fare control. The MVM's in subway fare control and in AirTrain fare control are AirTrain MVM's, while I believe the MVM's outside fare control are NYCT MVM's. The distinction is not obvious if you don't know what to look for. If all you're doing is buying a pay-per-ride card with cash or a standard credit or debit card, it makes no difference which machine you use. But if you want an unlimited card, or if you have a special debit card that only works with certain vendors (for instance, I have a debit card that is only valid at NYCT MVM's, allowing me to pay for my commute from pretax payroll deductions), it makes a big difference. -- David of Broadway New York, NY, USA |
London - Kiev comparisons
In message , David of Broadway
writes As does New York, since most stations are named after cross streets. I can ride the F or V train along 6th Avenue to the 14th Street station or I can ride the L train along 14th Street to the 6th Avenue station and reach the same point. A similar system on the Paris metro brings together some deliciously unlikely pairings: Barbès — Rochechouart (a 19th-century revolutionary writer and a 17th-century aristocratic abbess, Richelieu - Drouot (Louis XIII's secretary of state and Napoleon's aide-de-camp) and so on. -- Paul Terry |
London - Kiev comparisons
Paul Terry wrote:
In message , David of Broadway writes As does New York, since most stations are named after cross streets. I can ride the F or V train along 6th Avenue to the 14th Street station or I can ride the L train along 14th Street to the 6th Avenue station and reach the same point. A similar system on the Paris metro brings together some deliciously unlikely pairings: Barbès — Rochechouart (a 19th-century revolutionary writer and a 17th-century aristocratic abbess, Richelieu - Drouot (Louis XIII's secretary of state and Napoleon's aide-de-camp) and so on. But unlike in New York, IINM the Paris system refers to the entire station complex by the combined name. In New York, you won't find any reference to 14th Street on the station name signage on the L platform or to 6th Avenue on the station name signage on the F/V platform. One odd exception is one stop away, at Union Square, which even the automated announcements on the L announce as 14th Street - Union Square, despite the fact that Union Square is the third of five consecutive stops that the L makes along 14th Street. There have been attempts to unify some complexes. For instance, references to Bryant Park popped up a few years ago at the station complex that includes the 42nd Street station on the B/D/F/V and the 5th Avenue station on the 7, and the massive station in Brooklyn currently known as Broadway Junction was until a few years ago (2001?) signed as Broadway Junction only on the L platforms, with the J/Z platforms signed Eastern Parkway and the A/C platforms signed Broadway-East New York. (The A/C platforms were fully retiled in the renaming. The J/Z platforms did once have an exit to Eastern Parkway, but that exit was closed permanently in the 80's or early 90's.) And some station complexes have had unified names since they've opened. But for many of them, there is no conceivable name that would make sense on all of the platforms. -- David of Broadway New York, NY, USA |
London - Kiev comparisons
On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, David of Broadway wrote:
Tom Anderson wrote: The really dopey thing, i found, was that the ticket machines didn't sell unlimited ride cards, only the carnet-like cards. And had a 6 USD limit to the amount of change they'd give you, which, given that a six-ride card is ten bucks and ATMs all give you twenties, is bloody annoying! That is most certainly not the case! All MetroCard Vending Machines owned by New York City Transit dispense both pay-per-ride and unlimited MetroCards. Hmm. Okay. I certainly didn't see any way to buy one - there was no button for it that i could see. This was at various machines, including one at 68th St - Hunter College. And my point about the six dollar change limit stands! tom -- The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel |
London - Kiev comparisons
Tom Anderson wrote:
On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, David of Broadway wrote: Tom Anderson wrote: The really dopey thing, i found, was that the ticket machines didn't sell unlimited ride cards, only the carnet-like cards. And had a 6 USD limit to the amount of change they'd give you, which, given that a six-ride card is ten bucks and ATMs all give you twenties, is bloody annoying! That is most certainly not the case! All MetroCard Vending Machines owned by New York City Transit dispense both pay-per-ride and unlimited MetroCards. Hmm. Okay. I certainly didn't see any way to buy one - there was no button for it that i could see. This was at various machines, including one at 68th St - Hunter College. Strange. All of the machines I've ever used have offered the "Unlimited" option. Either you didn't notice it or the machines you used were programmed wrong. And my point about the six dollar change limit stands! I won't argue with that! -- David of Broadway New York, NY, USA |
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