On Apr 24, 12:01*am, "Richard J." wrote:
MarkVarley - MVP wrote:
From what I've seen ticket inspectors can see only bus number and time
when they check your oyster, and I doubt a 5 minute break would be
noticed, but I was curious if there was an allowance for such with the
logic that I'm boarding a bus and paying for an hours journey so have
paid from point 'a' to point 'b', it seems the powers that be don't
agree with that.

That's because you're not paying for an hour's journey; you're paying for
the journey that ends when you leave the bus. *Since you're doing so in
order to visit a bank, the break in journey has value for you, so why
shouldn't you pay for it?

Yes we know what we ARE paying for. I am trying to remove the
blinkers that say "that's just the way it is". The rule that you pay
per vehicle you sit in is a by product of archaic ticketing systems;
it doesn't follow from some principle of what's fair (or good
marketing).


And to the poster who claimed that with private transport (e.g. your own
car) you could break the journey without any extra cost, have you forgotten
about the cost of parking, and the time and cost of driving around looking
for a free meter?

There are plenty of places where you can stop at a shop without using
a parking meter. Some of them have their own free car parks.

On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:06:42 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:

They have bus to bus transfer in New York. Return trips are banned
within the transfer system so as to force people to pay for an outward
and return ride. While not quite the same rule as the one you suggest
the software programming was absolutely horrendous and I can see the
permutations being required in London for "forward" transfer being even
worse. I appreciate you say transfer onto a bus on the same route but
that would simply not be sustainable as the public would refuse to be
restricted to waiting for a 38 when they could, on some sections, also
take a 19 or a 341 for example. All of this "Logic" would have to be
programmed and maintained and it would probably cost as much as it
sought to save. Therefore you need a different commercial rule.

Or why not just allow a transfer when you board any other bus within
an hour (say) of boarding the first one, and just accept that the odd
few might be able to do a cheap return trip. That "concession" also
exists on the Dutch Strippenkaart.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On Wed, 23 Apr 2008, MIG wrote:

On Apr 24, 12:44*am, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Wed, 23 Apr 2008, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:53:40 +0100, MarkVarley - MVP
wrote:

It would surely be dead easy to set the system whereby if you board a
bus within, say, an hour of boarding another on the same route in the
same direction you are not charged again.

They have bus to bus transfer in New York.

And Vancouver.

The first such system I remember seeing was in Lille in 1985 (also the
first place and time I saw platform edge doors and a driverless
metro). It didn't require computer programming, beyond that needed to
read a ticket and clunk it with a date and time. I don't think that
the principle of the restrictions and the automation of ticket checks
need to be confused or depend on each other.

You'd clunk your ticket on the metro in the centre of town and it would
be valid on your bus home at the other end, as long as you completed the
journey in a hour (I think). But in a larger city like London, the time
it takes to get home can be a lot longer, so there London, the time it
takes to get home can be a lot longer, so there could be complications.

The way it works in Vancouver (did i mention this already?) is that when
you get off the bus, you ask the driver for a transfer ticket. He has a
little machine which prints them at the touch of a button, much like the
ticket printers you sometimes get at deli counters in supermarkets. You
then surrender this when getting on the next bus. I don't know how the
validity works, but it would be simple for the printer to print a 'valid
until' time that's, say, 15 minutes after it was printed (and longer at
night or the weekend; it could even vary from place to place). Whilst i
think involving the driver is a bit of a non-starter in London, where
buses are a lot busier, me might manage something similar with Oyster
where you touch out of the bus to get your transfer entitlement or
something.

Hang on, no. Either i've remembered it wrong, or the system's changed. You
now get 90 minutes of travel from when you enter the system. If you get on
a bus and pay cash, you have to ask for a transfer ticket when you pay.
This is really annoying - if you forget to ask, or only decide you want to
make a multiple-stage trip after you get on, you're stuffed. On the other
hand, it works across buses, ferries and light rail, although not heavy
rail. They have zones (only three - centre, inner suburbs, outer suburbs,
although there's a quirk in that the centre zone includes the suburban
area to the west on the Burrard Peninsula, which is, handily, where my
relatives live!), and a system for upgrading a ticket to include more
zones partway through a trip.

tom

--
SCIIIIIEEEEEEEENNNNNNCCCCCCCE!!!

