On May 31, 2:54*pm, "Andrew Heenan" wrote:

[snip]

The eventual outcome will almost certainly be that all fares totally within
the zones will be based on the TfL system, and at a common price; journeys
reaching outside the zones will continue as now - and, either way, the
Railway_Clearing_House's successors *will continue to divide the spondulux
successfully they have continuously since 1842 on the national network.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Clearing_House

Wow, Andrew - you do so love bringing a confident sense of certainty
when there's no real justification for it, and hence you end up making
wrongheaded assumptions or jumping to simplistic conclusions.

Re the idea that "all fares within the zones will be based on the TfL
system" - in actual fact there's been some evidence to suggest that
when Oyster PAYG is accepted across NR in London, the farescale
adopted for single fares will be exactly the same as that which
currently applies to NR in London (which is now uniform across all
TOCs for journeys within the zones) - in other words Oyster PAYG won't
offer a straightforward price advantage over buying paper tickets, and
it will be more expensive than Tube PAYG fares.

In particular this appeared on the Southeastern TOC's website until
very recently - it ain't there any more as the website has been
redesigned, but that doesn't mean it no longer applies:

---quote---
27. Do you accept Oyster cards on your network?

We do already accept season tickets on Oyster on our network (within
the valid zones) but we do not currently accept Oyster pay as you go
(PAYG). We are working with Transport for London (TfL) to introduce
PAYG which requires significant investment with additional validators
needed, automatic ticket gates at some stations, etc. It's envisaged
we'll be able to introduce Oyster PAYG sometime in 2010. But it's
important to say that Oyster PAYG will not be cheaper than our usual
rail fares.
---/quote---

You can still see this via Google's cache of the page (accurate as of
16 May '09):
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache....co.uk/faq.php

We shall see what happens in the end, but I'd be *very* surprised to
see the PAYG farescale for LU and NR being the same - it's not really
in the interests of the TOCs who would be subject to pressure from the
Mayor over fares changes (and the Mayor might well be looking more at
the LU situation with regards to fares, given the Mayor's direct
control of LU), and also the Mayor wouldn't like it as (s)he'd have
less freedom of manoeuvre with regards to LU fares if they also
applied to NR as well as the TOCs and DfT would want a say. (Sure, NR
fares in London are already set centrally - but by DfT Rail, not TfL -
it is done in consultation with TfL, but the TOCs also have an input,
and this arrangement is less subject to fares becoming a bit of a
political football as they could be under the Mayor.)

Re the Railway Clearing House reference - the Rail Settlement Plan
(RSP), part of ATOC, currently divides up the money from rail tickets.
The division of Travelcard monies is more complicated, involving both
RSP and TfL. However the notion that RSP itself will divide up monies
from Oyster PAYG use in London doesn't appear to be backed up by
anything - sure, perhaps some of the formulas used by RSP will also be
used as a basis for divvying up money from the Oyster PAYG pot when it
comes to National Rail services, but TfL itself will be (as it already
is) the 'clearing house' when it comes to Oyster PAYG.


Whether TfL takes on more metro services is quite separate, and will (almost
inevitably) happen at some point.

Only if London, in the form of the Mayor, pushes for it. Ken was very
keen, Boris seems disinterested.


The only really interesting thing about the squabble is that it has
highlighted the variation in NR fares around London, and this has been used
as an excuse (for example) to further raise Southeastern's fares,
conveniently forgetting that the main reason that they're historically low,
is that they've generally provided a relatively poor, very slow service.


There are no variations now - all single and return rail-only fares
within London are priced on a zonal basis (though still issued on a
point-to-point basis) and have been since January 2007 - meanwhile
season ticket rail-only fares have been subject to a more gradual
process of alignment that started in January '07 and will be complete
at the January 2010 fares change.