On Fri, 4 Mar 2016 09:48:57 +0000 (UTC), d wrote:

On Thu, 3 Mar 2016 17:37:24 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
Jarle Hammen Knudsen wrote:
On Wed, 02 Mar 2016 23:27:16 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:

Will you get to see bendy buses on the streets of London again?

Doubtful and to be honest it's not important.
[...]
We need to get away from an obsession with vehicle types or some
aspect of them and concentrate on adding capacity where it is needed,

The environmental aspect is pretty important! Wouldn't running bendies
generate less polution for the same passenger capacity than using
double-deckers?

Why?

When both are full theres a greater number of passengers per unit mass of
the vehicle on a bendy. Hence more efficient.

Is that so? What data did you base that on?

I'm not an expert, but what I can see says that there's hardly any
difference. I calculate that a fully loaded Scania double-decker
carries about 8.6 pax per tonne of kerb weight, and a Mercedes Citaro
Bendy carries about 8.8. Do you have better figures?

That's too small to have any measurable difference on emissions. And
that's before you add in the emissions from Citaro spontaneous
combustion...

In message , at 14:01:07 on
Fri, 4 Mar 2016, Paul Corfield remarked:

There's a rural bus service where I live that the council is proposing
to ask passengers-with-twirly-cards to pay the fare one day a week, in
order to provide enough funding to keep it running at all.

I believe that is illegal. It's been raised with the DfT before and
they've said "no".

Is illegal to ask for a voluntary contribution? All the old folks have
to do is leave their twirly-card at home, and take a couple of quid onto
the bus (it runs once an hour, afternoons only).
--
Roland Perry

On Fri, 04 Mar 2016 13:57:51 +0000
Recliner wrote:
On Fri, 4 Mar 2016 09:48:57 +0000 (UTC), d wrote:

On Thu, 3 Mar 2016 17:37:24 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
Jarle Hammen Knudsen wrote:
On Wed, 02 Mar 2016 23:27:16 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:

Will you get to see bendy buses on the streets of London again?

Doubtful and to be honest it's not important.
[...]
We need to get away from an obsession with vehicle types or some
aspect of them and concentrate on adding capacity where it is needed,

The environmental aspect is pretty important! Wouldn't running bendies
generate less polution for the same passenger capacity than using
double-deckers?

Why?

When both are full theres a greater number of passengers per unit mass of
the vehicle on a bendy. Hence more efficient.

Is that so? What data did you base that on?

12 ton double decker , max pax 88
16 ton bendy, max pax 149.

You do the maths.

--
Spud

On 2016-03-04 12:21:41 +0000, Paul Corfield said:

Oh come on. There is a cost to effectively reducing fares for people.

There is - it is an increase for others so that people are effectively
sharing the cost more reasonably rather than some being penalised twice.

It's a not unduly complicated calculation, and should be possible to
obtain from the Oyster data to establish what the new, slightly higher
transfer fare should be.

I suspect users would rather keep their services
even if they had to pay a bit more to do so.

Once again, I am not suggesting a cut to the income from the bus
network. I am simply suggesting dividing it by the number of users
making a point to point journey, rather than by the numbers making a
single-bus journey. You could extrapolate to those using bus+Tube+bus
or similar.

It's just a case of - take the income TfL requires, divide it by the
number of end to end journeys made, and that gives you your fare. You
may want to scale it by zone, but that's not hard maths.

Yes, some will whine, but *overall it will be fairer*. It will open up
opportunities across the network for people who can all of a sudden
afford to use it as what it is - a network. And you will be able to
save a load of money and make the network easier to use overall by
removing pointless duplication. You'll even make everything
operationally easier in the event of disruption - no faffing about with
transfer tickets, no making sure everyone gets the right onward bus -
if a bus terminates short, it's simply a connection, and it costs nowt.
If you have to transfer from Tube to bus, because the Tube is not
running, touch in on the bus - free, it's a connection. Easy.

What's not to like, apart from a stubborn UK-centric view that if the
concept isn't invented here, it's wrong? The old objection used to be
revenue protection, but add Oyster/contactless and that goes away
completely.

Let's say we didn't have the Travelcard. Would you be one of those
arguing against what was and is an excellent concept, used worldwide,
and just needs expanding a bit into single fares?

Go and tell the Chancellor that please because he clearly doesn't
understand it. He does not believe that users should receive any form
of fares or service support. They should pay the economic cost of the
service or else they lose the service.

