On Mon, 27 Sep 2009, Michael R N Dolbear wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote

Moreover (or perhaps lessover, YMMV), there is a general principle that
people should be able to tell how much something will cost before they
commit to paying for it. Yes, tube trips are cheap. Tinned tomatoes are
cheap too. How would you feel about Tesco taking the price labels off
the shelf?

Hee !

Once upon a time people complained when the cans/ packages no longer
had price stickers on them.

You don't commit to paying Tesco until you accept the price they ring
up - you can refuse or indeed say "that's not the price /on the shelf/
/in your advertisement/ whatever"

Some stores (eg ASDA, Argos) have scattered customer terminals at which
you can scan/check the code and be shown the price.

(And canned tomatoes have gone up by 50% - due to the rise in the
Euro).
----

So one answer for TfL is to provide the fare finder on ticket machines
at every station and indeed there have been suggestions that the TfL
journey planner should provide the cost and a "cheapest" option.

I can just see the Amazon style emails - "we have noticed that you
often xxx many customers do yyy and get a faster journey at a lower
price".

It's probably too much to hope for TfL to do free delivery (of me),
though.

tom

--
If a scientist were to cut his ear off, no one would take it as evidence
of heightened sensibility -- Peter Medawar