In article , d () wrote:

On Thu, 3 Mar 2016 11:26:36 +0000
Neil Williams wrote:
On 2016-03-03 10:53:48 +0000, d said:

They certainly can be cavalier with the rules of the road. Whether
they're have a big effect on buses on oxford street I don't know. I
suspect the main issue is the sheer number of buses themselves. Far too
many routes going down one street.

Agreed there. The other aspect of the German approach is that there
are very rarely duplications of routes.

People happily change trains on the Tube, it's normal practice, even
though they have to walk far further than between two adjacent bus
stops when they do. If we packed in the archaic practice of
deprecating the changing of buses by charging a double fare when you
do, we could design a central London bus network that complemented the
Tube and was comprehensive and simple to understand.

Would be easy - though costly - to implement too. Have a touch out
reader on the bus for people wanting to interchange to a different
route then have a timeout of say 30 mins for them to get the next bus.

Support Caroline Pigeon for Mayor. She's been calling for a 1 hour bus
ticket for at least 4 years. Do any other countries not have tickets which
can be transferred?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 2016-03-03 11:48:29 +0000, d said:

Would be easy - though costly - to implement too. Have a touch out reader on
the bus for people wanting to interchange to a different route then have a
timeout of say 30 mins for them to get the next bus.

Don't even need that complexity. Just allow a second touch-in free
within, say, 1.5-2 hours of a touch in, with any further touch-in
restarting the clock. The odd person would get to do a return-half
journey for nothing, and somebody would no doubt stop a bus, touch in
and alight to restart the clock deliberately, but it would be so few
and such short journeys that the effect would be marginal.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

On 2016-03-03 13:04:50 +0000, said:

Support Caroline Pigeon for Mayor. She's been calling for a 1 hour bus
ticket for at least 4 years. Do any other countries not have tickets which
can be transferred?

Paris, notably. But the French are hardly kings of integrated transport.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

On 03/03/2016 14:32, Neil Williams wrote:

On 2016-03-03 11:48:29 +0000, d said:

Would be easy - though costly - to implement too. Have a touch out
reader on the bus for people wanting to interchange to a different
route then have a timeout of say 30 mins for them to get the next
bus.

Don't even need that complexity. Just allow a second touch-in free
within, say, 1.5-2 hours of a touch in, with any further touch-in
restarting the clock. The odd person would get to do a return-half
journey for nothing, and somebody would no doubt stop a bus, touch in
and alight to restart the clock deliberately, but it would be so few and
such short journeys that the effect would be marginal.


No need for that level of complexity - you already said it, "a second
touch-in free" - i.e. one free transfer - within a time limit. No people
'restarting the clock' like that.

This 'one free transfer' already exists on Croydon Tramlink, within a 70
minute time window. It also exists between the tram and buses and v.v.
in New Addington (at the southern extremity of the tram network) - it
used to be between T-prefixed tram feeder routes (and a few others I
think) but the bus network around there was rejigged very recently so
there aren't any more T-routes, instead the free transfer is on offer
for a number of local routes...

https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/fares/bus-and-tram

---quote---
Both pay as you go and paper single tickets cover one transfer made
between trams, or between trams and connecting bus routes 64, 130, 314,
353, 359, 433 and 464 (made within 70 minutes of touching in to pay as
you go at the start of your journey, or within 90 minutes of buying a
paper single ticket).
---/quote---


(The paper single tickets in question are those still available from
tram stop ticket machines... I wonder if the days of said machines might
be numbered though...)

However, as Paul C said earlier, TfL's budget is really tight and it's
going to remain that way for some time to come - free bus transfers
would come at a cost one way or another.

On Thu, 3 Mar 2016 14:45:58 +0000, Mizter T
wrote:


On 03/03/2016 14:32, Neil Williams wrote:

On 2016-03-03 11:48:29 +0000, d said:

Would be easy - though costly - to implement too. Have a touch out
reader on the bus for people wanting to interchange to a different
route then have a timeout of say 30 mins for them to get the next
bus.

Don't even need that complexity. Just allow a second touch-in free
within, say, 1.5-2 hours of a touch in, with any further touch-in
restarting the clock. The odd person would get to do a return-half
journey for nothing, and somebody would no doubt stop a bus, touch in
and alight to restart the clock deliberately, but it would be so few and
such short journeys that the effect would be marginal.


No need for that level of complexity - you already said it, "a second
touch-in free" - i.e. one free transfer - within a time limit. No people
'restarting the clock' like that.

