tim wrote:
"Nick" wrote in message
...

"Dave Arquati" wrote in message
...

...

The National Rail fares system is a complicated mess at the moment, and
hardly sets a good example for London to revert to.

...

Apart from a few anomalies, it isn't that complicated at all


It's complicated in the sense that all journeys are individually
priced. It is thus impossible for someone to sell you a ticket

Every can of beans / newspaper / magazine / item of clothing / etc you
buy is individually priced and you cope with that don't you.

from A to B without them having a complete database (thick
book or computer disk) of fares from every A to every B. To
be able to sell tickes for a zonal system all you need is a map
on the wall.

Effectively, this means that to buy a ticket for my journey I
have to queue up at the station. Were a complete zonal system
in operation accross all modes, I could just go and buy a ticket
from my local newsagents (as I could for LT journeys).

tim

1. Assumption that there will be a queue at the station and not at the
newsagents. Whenever I buy a ticket (an extension as I have a Z1-3
annual) I do so off-peak and almost invariably there is no queue.
Buying a newspaper at the newsagents can be a horrible though, waiting
behind all those bloody people buying zonal tickets!

2. AFAIK, the reason, AFAIK, that fares structure takes 7 volumes or
whatever and it takes an age to buy a ticket is that BR had made
thousands of special terminal in the 1970s and these are what are still
being used by counter staff today. The memory capacity of these is very
limited indeed.

A modern box (probably running Linux and with a cheap 80-120GB hard
drive) could easily cope with all of the data and spit out the cheapest
or quickest option in a fraction of a second. With a decent UI[*] that
is what the passenger accessible machines would have as well.

* that includes learning that none of Waterloo, Charing Cross and
Victoria start with an L.