Right,

What fraction of LU stations are gated? What fractions of trips on LU are
now done with Oyster?

If the answers to these questions are both 'the vast majority', then LU
should now have a massive amount of data about journeys being made on its
network - in terms of where they start and end, at least. Actual hard
numbers, not estimates or surveys of passenger density on each line. This
would be really interesting to look at. Does it exist, is it public, and
what would be my chances of getting it via FOIA?

Also, am i right in thinking paper tickets either don't have a unique ID
on them, or that this isn't recorded by gates? If not, LU should already
have had this data.

tom

--
REMOVE AND DESTROY

On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:09:41 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

Right,

What fraction of LU stations are gated? What fractions of trips on LU are
now done with Oyster?

Very close to 100% for stations being gated. However a proportion of
entry and exit is via open interchange and there is no need to validate
at these points unless using PAYG.

I have not seen the figures for a while but a considerable proportion of
LU trips are now on Oyster but it is not as high as you might think due
to One Day Travelcards remaining on magnetics and also a lot of people
will be using TOC purchased Travelcards that are also on magnetics.

If the answers to these questions are both 'the vast majority', then LU
should now have a massive amount of data about journeys being made on its
network - in terms of where they start and end, at least. Actual hard
numbers, not estimates or surveys of passenger density on each line. This
would be really interesting to look at. Does it exist, is it public, and
what would be my chances of getting it via FOIA?

It was certainly the intent that the data would be used for journey and
service planning. To be honest it is more valuable in some respects
where it shows modal interchange or bus to bus interchange. The
opportunities to better understand "total" journeys rather than just the
rail element are more attractive and adjusting bus services to provide
through or "round the corner" services is easier.

I have yet to see anything internal to LU that shows how the Oyster data
is being used in terms of planning. Planning data is not adjusted every
few months so the use of Oyster derived data may not have happened yet
on any large scale. There are certain key models that would use it but I
don't know when these are being updated (not really my area to be
honest).

The other key issue is the reliability of the data and its statistical
robustness. The collection of Oyster data is relatively new and while it
is obviously based around actual usage there will still be some risks as
to its reliability and these would have to be assessed and compensated
for before it was used for modelling purposes. The fact that take up is
still being promoted and that TOC equipment roll out is yet to come will
affect the data for years to come.

You have not specified the granularity of the information you would want
but I would be surprised if the data was released to the public at any
great level of detail. You might get broad brush annualised data for
journey flows but perhaps not "xxx passengers travelled from Epping to
Loughton on Sunday 22 April 2007". Still there's nothing to stop you
asking under FOI.

Also, am i right in thinking paper tickets either don't have a unique ID
on them, or that this isn't recorded by gates? If not, LU should already
have had this data.

Some magnetic tickets did have unique numbers but they were a very small
part of the overall population. The vast majority did not and although
they were counted by type at each gate you could not follow "ticket
123456" through the system.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:09:41 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

Right,

What fraction of LU stations are gated? What fractions of trips on LU are
now done with Oyster?

Very close to 100% for stations being gated. However a proportion of
entry and exit is via open interchange and there is no need to validate
at these points unless using PAYG.

I have not seen the figures for a while but a considerable proportion of
LU trips are now on Oyster but it is not as high as you might think due
to One Day Travelcards remaining on magnetics and also a lot of people
will be using TOC purchased Travelcards that are also on magnetics.

If the answers to these questions are both 'the vast majority', then LU
should now have a massive amount of data about journeys being made on its
network - in terms of where they start and end, at least. Actual hard
numbers, not estimates or surveys of passenger density on each line. This
would be really interesting to look at. Does it exist, is it public, and
what would be my chances of getting it via FOIA?

It was certainly the intent that the data would be used for journey and
service planning. To be honest it is more valuable in some respects
where it shows modal interchange or bus to bus interchange. The
opportunities to better understand "total" journeys rather than just the
rail element are more attractive and adjusting bus services to provide
through or "round the corner" services is easier.

I have yet to see anything internal to LU that shows how the Oyster data
is being used in terms of planning. Planning data is not adjusted every
few months so the use of Oyster derived data may not have happened yet
on any large scale. There are certain key models that would use it but I
don't know when these are being updated (not really my area to be
honest).

