On Dec 27, 8:55*am, "Martin Rich" wrote:
"Neil Williams" wrote in message

.net...

On Mon, 26 Dec 2011 19:43:18 -0800 (PST), wrote:
Are London buses exact fare?

No, though in London it is "buy before you board" in the central area.
But most use Oyster anyway.

Exact change policies are generally considered passenger unfriendly in the
UK, and are practiced only by a minority of bus operators.

As you say, it's a minority but there also seem to be regional variations..
Like another poster in u.t.l I've encountered exact change policies in the
West Midlands and also in Scotland.

Until roughly 1970, bus drivers in major cities gave change so
passengers didn't need to have the exact fare in cash. *But holdups
pushed transit carriers to go exact fare.

Not in the UK, where change being given is the norm.

From the late 1960s in London the 'Red Arrow' routes in the centre, and some
busy routes elsewhere in London, adopted an exact change policy along with
use of a flat fare, at a time when other routes charged fares that varied
according to the distance that a passenger was travelling. *So if you
boarded a bus 200 (traditional London fare system) at Wimbledon station,
you'd pay one fare if you were simply travelling the short hop to the top of
Wimbledon Hill, a higher fare if you were continuing once the bus continued
along Ridgway, and so on. *But if you boarded a 501 (Red Arrow) at Waterloo,
you'd pay a fixed amount irrespective of whether you were taking a short hop
across Waterloo Bridge, or continuing to Holborn or beyond. *However my
recollection is that this was done to speed boarding, not because of concern
over security for drivers.

NJT, which runs the buses throughout the state, uses a zone fare
system -- $1.50 for a short trip; a one-seat ride from in front of my
house in Jersey City to the 40th St. Port Authority Bus Terminal is
three zones (which is some non-even fare -- I haven't done it since
the base fare went up from $1.25 a while back), exact change cityward,
but to board in NYC, the signs say, you now _must_ stop at the ticket
booth on the ground floor before proceeding to the gate. (I did that
the couple of times I traveled that way -- it's really only convenient
to the theater district; if you have to add a subway fare in the city,
it's not economical -- the ticket booth clerks were very nasty -- but
other people boarded with simply cash. The driver doesn't check
receipts when one disembarks, though probably is supposed to.)

Some long-distance runs, such as Journal Square in Jersey City all the
way to Hackensack, are treated as local city runs, making regular
stops along the streets in JC with regular city buses. I think a few
commuter-bus-served routes leave from JSQ also that go down toward the
Shore. (Though the latest model of city bus has pretty nice padded
seats, and actual straps -- woven webbing like backpack straps --
rather than metal loops for standees to hold.)