You can determine the economic cost of any public transport service in
any one of a number of ways. It can be by the whole network divided by
the number of journeys. It can be by route. It could even be by
individual journey.

It's just a pricing model. All I suggest is the abandonment of an
archaic, unfair model into one that befits a 21st century integrated
transport system. Subsidy has nothing to do with it; subsidy would be
added, if available, just to bring the fares down.

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

On 2016-03-04 12:32:30 +0000, Roland Perry said:

There's a rural bus service where I live that the council is proposing
to ask passengers-with-twirly-cards to pay the fare one day a week, in
order to provide enough funding to keep it running at all.

This is the problem with the free travel concept - it was unfunded from
day one. It has directly caused many of the cuts.

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

On 2016-03-04 14:01:07 +0000, Paul Corfield said:

Well people might learn that stuff doesn't come for free. Someone
pays. If you want good public services then pay your taxes and
pressure the government to make sure companies pay their proper share.
And yes I know that's all a bit simplistic but no one can be shocked
that a so called austerity programme of spending cuts means things
stop being done.

The problem being who makes those decisions. There is a *lot* of waste
going on in the public sector, but it isn't that that gets cut.

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

said

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.

It's just hit Cambridge where a route from the north, covering s string of
villages and the city has been cut back and no longer goes to the railway
station and hospital. There are plenty of buses its passengers can change
onto but no transfer fares unless they buy a day ticket.

Doesn't that also mean that concession bus payments in the city will go up ?

I made that objection to a Surrey CC proposal to rearrange subsidised
routes, they did it differently but I don't know if they took my reason on
board.


--
Mike D

In article , d () wrote:

On Thu, 3 Mar 2016 17:37:24 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
Jarle Hammen Knudsen wrote:
On Wed, 02 Mar 2016 23:27:16 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:

Will you get to see bendy buses on the streets of London again?

Doubtful and to be honest it's not important.
[...]
We need to get away from an obsession with vehicle types or some
aspect of them and concentrate on adding capacity where it is needed,

The environmental aspect is pretty important! Wouldn't running bendies
generate less polution for the same passenger capacity than using
double-deckers?

Why?

When both are full theres a greater number of passengers per unit mass of
the vehicle on a bendy. Hence more efficient.

That's one aspect, I agree, but not the whole story.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On 2016-03-04 08:03:22 +0000, Roland Perry said:

But a day ticket is the same price as a return, isn't it? Are there
a lot of people making one-way trips.

Personally, my main bus use at the moment is home to station for a
multi-day trip. For a one day trip, I will mostly cycle, but cycling
with a trolley case or large rucksack is not wonderfully practical.
To go into town I'm probably more likely to drive but may also cycle.
I don't commute when not working away because I work from home, so
that is out.

In Cambridge I would expect that effect to be even larger with the
predominance of the bicycle.

Precisely! My only difference is that as often as not on a day trip I take
the bike on the train with me, especially to central London.

--
Colin Rosenstiel
Cambridge

Neil Williams wrote:

On 2016-03-04 12:21:41 +0000, Paul Corfield said:

Oh come on. There is a cost to effectively reducing fares for
people.

There is - it is an increase for others so that people are
effectively sharing the cost more reasonably rather than some being
penalised twice.

It's a not unduly complicated calculation, and should be possible to
obtain from the Oyster data to establish what the new, slightly
higher transfer fare should be.

I suspect users would rather keep their services
even if they had to pay a bit more to do so.

Once again, I am not suggesting a cut to the income from the bus
network. I am simply suggesting dividing it by the number of users
making a point to point journey, rather than by the numbers making a
single-bus journey. You could extrapolate to those using
bus+Tube+bus or similar.

It's just a case of - take the income TfL requires, divide it by the
number of end to end journeys made, and that gives you your fare.
You may want to scale it by zone, but that's not hard maths.

Yes, some will whine, but *overall it will be fairer*. It will open
up opportunities across the network for people who can all of a
sudden afford to use it as what it is - a network. And you will be
able to save a load of money and make the network easier to use
overall by removing pointless duplication. You'll even make
everything operationally easier in the event of disruption - no
faffing about with transfer tickets, no making sure everyone gets the
right onward bus - if a bus terminates short, it's simply a
connection, and it costs nowt. If you have to transfer from Tube to
bus, because the Tube is not running, touch in on the bus - free,
it's a connection. Easy.

That depends how you define "fair". You could equally say that it is
unfair that a journey of a few stops would cost the same as a a three
bus journey from one side of London to the other.

Peter Smyth