The other key issue is the reliability of the data and its statistical
robustness. The collection of Oyster data is relatively new and while it
is obviously based around actual usage there will still be some risks as
to its reliability and these would have to be assessed and compensated
for before it was used for modelling purposes. The fact that take up is
still being promoted and that TOC equipment roll out is yet to come will
affect the data for years to come.

You have not specified the granularity of the information you would want
but I would be surprised if the data was released to the public at any
great level of detail. You might get broad brush annualised data for
journey flows but perhaps not "xxx passengers travelled from Epping to
Loughton on Sunday 22 April 2007". Still there's nothing to stop you
asking under FOI.

Also, am i right in thinking paper tickets either don't have a unique ID
on them, or that this isn't recorded by gates? If not, LU should already
have had this data.

Some magnetic tickets did have unique numbers but they were a very small
part of the overall population. The vast majority did not and although
they were counted by type at each gate you could not follow "ticket
123456" through the system.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!



Epping to Loughton on Sunday 22nd April 2007. I cannot imagine very many
people....unless you know something we don't

On Mon, 23 Apr 2007, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:09:41 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

What fraction of LU stations are gated? What fractions of trips on LU
are now done with Oyster?

Very close to 100% for stations being gated. However a proportion of
entry and exit is via open interchange and there is no need to validate
at these points unless using PAYG.

True. Any guess as to the scale of that?

I have not seen the figures for a while but a considerable proportion of
LU trips are now on Oyster but it is not as high as you might think due
to One Day Travelcards remaining on magnetics and also a lot of people
will be using TOC purchased Travelcards that are also on magnetics.

Ah yes, had forgotten about those. Are you meaning normal travelcards
bought from NR stations (are these not on oyster?) or tickets like
Sticksford-on-Sea to Z1 seasons, which include a travelcard part?

If the answers to these questions are both 'the vast majority', then LU
should now have a massive amount of data about journeys being made on
its network - in terms of where they start and end, at least. Actual
hard numbers, not estimates or surveys of passenger density on each
line. This would be really interesting to look at. Does it exist, is it
public, and what would be my chances of getting it via FOIA?

It was certainly the intent that the data would be used for journey and
service planning.

That's what i thought.

To be honest it is more valuable in some respects where it shows modal
interchange or bus to bus interchange. The opportunities to better
understand "total" journeys rather than just the rail element are more
attractive and adjusting bus services to provide through or "round the
corner" services is easier.

Absolutely - although the lack of people touching *out* of buses is going
to hamper this, at least at the finish of a rail-bus journey.

Nevertheless, the tube-only info would also be interesting!

I have yet to see anything internal to LU that shows how the Oyster data
is being used in terms of planning. Planning data is not adjusted every
few months so the use of Oyster derived data may not have happened yet
on any large scale. There are certain key models that would use it but I
don't know when these are being updated (not really my area to be
honest).

Fair enough. We've had oyster for a while now, though, so i'm surprised
the data hasn't made it out there.

The other key issue is the reliability of the data and its statistical
robustness. The collection of Oyster data is relatively new and while it
is obviously based around actual usage there will still be some risks as
to its reliability and these would have to be assessed and compensated
for before it was used for modelling purposes.

True, but i would think that armed with the raw counts, reasonably
accurate entry/exit figures for each station and the dodgy but simple
assumptions that travelcard trips through ungated stations are distributed
in the same way as PAYG trips, and that paper ticket trips are distributed
the same as oyster trips, you could come up with something coherent and
useful.

The fact that take up is still being promoted and that TOC equipment
roll out is yet to come will affect the data for years to come.

True, but right now, we should have usable data for LU.

You have not specified the granularity of the information you would want
but I would be surprised if the data was released to the public at any
great level of detail. You might get broad brush annualised data for
journey flows but perhaps not "xxx passengers travelled from Epping to
Loughton on Sunday 22 April 2007".

I'd be quite happy with a matrix of annual flows between each pair of
stations, or perhaps several such matrices, for different days of the week
and times of day.

