On Sat, 12 Feb 2005, Solar Penguin wrote:

Distance based? Then how come a ticket from Morden to Waterloo (zones
1-4) costs the same as a ticket from Morden all the way to Mill Hill
East?

When zone-based fares are used, it's always possible to find
anomalies. It's a compromise, done on the basis of simplicity.

There's possibly a case to be made for ring zones being charged extra
if you use them on both sided of the core, than if you only go
core-to-ring or ring-to-core.

That worked well in Munich, where most of the services through the
rings were more-or-less axial. But with the much better connectivity
of London, you'd then have people going by circumferential routes to
avoid leaving their ring zone. Then you'd need some kind of honeycomb
zoning system, like they have in certain other mass conurbations.

Is it really fair that passengers only going as far as
Waterloo should pay for *twice* the distance they're actually
travelling?

Fares for a single journey include not only the distance travelled,
but also an element of the cost of the whole fare "system", including
issuing equipment, issuing staff, ticket inspectors, gate systems etc.
etc. - with the whole thing then modified by political policies,
subsidies and I don't know what.

If you insist on making the system more complex, you could well finish
up with the economic cost of your Morden - Waterloo fare being higher
than you would have previously paid to Mill Hill East. Swings and
roundabouts.

And how are people happy when "they can easily understand" that
they're being charged *twice* as much

You mean they aren't happy on the occasions they want to travel
"twice" the distance and it's the same fare? It can cut both ways.

as they should be charged?

The tariff says what they /should/ be charged. Or do you have some
special insight into the economics of the fare system?