On 23 Apr, 23:35, MarkVarley - MVP
wrote:

On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:06:42 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote this gibberish:

On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:53:40 +0100, MarkVarley - MVP
wrote:

It would surely be dead easy to set the system whereby if you board a
bus within, say, an hour of boarding another on the same route in the
same direction you are not charged again.

They have bus to bus transfer in New York. Return trips are banned
within the transfer system so as to force people to pay for an outward
and return ride. While not quite the same rule as the one you suggest
the software programming was absolutely horrendous and I can see the
permutations being required in London for "forward" transfer being even
worse. I appreciate you say transfer onto a bus on the same route but
that would simply not be sustainable as the public would refuse to be
restricted to waiting for a 38 when they could, on some sections, also
take a 19 or a 341 for example. All of this "Logic" would have to be
programmed and maintained and it would probably cost as much as it
sought to save. Therefore you need a different commercial rule.

Then perhaps a policy of ignoring the practice when encountered would
be nice )


I dare suggest that, in practice, that's just what would happen, not
least because AIUI unless an inspector does a 'deep interrogation' of
passengers' Oyster cards they will only be aware that said card has
been validated on a particular route rather than on a particular
vehicle. Do note however that the legal situation has been clearly
outlined above.


Some days I only do the same bus route twice with a couple of stops so
I could pay £3.60 to go to Victoria and back instead of £1.80 to cover
the same distance in more or less the same time on the same bus route.
not enough to be getting into travel card price capping but it adds
up.

Surely under the £3.60 example you are actually capped at £3 for a One
Day Bus cap using Oyster PAYG? No need to trigger a One Day Travelcard
cap.

I didn't know about the one day bus cap, but it's still £1.20 more
than necessary, that's almost a sandwich! this is my Yorkshire origins
showing through I think...


I'm not sure that many people know about the £3 daily bus cap - it's
very useful, so spread the word! Here's the TfL webpage about it:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/faresandtickets/singlefares/2903.aspx

Note that even if you travel on the Tube, the £3 daily bus cap will
apply if it's cheaper - e.g. if you make four bus journeys (£3) and
one Tube journey in zone 2 (£1), then only the bus cap will be
triggered and you'll pay for the Underground journey separately, coz
it's cheaper that way.

I don't know how predictable your travelling patterns are, but you
might find the £13 weekly bus pass or even the £15 weekly zones 2&3
Travelcard useful (any Travelcard regardless of zones affords one
travel on all buses across Greater London).

On 24 Apr, 06:27, (Neil Williams)
wrote:
On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:06:42 +0100, Paul Corfield

wrote:
They have bus to bus transfer in New York. Return trips are banned
within the transfer system so as to force people to pay for an outward
and return ride. While not quite the same rule as the one you suggest
the software programming was absolutely horrendous and I can see the
permutations being required in London for "forward" transfer being even
worse. I appreciate you say transfer onto a bus on the same route but
that would simply not be sustainable as the public would refuse to be
restricted to waiting for a 38 when they could, on some sections, also
take a 19 or a 341 for example. All of this "Logic" would have to be
programmed and maintained and it would probably cost as much as it
sought to save. Therefore you need a different commercial rule.

Or why not just allow a transfer when you board any other bus within
an hour (say) of boarding the first one, and just accept that the odd
few might be able to do a cheap return trip. That "concession" also
exists on the Dutch Strippenkaart.


That's what I was thinking and that would surely just be the easiest
thing to implement. I would suggest that it should perhaps just be
limited to one transfer, so two bus journeys.

Note that on Croydon Tramlink basically the same thing has already
been implemented - one can have a free transfer onto another tram or
tram feeder bus within 70 minutes of first touching-in (passengers
need to touch-in again before boarding the second tram). If one is
just travelling on the tram system then two trams is the most any
passenger should need to take to any destination, which I suppose
could explain why there's just one free transfer, though if one
factors in the tram feeder buses then a passenger travelling between a
tram stop and somewhere along the route of a tram feeder bus could
need to touch-in three times, hence they would have to pay for the
second touch-in.

