On Wed, 02 Feb 2011 21:41:04 +0000, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Wed, 2 Feb 2011 04:15:47 -0800 (PST), George
wrote:


Yes it does seem appalling that people in Northants face losing their
bus services whilst TfL continue to throw good money after bad on Hybrid
buses not too mention the Oystercard system which seems to be attracting
more and more complaints from rail users about being overcharged,
although I'll admit it does generally work well on buses where a flat
fare is deducted on entry.


I assume you will also throw in the Borismaster to the "waste of money"
category as it is planned to be a hybrid vehicle?

Everyone - except Boris himself and his cronies - thinks the Borismaster
is a "waste of money". But that's nothing to do with whether it's a
hybrid.


Strange that you decry Oyster and yet every large city and many counties
want something similar. Are Go North East, Metrobus, Brighton and Hove
and Trent Barton also wasting their time in investing in smart card
systems for their services?

From the customer's POV, that probably all depends on whether those smart
cards are as awkward and unreliable as Oyster. I suspect that, like
Oyster, they'll be just about adequate for simple, flat-fare bus
journeys, but an utter nightmare for anything more complicated.

OTOH from the authorities' POV, these smart cards are really just
something that helps them spy on our movements for their own secret
purposes. As long as that happens, they've not been "wasting their
time", no matter how much it costs us.