Solar Penguin wrote:

Better still for the TOCs to adopt a zone to zone fare structure
rather than point to point bringing it in line with LUL.

And even better still for LUL to adopt point-to-point instead of all
that zone nonsense.

Why not be silly enough to suggest that London Buses go back to a system of
fare tables for each route? Remember zonal fares in London have been in
force for over 20 years now, the TOCs are the ones dragging their feet in
not fully adapting to a proper integrated fare structure which you'll find
commonplace in many European cities.

--
Phil Richards
London, UK
Home Page: http://www.philrichards1.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

--- Phil Richards said...
Solar Penguin wrote:

And even better still for LUL to adopt point-to-point instead of all
that zone nonsense.

Why not be silly enough to suggest that London Buses go back to a
system of fare tables for each route?

What's silly about that? In the present system, even if you just take a
*local* bus ride, just a couple of stops or so, you have to pay the same
as a journey the *whole length* of the bus route! Think how much money
you could save if you only paid for the short journey you actually
travel, instead of all those miles you don't!


Remember zonal fares in London have been in force for over 20
years now

And that's what scientists call "the Concorde fallacy", i.e. "We've been
trying, without any success, to make this thing work for so many years
now, that it's pointless to give up now, even though when we finally do
get something that works, it won't be worth all the effort we've put
into it!"

Face it, twenty years is *too* long. It's definitely time to get rid of
the zones by now. Long overdue in fact.


the TOCs are the ones dragging their feet in not fully adapting
to a proper integrated fare structure which you'll find
commonplace in many European cities.

We should have a proper integrated fare structure, true. But it should
be based on point-to-point fares, not zones.

Face facts, the zones are just a con to make us pay for distances we
haven't travelled. For example, you get on an East London Line train at
New Cross to travel across the river to Wapping. But you can't buy a
ticket to Wapping. Instead, you have to buy a Zone Two ticket that's
valid beyond Wapping, all the way to Bromley-by-Bow! And no chance of
getting a refund on the unused portion of your ticket.

Another example, you have a choice of fast Metropolitan Line trains or
slow Jubilee Line trains when travelling from Wembley Park to Baker
Street. Common sense says that the faster trains should be more
expensive. That way, any customers who want to save money can use the
cheaper, slower trains. But because of the stupid zonal system, we all
end up paying to travel on the Metropolitan trains, with no option for a
cheaper ticket.

Yes, the zones work for maximising LUL's profit, but are crap at giving
good value to customers. No truly fair fares can ever come out of it.
(Admittedly, the NR TOCs aren't always fair in practice either, but at
least a fair point-to-point system could be made. That's impossible
with a zonal system, and always will be.)

On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 10:16:48 -0000, "Solar Penguin"
wrote:

What's silly about that? In the present system, even if you just take a
*local* bus ride, just a couple of stops or so, you have to pay the same
as a journey the *whole length* of the bus route! Think how much money
you could save if you only paid for the short journey you actually
travel, instead of all those miles you don't!

I'd agree with that, but I think a more sensible arrangement (less
complex, and easier to understand, while fairer) would be to have a
few levels of fares defined either in terms of the Zones or in the way
some European systems do - by having a "short journey" ticket for
journeys involving no changes and up to a set number of stops in
addition to the full price ticket.

Face it, twenty years is *too* long. It's definitely time to get rid of
the zones by now. Long overdue in fact.

I disagree, and most European transport operations would also do so.

We should have a proper integrated fare structure, true. But it should
be based on point-to-point fares, not zones.

Face facts, the zones are just a con to make us pay for distances we
haven't travelled. snip

Do you know how the point-to-point fares system on, say, National Rail
works?

The answer is that it is based on a system of "key stations" for
longer-distance fares. Thus, a local station will have fares to
destinations within a limited radius of itself. It will then have key
stations from which it gains its longer-distance fares, which may
themselves have key stations from which they gain even longer-distance
fares. Often, there is no add-on fare for the additional distance
between the origin and the key station, or no discount for the
distance not travelled to the key station.

It would be a nightmare to manage a full set of separate fares to and
from every station on the National Rail system without doing this
unless we went to a kilometric system. There are arguments for this,
of course, but it too has its disadvantages.

