On Jun 18, 4:00*pm, John B wrote:
As any fule kno, the southern TOCs are insisting on PAYG fares being
higher than Tube fares:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8107537.stm

But the BBC has managed to pick the most radically stupid example it
could possibly have chosen:

[begin quote]
For example, between Finsbury Park and King's Cross it costs £2.20 on
the Tube whereas it costs £4.00 on rail.
[end quote]

1) rail and tube tickets are interavailable between FPK and KGX
2) hence the fare is gbp4 because that's the Tube paper ticket fare
for a Z12 single journey
3) ...and Oyster PAYG is ALREADY VALID between FPK and KGX at the
gbp2.20 fare!

I despair...


Agreed - that is a *monumentally stupid* example.

A far better example would have been Balham (zone 3) to Victoria (zone
1). The Tube PAYG fare is £2.70/peak, £2.20/off-peak. A single rail
fare is £3.10 (within the London zones, all rail fares are conform to
the same fare scale and are all priced zonally, albeit issued on a
point-to-point basis).

This comment is interesting:
---quote---
The mayor said that although he "shared the aspiration" for a single
unified pay-as-you-go scale across London, fares on national rail
services in London are set by the train operators.
---/quote---

Well, not quite - as I've said, rail fares across London all now
conform to the same zonal fare scale as decreed by DfT Rail - this
change was implemented in January '07 as a precursor to the (eventual)
acceptance of Oyster PAYG on NR in London. TfL got DfT to make that
change - presumably however the TOCs got some input into setting these
base fares in 2007, and since then these fares have risen with
inflation (though I suppose the TOCs could lobby an acquiescent
government to raise them above a mere keeping-pace-with-inflation
increase).

Anyway one can only assume it is this fare scale that the TOCs want to
use for their Oyster PAYG on NR fares - which hardly comes as any big
surprise to be honest. Presumably there's no mechanism for the DfT
insisting upon the TOCs offering lower fares for Oyster PAYG journeys
(even if the DfT were so minded to do, which they wouldn't be)...
unless the DfT unilaterally changed the underlying zonal fare scale
for rail fares in London (i.e. to match the Tube PAYG fare scale), but
I'd assume that when these were introduced, the deal agreed between
the DfT and the TOCs was that (excluding inflation tracking changes)
this fare scale could only change by mutual agreement - and the TOCs
are hardly going to agree to lower fares.

Plus the TOCs were never going to be happy about effectively handing
over control of their fares to the Mayor, which is what a universal
fare scale for London could ensue - unless there was a mechanism
devised whereby both TfL and NR had an input into deciding the
universal fare scale. But one can imagine them pulling in opposite
directions - the TOCs wanting to raise fares, the Mayor wanting to
hold them steady or lower them (see Ken holding Tube fares at the same
level from one year to the next). Even if the Mayor was open to
putting up fares, I can see a distinct unwillingness to surrender the
ability to directly set fares to a new mechanism whereby said fares
were negotiated by TfL and the TOCs together - setting fares is one of
the direct levers the Mayor has, and it's something that has a direct
effect on Londonders who use TfL services (i.e. a good proportion of
one's electorate).