Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

The student discount predates Ken - it was around at least as early as
1998.
Although at first it was very much aimed at full time undergraduates -
not
available over the summer and not available to students over 25. There
was a
successful campaign on this spearheaded by the President of one
particular
UofL college's Students' Union - can anyone guess which?

Imperial?

No - Birkbeck.

I didn't go to university in London, and the university scene in the
metropolis is not my first tongue as it were. But of course Birkbeck
was the prime candidate to lead such a campaign. I heartily approve the
ethos of the aforesaid institution.


And what you say is a little unclear - was the successful
campaign's aim to get the 30% student discount in the first place or to
get it extended to older students? Does anyone know the exact year when
the scheme did start? If it was to get it extended to older students,
when did this happen?

TfL did a presentation at the NUS London Region day for new SU officers
about the scheme and its history. I *think* 1998 was the first year of
operation but it may have been 1997. I can ask old hands at ULU some time.

The information (and drafts of press letters) that I've seen were focused
very much on the scheme being only open to full time 18-24 * year old
students and not available over summer. A lot of postgraduate, mature and
part-time students found this outrageous - hence the Birkbeck campaign.

* I've no idea if it went under to 16-17 years olds.

The present scheme isn't open to 16/17 year olds. I think they had to
wait until Livingstone's TfL schemes BICBW.

Some time I'll post a request here on utl for everyone to send in
copies of any old PDFs of TfL's Fares booklets, along with PDFs of the
London Connections map, and put them up on a website (perhaps just for
a few weeks before the copyright lawyers have a fit) so anyone who's
interested could get themselves a copy.

Of course PDFs of these documents are a pretty recent innovation - they
definitely don't go back to '98. One can of course search around the
archives of utl for past discussions pf this scheme, though it can be
time consuming.