Dave Liney wrote:

"Richard J." wrote in message
. uk...
Dave Liney wrote:

(snip)

Not that I mind TfL staff travelling free; compared to the cost of
the Oyster bribery fares it's a raindrop in the ocean of subsidy of
London's public transport.

What are you talking about? London has probably the least subsidised
public transport of any comparable capital city.

Sorry. I thought it was obvious that I was talking about the Oyster fares
being so much lower than non-Oyster fares for the same journey. Regardless
of the relative level of subsidy it will have an impact on the actual
amount. If the Oyster discount were tens of pence it could be seen as a
discount for a less staff-intensive and reusable ticket but, with it being
60% for Z1 tickets and children's prices set where the Oyster daily cap is
actually less than a single cash journey, it looks like a tax on the
ignorant. Not allowing one day travelcards to be loaded on Oyster also
knocks out the argument that it helps reduce the number of paper tickets.


I'm not going to get involved in the rest of the argument, but instead
address the single point you make at the end of the above paragraph
regarding Day Travelcards and the fact they can't be loaded on Oyster.

There is already a semi-equivalent of Day Travelcards available on
Oyster - it is the daily price capping that kicks in at various levels
when pax are using Oyster PAYG. True, this is only available where
PAYG is accepted - i.e. the LU network, London buses, Tramlink and a
very limited number of National Rail (NR) routes.

And yes, technically speaking the system would be capable of being
configured so that an Oyster card could play host to a Day Travelcard.

However this would just cause *massive confusion* between the Day
Travelcard product and the daily capping product. Apart from the paper
saved from not using paper ticket stock, there'd not really be any
benefit from this arrangement either (apart from the possibility of
some spectacularly confusing and complex arrangement where pax could
use PAYG to extend their journeys to other zones not covered by their
Day Travelcard, but only do so on routes that accepted PAYG - which
would be a nightmarish muddle).

Anyway the TfL master plan is to get Oyster PAYG accepted on all NR
routes in London, in which case daily price capping would apply on all
these routes and there'd no longer be any real distinction between a
priced capped Oyster card (used in PAYG mode) and a Day Travelcard.

Additionally TfL has never claimed that saving paper as one of the
primary reasons for promoting Oyster. It has stated that this is a
secondary benefit, but it's never really shouted about it from the
rooftops.