Still there's nothing to stop you asking under FOI.

True!

Also, am i right in thinking paper tickets either don't have a unique
ID on them, or that this isn't recorded by gates? If not, LU should
already have had this data.

Some magnetic tickets did have unique numbers but they were a very small
part of the overall population. The vast majority did not and although
they were counted by type at each gate you could not follow "ticket
123456" through the system.

As i suspected.

Cheers for the info!

tom

--
I only listen to mashups of The Carpenters and ear-bleeding German gabber
-- boomaga

On Apr 23, 9:52 pm, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:09:41 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

What fraction of LU stations are gated? What fractions of trips on LU
are now done with Oyster?

Very close to 100% for stations being gated. However a proportion of
entry and exit is via open interchange and there is no need to validate
at these points unless using PAYG.

True. Any guess as to the scale of that?

I have not seen the figures for a while but a considerable proportion of
LU trips are now on Oyster but it is not as high as you might think due
to One Day Travelcards remaining on magnetics and also a lot of people
will be using TOC purchased Travelcards that are also on magnetics.

Ah yes, had forgotten about those. Are you meaning normal travelcards
bought from NR stations (are these not on oyster?) or tickets like
Sticksford-on-Sea to Z1 seasons, which include a travelcard part?

If the answers to these questions are both 'the vast majority', then LU
should now have a massive amount of data about journeys being made on
its network - in terms of where they start and end, at least. Actual
hard numbers, not estimates or surveys of passenger density on each
line. This would be really interesting to look at. Does it exist, is it
public, and what would be my chances of getting it via FOIA?

It was certainly the intent that the data would be used for journey and
service planning.

That's what i thought.

To be honest it is more valuable in some respects where it shows modal
interchange or bus to bus interchange. The opportunities to better
understand "total" journeys rather than just the rail element are more
attractive and adjusting bus services to provide through or "round the
corner" services is easier.

Absolutely - although the lack of people touching *out* of buses is going
to hamper this, at least at the finish of a rail-bus journey.


That would kind of depend on the Oyster pad in a bus knowing where it
was.

The ticket gates usually stay where they are. Readers in trains along
with some kind of GPS would save on the ridiculous going up the
escalator situation when passing the boundary of your paper
travelcard, but I don't if GPS would be reliable enough for something
as variable as a bus.

"MIG" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Apr 23, 9:52 pm, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:09:41 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

What fraction of LU stations are gated? What fractions of trips on LU
are now done with Oyster?

Very close to 100% for stations being gated. However a proportion of
entry and exit is via open interchange and there is no need to validate
at these points unless using PAYG.

True. Any guess as to the scale of that?

I have not seen the figures for a while but a considerable proportion
of
LU trips are now on Oyster but it is not as high as you might think due
to One Day Travelcards remaining on magnetics and also a lot of people
will be using TOC purchased Travelcards that are also on magnetics.

Ah yes, had forgotten about those. Are you meaning normal travelcards
bought from NR stations (are these not on oyster?) or tickets like
Sticksford-on-Sea to Z1 seasons, which include a travelcard part?

If the answers to these questions are both 'the vast majority', then
LU
should now have a massive amount of data about journeys being made on
its network - in terms of where they start and end, at least. Actual
hard numbers, not estimates or surveys of passenger density on each
line. This would be really interesting to look at. Does it exist, is
it
public, and what would be my chances of getting it via FOIA?

It was certainly the intent that the data would be used for journey and
service planning.

That's what i thought.

To be honest it is more valuable in some respects where it shows modal
interchange or bus to bus interchange. The opportunities to better
understand "total" journeys rather than just the rail element are more
attractive and adjusting bus services to provide through or "round the
corner" services is easier.

Absolutely - although the lack of people touching *out* of buses is going
to hamper this, at least at the finish of a rail-bus journey.


That would kind of depend on the Oyster pad in a bus knowing where it
was.

The ticket gates usually stay where they are. Readers in trains along
with some kind of GPS would save on the ridiculous going up the
escalator situation when passing the boundary of your paper
travelcard, but I don't if GPS would be reliable enough for something
as variable as a bus.

