On Mar 6, 10:39*am, 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.

Takeup of PAYG is offered as proof that people find it useful and
convenient, totally ignoring the fact that its introduction
corresponded to a huge hiking of cash fares. Of course people use it;
they are punished with what are effectively penalty fares if they
don't.

The reason why people are "clamouring for it to be extended" is to end
the injustice of being punished to coerce them to do something that
they can't actually do (except by moving house). The resentment isn't
going to be forgotten lightly.

A combination of Travelcards, bus passes, reasonably priced zone
extensions and a reasonable attitude from TfL would do the job just as
well, and still could without the extension of PAYG.