This 'one free transfer' already exists on Croydon Tramlink, within a 70
minute time window. It also exists between the tram and buses and v.v.
in New Addington (at the southern extremity of the tram network) - it
used to be between T-prefixed tram feeder routes (and a few others I
think) but the bus network around there was rejigged very recently so
there aren't any more T-routes, instead the free transfer is on offer
for a number of local routes...

https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/fares/bus-and-tram

---quote---
Both pay as you go and paper single tickets cover one transfer made
between trams, or between trams and connecting bus routes 64, 130, 314,
353, 359, 433 and 464 (made within 70 minutes of touching in to pay as
you go at the start of your journey, or within 90 minutes of buying a
paper single ticket).
---/quote---


(The paper single tickets in question are those still available from
tram stop ticket machines... I wonder if the days of said machines might
be numbered though...)

However, as Paul C said earlier, TfL's budget is really tight and it's
going to remain that way for some time to come - free bus transfers
would come at a cost one way or another.

Yup, bus fares would have to rise for everyone to cover the loss of
revenue from those taking two or more buses for their journey.

On 03/03/2016 14:33, Neil Williams wrote:

On 2016-03-03 13:04:50 +0000, said:

Support Caroline Pigeon for Mayor. She's been calling for a 1 hour bus
ticket for at least 4 years. Do any other countries not have tickets
which can be transferred?

Paris, notably. But the French are hardly kings of integrated transport.


You're out of date - Paris *does* have tickets which allow bus to bus
transfer (and also bus-tram and tram-tram). It's the standard "ticket t+":
http://www.ratp.fr/fr/ratp/c_21158/ticket-t/

The time window is 1hr 30mins between first and last validation.

If however you buy a ticket on board a bus (€2, a 20 cent premium) then
it offers no transfer validity. Of course in London you can't buy a
ticket on the bus.

Elsewhere in France I've come across bus tickets which offer free
transfers, both city and longer distance Departement buses.

On Thu, 3 Mar 2016 14:45:58 +0000
Mizter T wrote:
On 03/03/2016 14:32, Neil Williams wrote:

On 2016-03-03 11:48:29 +0000, d said:

Would be easy - though costly - to implement too. Have a touch out
reader on the bus for people wanting to interchange to a different
route then have a timeout of say 30 mins for them to get the next
bus.

Don't even need that complexity. Just allow a second touch-in free
within, say, 1.5-2 hours of a touch in, with any further touch-in
restarting the clock. The odd person would get to do a return-half
journey for nothing, and somebody would no doubt stop a bus, touch in
and alight to restart the clock deliberately, but it would be so few and
such short journeys that the effect would be marginal.


No need for that level of complexity - you already said it, "a second
touch-in free" - i.e. one free transfer - within a time limit. No people
'restarting the clock' like that.

Problem with that is that some bus journeys take a long time especially in
rush hour. So if you have a simple time out based on the touch-in time then
it could be exceeded by a long bus journey + wait for next bus. However if you
make it long enough to take account of all realistic scenarios you could have
people getting to their destination, doing their shopping/whatever and then
getting a free trip home again.

--
Spud

On 2016-03-03 14:45:58 +0000, Mizter T said:

No need for that level of complexity - you already said it, "a second
touch-in free" - i.e. one free transfer - within a time limit. No
people 'restarting the clock' like that.

Why only one? I can change as many times as I wish on a Tube journey.
It is not out of the question that the quickest way to do a particular
journey may be three buses (though four is heading towards the
proverbial goat herding), or Tube-bus-bus or bus-Tube-bus or whatever.

A single journey should be, like it is in Hamburg, a single journey.
No matter what you use to do it, it is one fare for a journey from
point A to point B.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

On 2016-03-03 15:11:18 +0000, Recliner said:

Yup, bus fares would have to rise for everyone to cover the loss of
revenue from those taking two or more buses for their journey.

They would, but they would be much fairer, because people would not get
a discount for TfL providing a direct bus for their journey - or rather
people would not be penalised again for TfL not providing a direct bus
for their journey.

The current system is *incredibly* unfair. It near enough works in
small towns where most journeys are to/from the city centre on one
direct bus, and usually if your journey requires crossing the city
centre it's roughly twice as far so charging twice as much is not all
that unreasonable. London is too big for that to work.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

On 2016-03-03 15:13:02 +0000, Mizter T said:

You're out of date - Paris *does* have tickets which allow bus to bus
transfer (and also bus-tram and tram-tram). It's the standard "ticket
t+":
http://www.ratp.fr/fr/ratp/c_21158/ticket-t/

What it doesn't do is allow bus-Metro, bus-Metro-bus or any similar options.

The point of an integrated city transport network is that you take a
journey using the modes available to you. The thing you are charged
for is the journey. It doesn't matter what modes you use.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.