Fare stages on buses have disadvantages as well - let's say there are
two bus routes from a city to a given estate or village, but one takes
a bit longer than another by going via a number of other estates. The
shorter journey is cheaper because there are fewer fare stages passed.
Why should the passenger be penalised for taking the longer route?
All most passengers want to do is travel from A to B as quickly as
feasible at their given departure/arrival time. The product being
sold is movement from A to B, not the actual bus ride, and traditional
fare stages are often incompatible with that.

Another example, you have a choice of fast Metropolitan Line trains or
slow Jubilee Line trains when travelling from Wembley Park to Baker
Street. Common sense says that the faster trains should be more
expensive.

Why?

In my mind, an integrated city transport system should involve modes
feeding modes with a single fare structure. The fare for a given
journey should be for the optimum journey, which in the case above is
the faster service. On a journey originating off LUL, that may
involve a combination of train, bus, tram and Tube.

"Encouraging" people to travel on slower services is only sensible
where the fast service is much more overcrowded than the slower one,
and it works both ways. Indeed, Virgin Trains used to have a cheaper
specific fare from Macclesfield to Manchester (they may still do) to
fill empty seats. This made it *cheaper* than the local service.

Indeed, I'd simplify it further to one fare set for all modes. A
single ticket (be it zonal or based on short/normal journey length)
would be valid by all modes for as many changes as required to
complete the single journey. To protect against fraud it could have a
time limit (say you must be on the last mode within 2 hours).

Separate bus and Tube fares only make sense in the context of wanting
to attract people off a crowded Tube, and even then (there is some
justification there) I find it ridiculous that one is effectively
penalised (unless using a one day bus pass or ODTC) for using
connections on buses or using a bus and a Tube. This is particularly
pertinent if there is no direct bus service between the start and end
of a given journey, because the passenger is being penalised because
TfL won't provide a direct bus, not for any fault of their own.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

Solar Penguin wrote to uk.transport.london on Sun, 9 Jan 2005:


What's silly about that? In the present system, even if you just take a
*local* bus ride, just a couple of stops or so, you have to pay the same
as a journey the *whole length* of the bus route! Think how much money
you could save if you only paid for the short journey you actually
travel, instead of all those miles you don't!

Which has been the case in many European cities for a great number of
years now.
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 2 January 2005

On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 10:16:48 -0000, "Solar Penguin"
wrote:


What's silly about that? In the present system, even if you just take a
*local* bus ride, just a couple of stops or so, you have to pay the same
as a journey the *whole length* of the bus route! Think how much money
you could save if you only paid for the short journey you actually
travel, instead of all those miles you don't!


Fraud was a significant problem under this system. In particular,
over-riding - passenger paying for £1.20 journey but travelling beyond
the end of their ticket.


Rob.
--
rob at robertwoolley dot co dot uk

On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 10:16:48 -0000, "Solar Penguin"
wrote:


--- Phil Richards said...
Solar Penguin wrote:

And even better still for LUL to adopt point-to-point instead of all
that zone nonsense.

Why not be silly enough to suggest that London Buses go back to a
system of fare tables for each route?

What's silly about that? In the present system, even if you just take a
*local* bus ride, just a couple of stops or so, you have to pay the same
as a journey the *whole length* of the bus route! Think how much money
you could save if you only paid for the short journey you actually
travel, instead of all those miles you don't!


Remember zonal fares in London have been in force for over 20
years now

And that's what scientists call "the Concorde fallacy", i.e. "We've been
trying, without any success, to make this thing work for so many years
now, that it's pointless to give up now, even though when we finally do
get something that works, it won't be worth all the effort we've put
into it!"

Face it, twenty years is *too* long. It's definitely time to get rid of
the zones by now. Long overdue in fact.

I completely disagree. It would be mad to get rid of the zonal system.
The old point to point system was hugely complicated and very costly to
run - both in terms of administration but also in terms of ticket
issuing times. Even with an electronic system as we have now it would
be worse than the current relatively simple structure.

It would also be much harder for passengers to understand and you would
certainly struggle to have innovative features like pre-pay discounts,
counter peak direction discounts or modal through tickets.

We should have a proper integrated fare structure, true. But it should
be based on point-to-point fares, not zones.

