Tom Barry wrote:

solar penguin wrote:

Whenever it starts, it'll be weird to have PAYG finally becoming at
least vaguely useful, rather than just an awkward and inconvenient
replacement for Savers bus tickets like it is at present. But
somehow I can't imagine it ever happening. I mean, what are the
cahnces of pepole running and working in public transport ever doing
something vaguely useful for their customers...?



Meanwhile, in the real world, PAYG is extremely useful and has made
travelling by tube and bus much more pleasant*. Face it, if people
*didn't* find it useful and convenient we wouldn't be clamouring for
it to be extended to National Rail, would we?

It's not particularly hard to pretend that people running public
transport do nothing useful when you ignore the useful things they do.

Tom

* Example: I'm travelling from Ealing Broadway to Hammersmith. I get
a phone call from some friends in a pub in Piccadilly Circus and
decide to alter my plans and go for a swift half. If, back in the
day, I'd bought an Ealing to Hammersmith ticket, I'm screwed, I have
to get off at Hammersmith and buy a new one. Now I'm using PAYG, I
just change onto the Piccadilly and go on my merry way. That's a
change that's made my life just that little bit less regulated by
someone else.

In your real world, maybe. But in _my_ real world, I'd have had to
already get a one-day travelcard to get to Ealing Broadway in the first
place, so I would just use that to go to Piccadilly Circus.

(And that's assuming I decided to drop whatever important things I was
going to Hammersmith to do in the first place just to go see those
friends instead. After all, I can see them any time. It's more likely
I'd make my appologies and arrange to meet them some other time when it
would be convenient for all of us.)