On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 20:13:50 +0100, "Chris Read"
wrote:


"Paul Corfield" wrote:

There will now follow a torrent of posts telling me I'm talking out of
the top of my head and that TfL is the evil empire and should be nuked
by George Dubya.

I reckon that, were the Routemaster to be re-introduced to oust the bendies,
there would be a torrent of complaints - not least from those who fought the
scrapping of the RM so vociferously over the last couple of years.

Out of curiosity why?

In terms of fare evasion, I am a semi-regular on the Heritage 15, and there
have been several occasions where the Conductor has not ventured upstairs
for the entire journey, despite only having to 'look after' about 20
passengers in total. Of course, this was widespread when the Routemaster was
in normal service.

I haven't used the heritage routes at all but I rarely use those
corridors and if I do use the 9 it's usually to High St Ken and of
course the RMs don't go that far - more's the pity.

The current MD of Stagecoach London would be interested in any specific
feedback on poor service. He has certainly asked for it to be provided
when posters on other London Bus groups have made negative comments
about customer service by the conductors. I would also think First
London would wish to know about instances on the 9 as well.

However, to my mind, the Bendies should be heavily targetted by Inspectors.
I rather suspect that, as is human nature, the Inspectors go for 'easy
targets' - ie nice quiet suburban routes - wherever possible. I'm willing to
be proven wrong here, however. I use bendies maybe twice a week, and have
never been asked to produce my ticket since the Red Arrow 507 went over in
2002(?).

I think I have been inspected on a bendy and I have certainly witnessed
"mass" ticket checks on them as well. In terms of other inspections I
have been checked on central area routes and also at 06.35 on my local
route in North East London. The proportion is not huge given that I use
buses almost every day of the week but checks do occur. I would agree
that there would be no harm at all if checks were more intensive as a
general rule across the whole network.

The counter argument, of course, is that pre-payment is now so high in
London and that so many forms of fraud have been removed by structural
changes you can argue just how effective a big effort would be. We have
flat fares so no over-riding, we have one bus zone so no "out of zone"
season ticket fraud, Travelcards are valid on all buses so rail zones
are irrelevant, all Oyster personalised and registered cards can be
barred from use, smartcard technology facilitates sophisticated fraud
analysis, Oyster checking helps the driver detect out of date or out of
value cards more readily and children travel free. This really only
leaves out of date passes / permits, forgeries and stolen cards, non
validated cards on cashless routes and blatant non payment - again
probably only on cashless / heritage routes to any level as drivers
check on all other routes. Many people complain about the London fare
structure but it many ways the policy is ingenious in that it has
designed out the opportunity for many frauds to be committed.

It will be interesting to see what the revenue protection philosophy
will be for an entirely cashless network as drivers will be unable to
assist passengers "on vehicle". I remain to be convinced that on a
practical level a fully cashless London network can work.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!