If the free bus transfer was only available within an hour then that
could mean those who're making longer journeys, or changing onto a
less frequent bus service, might end up paying twice - however this
could be mitigated if the free bus transfer was considered as a 'free
bonus' as opposed to an integral part of the ticketing scheme.

I can nonetheless foresee potential problems where, for example,
someone who only has enough credit on their Oyster card for a single
fare and is relying on taking advantage of the free transfer rule ends
up in a position where they cannot - perhaps they make a misjudgement,
or the connecting bus is late, or the first bus gets caught in a jam
as a result of an accident or burst water main or some such. Many
people genuinely do operate in this manner without any margin for
error, and so could come unstuck.

Also any free bus transfer rule would inevitably mean that TfL is in
receipt of less revenue, which has to be factored in. Lastly it would
encourage more bus hopping, rather than people waiting for a direct
through bus service, and one could argue that this would slow down all
services as more people who were transferring between buses spent time
boarding and alighting. I'm not sure this would necessarily be a
massive factor though.

On 24 Apr, 13:27, Tom Anderson wrote:
Hang on, no. Either i've remembered it wrong, or the system's changed. You
now get 90 minutes of travel from when you enter the system. If you get on
a bus and pay cash, you have to ask for a transfer ticket when you pay.
This is really annoying - if you forget to ask, or only decide you want to
make a multiple-stage trip after you get on, you're stuffed.

In the handful of American cities I've been to, standard practice
seems to be to issue a transfer to everyone as their ticket - it's
only in the ones where it costs extra that you have to ask.

U

--
http://londonconnections.blogspot.com/
A blog about transport projects in London

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Wed, 23 Apr 2008, Jarle H Knudsen wrote:

On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:16:10 -0700 (PDT), Paul Weaver wrote:

Yes, and the following are the legal ways of boarding a bus:
1) Board at the front with a saver, driver takes half the saver
2) Board at the front and touch your oyster in, money is deducted
(unless it's a travelcard/capped etc)
3) Board a murderbus at the back and touch your oyster in, money is
deducted
4) Board at the front and show a paper travelcard
5) Board at the back with a valid paper or oyster travelcard and dont
touch in.
6) Outside central london you can board at the front and pay cash

From YOUR guide to fares and tickets:

Cash fares are not accepted on buses in the Pay Before You Board area
in central London, on bendy buses or on route W7.

Ha, i didn't know that. Why is the W7 a special case?

IIRC, it's the route they first trialled the no-cash thing on.

Yes you should pay twice if using cash or PAYG. There are no "break of
journey" facilities for London's buses nor are there are through single
tickets valid bus to bus. Obviously you aren't really paying twice if
using a Travelcard and if on PAYG you are simply contributing to meeting
the daily cap so perhaps not a great hardship.

How about if the bus terminates earlier then it was advertising when you got
on it?

Do you then still have to pay again for the next bus through to your
destination?

LEWIS

On Thu, 24 Apr 2008 05:41:07 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote this gibberish:


On 23 Apr, 23:35, MarkVarley - MVP
wrote:

On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:06:42 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote this gibberish:

On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:53:40 +0100, MarkVarley - MVP
wrote:

It would surely be dead easy to set the system whereby if you board a
bus within, say, an hour of boarding another on the same route in the
same direction you are not charged again.

They have bus to bus transfer in New York. Return trips are banned
within the transfer system so as to force people to pay for an outward
and return ride. While not quite the same rule as the one you suggest
the software programming was absolutely horrendous and I can see the
permutations being required in London for "forward" transfer being even
worse. I appreciate you say transfer onto a bus on the same route but
that would simply not be sustainable as the public would refuse to be
restricted to waiting for a 38 when they could, on some sections, also
take a 19 or a 341 for example. All of this "Logic" would have to be
programmed and maintained and it would probably cost as much as it
sought to save. Therefore you need a different commercial rule.