Face facts, the zones are just a con to make us pay for distances we
haven't travelled. For example, you get on an East London Line train at
New Cross to travel across the river to Wapping. But you can't buy a
ticket to Wapping. Instead, you have to buy a Zone Two ticket that's
valid beyond Wapping, all the way to Bromley-by-Bow! And no chance of
getting a refund on the unused portion of your ticket.

Sorry but why do you imagine that your fare to Wapping would be less in
the future than it is today. All that would happen would be that fares
would rise overall to deal with the mileage and related cost that you
cling to as some sort of justification for adopting point to points. In
the case of NR fares almost all PTPs are far more expensive than the
Tube equivalent. The only case where this does not apply is with cheap
day tickets where discounts are different to those on LU or with
operator specific tickets.

Another example, you have a choice of fast Metropolitan Line trains or
slow Jubilee Line trains when travelling from Wembley Park to Baker
Street. Common sense says that the faster trains should be more
expensive. That way, any customers who want to save money can use the
cheaper, slower trains. But because of the stupid zonal system, we all
end up paying to travel on the Metropolitan trains, with no option for a
cheaper ticket.

But there is no justification at all for differentiating fares like this
on an urban railway system. It is also completely and utterly
unenforceable. To use your theoretical basis Turnham Green would have
to have two sets of fares to everywhere to deal with the fact that for a
tiny part (early and late) of the day super fast Piccadilly Line trains
stop. These are traditionally off peak times when fares would be cheaper
but in your version they would be more expensive than the slow chug
along District Line which provides the service at the height of the peak
- the most expensive time of the day. Lunacy!

Yes, the zones work for maximising LUL's profit, but are crap at giving
good value to customers. No truly fair fares can ever come out of it.
(Admittedly, the NR TOCs aren't always fair in practice either, but at
least a fair point-to-point system could be made. That's impossible
with a zonal system, and always will be.)

What profit? This is nothing to do with profit maximisation - if it was
then LU fares would be far higher than they are now. This is about
trying to price on the basis of a relatively simple system which charges
more for travel in the most congested part of the network (Zone 1) which
also providing tickets that will encourage usage and mobility in the off
peak. Whether you like it or not I cannot envisage the day when a zonal
basis for fares in London will be abolished. The public hostility would
be too great as it would be seen as a step towards abolition of
Travelcard which is a politically protected product under the rail
privatisation legislation.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

"Solar Penguin" wrote in message
...

What's silly about that? In the present system, even if you just take a
*local* bus ride, just a couple of stops or so, you have to pay the same
as a journey the *whole length* of the bus route! Think how much money
you could save if you only paid for the short journey you actually
travel, instead of all those miles you don't!

But this is one of the great strengths of a zonal fares system: it
encourages people to walk instead of clogging up PT for short journeys.

D A Stocks

Better still for the TOCs to adopt a zone to zone fare structure rather
than point to point bringing it in line with LUL.
Won't that alienate the people who pay less for their tickets under a point
to point system who stand to use if zones are imposed?

Not that the TOCs care about the way people feel ...

D

On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 19:52:57 -0000, "Dave Plumb"
wrote:

Won't that alienate the people who pay less for their tickets under a point
to point system who stand to use if zones are imposed?

Some will lose and some will gain. In my mind, like the German model,
it makes perfect sense for a local transport authority to have
responsibility for setting the fares[1] on all local public transport
services, whatever the type, so I am all for it.

[1] *All* fares, with the transport companies not being permitted to
offer alternatives. Most PTEs offer their own seasons, as of course
do TfL, but users of single fares don't benefit from this.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

"Neil Williams" wrote:

Some will lose and some will gain. In my mind, like the German model,
it makes perfect sense for a local transport authority to have
responsibility for setting the fares[1] on all local public transport
services, whatever the type, so I am all for it.

I guess it's fair if you'd use the extra validity you might gain. I have a
point to point into zone 2 and then a 2 zone Oyster, which suits my travel
pattern and gives me travel where I use it, £370 a year less than the
equivalent "all zones" card for my station (from outside the zones). If they
zone out as far as planned I will pay more and get travel to areas I don't
travel to.

The TfL plan is good, if it irons out anomolies like zone 3 - london
terminals ranging from £1.70-£3.70
(http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/downloads/...uthority-propo
sal.pdf) and the roll out of Oyster and prepay to NR - but I think the
current zones are big enough, to introduce more won't help anyone.

Dave