IIRC, GPS is used in Perth (Western Australia). As the system required users
to touch in and out on the bus, as there is a sliding scale of fares.

cheers
Peter
Sydney

On Mon, 23 Apr 2007, MIG wrote:

On Apr 23, 9:52 pm, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:09:41 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

If the answers to these questions are both 'the vast majority', then
LU should now have a massive amount of data about journeys being made
on its network - in terms of where they start and end, at least.
Actual hard numbers, not estimates or surveys of passenger density on
each line. This would be really interesting to look at. Does it
exist, is it public, and what would be my chances of getting it via
FOIA?

To be honest it is more valuable in some respects where it shows modal
interchange or bus to bus interchange. The opportunities to better
understand "total" journeys rather than just the rail element are more
attractive and adjusting bus services to provide through or "round the
corner" services is easier.

Absolutely - although the lack of people touching *out* of buses is
going to hamper this, at least at the finish of a rail-bus journey.

That would kind of depend on the Oyster pad in a bus knowing where it
was.

Ha - yes, very true!

The ticket gates usually stay where they are. Readers in trains along
with some kind of GPS would save on the ridiculous going up the
escalator situation when passing the boundary of your paper travelcard,

Serves you right for having a paper travelcard .

Gates should be able to do this; say you have a Z12 paper travelcard and
an oyster with some pre-pay, and you go from Z1 to Z4, when you want to
get out at your destination, you should be able to stick your paper card
in, have it rejected with an 'excess fare required' message, then touch
your oyster to pay it. Well, that would be nice, anyway.

but I don't if GPS would be reliable enough for something as variable as
a bus.

Back in the days before flat fares, buses knew roughly where they were -
they needed to know what fare stage they were in for the machine to price
the tickets. I think the driver had to push a button every now and then.
There's currently some sort of beacon system on some routes, for tracking
buses, but i don't know if it tells buses where they are. There's some
sort of alleged 'iBus' system on its way which will provide accurate
tracking of all buses:

http://www.alwaystouchout.com/project/96

It remains to be seen how well this will work.

Also, we're still not going to have people touching out. Might be possible
to install long-range card readers on the doors to track people getting
out, but that's getting a bit crazy ...

tom

--
I don't wanna know your name, i just want BANG BANG BANG!

On Tue, 24 Apr 2007 11:40:13 +0100, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007, MIG wrote:
The ticket gates usually stay where they are. Readers in trains along
with some kind of GPS would save on the ridiculous going up the
escalator situation when passing the boundary of your paper travelcard,

Serves you right for having a paper travelcard .

Gates should be able to do this; say you have a Z12 paper travelcard and
an oyster with some pre-pay, and you go from Z1 to Z4, when you want to
get out at your destination, you should be able to stick your paper card
in, have it rejected with an 'excess fare required' message, then touch
your oyster to pay it. Well, that would be nice, anyway.

That wouldn't work. People would get to the zone 4 barrier with
their zone 1-2 ticket, get an excess fare required message and
wonder off to find a member of staff if they don't have an Oyster
card. Meanwhile the person behind them would end up paying the
excess fare from their Oyster balance.

David

Back in the days before flat fares, buses knew roughly where they were -
they needed to know what fare stage they were in for the machine to price
the tickets. I think the driver had to push a button every now and then.
There's currently some sort of beacon system on some routes, for tracking
buses, but i don't know if it tells buses where they are.

I noticed from observing a recent bus ticket machine, they still retain
their fare stages, but only the final one is displayed and the driver
didn't change the stage. So, any ticket issued would have been valid
Cockfosters Stn (start of route) to Aitken Drive (end of route).

As to getting FOI informaton, not sure. I was able to retrieve total
passenger numbers for Local Authority contracted bus services (outside
London) - but obviously getting bus passenger data is easier.

If you select the line name from the left-hand side menu, you can see
passenger numbers. ISTR seeing actual statistics of station usage on the
site somewhere, but can't seem to find it.

If you select the line name from the left-hand side menu, you can see
passenger numbers. ISTR seeing actual statistics of station usage on the
site somewhere, but can't seem to find it.

Apologies for following up my own post, I've found it
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/corporate/...load=entryexit