Then perhaps a policy of ignoring the practice when encountered would
be nice )


I dare suggest that, in practice, that's just what would happen, not
least because AIUI unless an inspector does a 'deep interrogation' of
passengers' Oyster cards they will only be aware that said card has
been validated on a particular route rather than on a particular
vehicle. Do note however that the legal situation has been clearly
outlined above.

Duly Noted.

Some days I only do the same bus route twice with a couple of stops so
I could pay £3.60 to go to Victoria and back instead of £1.80 to cover
the same distance in more or less the same time on the same bus route.
not enough to be getting into travel card price capping but it adds
up.

Surely under the £3.60 example you are actually capped at £3 for a One
Day Bus cap using Oyster PAYG? No need to trigger a One Day Travelcard
cap.

I didn't know about the one day bus cap, but it's still £1.20 more
than necessary, that's almost a sandwich! this is my Yorkshire origins
showing through I think...


I'm not sure that many people know about the £3 daily bus cap - it's
very useful, so spread the word! Here's the TfL webpage about it:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/faresandtickets/singlefares/2903.aspx

Note that even if you travel on the Tube, the £3 daily bus cap will
apply if it's cheaper - e.g. if you make four bus journeys (£3) and
one Tube journey in zone 2 (£1), then only the bus cap will be
triggered and you'll pay for the Underground journey separately, coz
it's cheaper that way.

I don't know how predictable your travelling patterns are, but you
might find the £13 weekly bus pass or even the £15 weekly zones 2&3
Travelcard useful (any Travelcard regardless of zones affords one
travel on all buses across Greater London).

My travel patterns are utterly unpraditcable but thanks for that :-)
--
Mark Varley
www.MarkVarleyPhoto.co.uk
www.TwistedPhotography.co.uk
London, England.

On Thu, 24 Apr 2008 06:07:06 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:

On 24 Apr, 06:27, (Neil Williams)
wrote:
Or why not just allow a transfer when you board any other bus within
an hour (say) of boarding the first one, and just accept that the odd
few might be able to do a cheap return trip. That "concession" also
exists on the Dutch Strippenkaart.

That's what I was thinking and that would surely just be the easiest
thing to implement. I would suggest that it should perhaps just be
limited to one transfer, so two bus journeys.

Yes, that's the easiest, I wouldn't limit it to one change though.

Note that on Croydon Tramlink basically the same thing has already
been implemented [...]

So, as we guessed, it could be done... It isn't my fault that TfL
doesn't provide a bus straight from my house to Heathrow, for example,
and now I'll need three if I ever dare go to T5... This is something
that the railways have always understood and allowed for in their fare
structures. The US transfer ticket concept is now an anachronism when
it can be implemented so easily with Oyster.

If the free bus transfer was only available within an hour then that
could mean those who're making longer journeys, or changing onto a
less frequent bus service, might end up paying twice - however this
could be mitigated if the free bus transfer was considered as a 'free
bonus' as opposed to an integral part of the ticketing scheme.

I can nonetheless foresee potential problems where, for example,
someone who only has enough credit on their Oyster card for a single
fare and is relying on taking advantage of the free transfer rule [...] Many
people genuinely do operate in this manner without any margin for
error, and so could come unstuck.

They're at least as well-off as under the current (IMHO unfair) system
though. In Barcelona, for example, a zone 1 ticket lasts for 75
minutes, probably to account for delays, as you'd never need that long
to complete (=get on the last bus/train of) a normal journey. That
kind of time, a bit more than an hour, might be suitable here.

Also any free bus transfer rule would inevitably mean that TfL is in
receipt of less revenue, which has to be factored in.

Yes, revenue that they didn't deserve in the first place! It is how
buses have always worked in this country of course, but that doesn't
mean that they should always be like this. It's odd that Paris, often
compared favourably with London, also did this when many other French
towns and cities allowed free transfers - indeed, until fairly
recently, a bus journey in Paris could cost more than the equivalent
metro journey.

Bus fares elsewhere in the UK vary widely of course but the London
flat fare (on Oyster) is pretty low. I think there's room to allow
free transfers and bump up the fare a bit to make some compensation.

Richard.