Tom Anderson wrote:

Er, no.

Morden (Z4) to Balham (Z3): 1.30
Morden (Z4) to Highgate (Z3): 2.80

But you were almost right!

Yes, I did write a load of tripe there, well spotted.

I instinctively count a Z4-Z1-Z3 ticket as the same as a Z4-Z1 ticket,
rather than a Z4-Z3 ticket, but I realise I didn't make this very
clear.

However, that doesn't mean it couldn't be improved by some very simple
measures.

Maybe, maybe not.

[I wrote:]
You make it sound as though there is some great conspiracy afoot whereby
all those passengers going from zone 6 through zone 1 and out the other
side are getting a free ride and that you personally are paying for
every one of them.

Er, that's exactly what's happening. The problem we have at the moment
is this:

Morden (Z4) to Waterloo (Z1): 2.80
Morden (Z4) to Highgate (Z3): 2.80

That's not the same thing. Is there a conspiracy afoot? No. Are you
personally paying for every passenger to travel that extra distance?
No. Do some passengers get a better "per mile" fare? Yes. So what?

The simple correction is to count zones which are crossed twice twice.
For example, if a single in Z1 costs 2.00, and a single from Z1 to Z4
(or Z4 to Z1) costs 2.80, then the cost of extending a journey from Z1
to Z4 must be 80p; that would make a Z4-Z1-Z4 journey cost 3.60.

It sounds easy when you say it like that, but how easy would it be for
the passengers who use the tube in practice? How much would a Z4-Z1-Z3
ticket cost?

You would very soon find that either most tickets for cross-London
travel were cheaper than Travelcards or, if TC prices rose
commensurately, that TCs become ridiculously expensive and no-one
would buy them.

I have no idea how you'd implement this for travelcards, though; you'd
want someone who lived in Morden to be able to buy a travelcard which
let them go as far as London Bridge for less than one which let them
go as far as Highgate,

Why? A TC gives you unlimited travel within the zones specified. It is
very simple - there are three zonal variants (Z1-2, Z1-4 and Z1-6
[1]). It doesn't matter if the passenger is going across London or
just round and round on one side of it. If they are only making short
trips, they might be better off buying individual tickets.

but you can't just say it's for Z1-4 on the Morden side - what happens
if they get on the District Line? You'd have to get the customer to
specify which half of each line they wanted when they bought the
ticket, which would be rather silly!

Exactly. It gets almost humorously complicated very quickly. A TC
should give unlimited travel within the given radius. Making it any
more complex than this greatly reduces the utility of the TC.

The only solution i can see is to split the outer zones into sectors,
and make travelcards specific to some combination of sectors, but that
way madness lies. Do away with travelcards, i say!

The honeycomb model. While this could work OK for individual fares, it
would be an absolute nightmare for TCs or other passes. Would you have
to specify everyone cell/zone your journey might pass through? What
about situations where you could take a cross-London route or an
orbital route? What about people who buy TCs because they don't know
where they will go at the start of the day and want the convenience
and freedom that a TC offers?

TCs are great. What they offer is a simple, easy to understand,
instant to buy way for people to travel around London making full use
of the different modes of transport available. Anything to replace
them that is tube-specific penalises those in south London, anything
that is rail-specific penalises those in north London. Anything that
is complicated penalises the occasional traveller, the foreign
tourist, the transport companies, the ticket seller, and every poor
sod in the queue behind the guy who is trying to work out what zones
he needs to travel from Croydon to Barking then round the Goblin to
Richmond, tube to London, back to Croydon, out on the tram, back on
the bus...

Well, i for one am looking forward to riding crossrail at midday and
having a carriage all to myself.

Crossrail is not redundant capacity. Crossrail is vital, and long
overdue. Likewise Thameslink 20000.

There are parts of the network that are overcrowded and running above
capacity throughout the day. We do need to provide additional capacity
on these sections. What we don't need to do is to provide enough
capacity for everybody to travel at 8am and 5.30pm, because this
results in very poor asset utilisation.

--
Stevie D
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