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Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 13:28:20 +0000 (UTC), Stephen Osborn
wrote: Every can of beans / newspaper / magazine / item of clothing / etc you buy is individually priced and you cope with that don't you. Yes, but there is enough room in your average shop for all these items to be out on display. With a probable average of, say, 5 or 6 ticket types per relation (which would be N(N-1) where N is the number of stations on the national system, or on LUL, as applicable), that ain't practical. Even in the days of Edmondson (sp?) tickets, there was duplication - I have somewhere a ticket from Liverpool Central to "any station bounded by Rainford, Aughton Park or Formby" (or something like that). 2. AFAIK, the reason, AFAIK, that fares structure takes 7 volumes or whatever and it takes an age to buy a ticket is that BR had made thousands of special terminal in the 1970s and these are what are still being used by counter staff today. The memory capacity of these is very limited indeed. The complexity of the fares structure has nothing to do with the machines which issue it, which as it happens are largely in the process of being replaced with machines which do "know" the entire fares structure. A modern box (probably running Linux and with a cheap 80-120GB hard drive) could easily cope with all of the data and spit out the cheapest or quickest option in a fraction of a second. With a decent UI[*] that is what the passenger accessible machines would have as well. The cheapest/quickest *single* ticket, yes (where I mean one ticket, not just a one-way). The number of possible fares *combinations* is staggering, and because the fares system (if you'd call it that) is so badly broken, it is necessary to investigate these for best value. 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. |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 13:39:59 -0000, "Solar Penguin"
wrote: And why is being individually priced a bad thing? Look at the example I gave elsewhere in the thread: the Northern Line ticket from Morden to Waterloo costs the same as the ticket from Morden going all the way to Mill Hill East. Passangers to Waterloo are paying for around twice as much journey than they actually use. An individually priced Morden-Waterloo ticket would solve this problem. As would a fairly simple change to the zonal fares system, which would be to count the number of zone boundaries crossed, rather than to count which zones are entered. I'm sure I've seen this kind of ticketing elsewhere. There are plenty of point-to-point systems which "max out" like this one, as well - I believe Deutsche Bahn's semi-kilometric InterCity fares system has a maximum fare. All of which is a moot point, anyway. Given that a public transport system has been planned and is being operated based on average traffic etc, there is no direct cost that can be attributed to one person's usage of the system, because whether that one person was there or not the system would operate anyway, and the fuel cost attributed to one passenger is tiny enough to be irrelevant. Whatever means is used to define the fares is therefore a model. 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. |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 12:04:09 +0000, Mrs Redboots
wrote: Why? It is probably cheaper (almost certainly, if you have Pre-pay) to buy a ticket from Oxford Circus to Brixton & then take one of the 3 or 4 buses that go from there to Crystal Palace, and reverse it. There is no obligation on you to buy a Travelcard if you don't want to. And that, as I see it, is a serious fault with the way TfL, and much of the rest of the UK's public transport, is operated. A proper connectional public transport system (yes, one of those things you don't see a lot of in the UK, not even in London) is made up of a number of interlinked modes, and any one journey may use any or all of those modes depending on the quickest or most practical route from point A to point B. As such, the fare from point A to point B (or over however many zones - whether the system is zonal or not is irrelevant to the argument) should be the same, for the use of any or all of those modes. To do anything different, as the UK tends to, is to artificially direct people into making long "trunk" journeys by bus rather than bus+rail+bus, for example, which results in many miles of wasteful bus routes that don't need to be there at all, and even worse to (often commercial) bus routes competing against (often subsidised) rail within a city transport system, which is nothing short of downright scandalous, and an utter waste of money. 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. |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 12:12:10 -0000, "Solar Penguin"
wrote: Oops. I forgot to add that CDRs etc. can be treated as a fixed premium added to the single fare at this point. Should've double checked everything before I pressed Send. Sorry. Why, to go for a similar argument, should someone be given a discount for returning on the same day over returning on the next? 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. |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 15:29:51 -0000, "Solar Penguin"
wrote: Would having seperate fares for Waterloo and Mill Hill East lead to *significantly* increased costs for equipment, staff, gates etc.? To turn the situation on its head -- Ken Livingstone's planning to force TfL's zones onto NR fares in London. How much will *that* cost for new equipment, staff, etc.? It will probably cost very little for NR to go zonal, because the existing equipment is capable of issuing and validating everything that is required to do so (as APTIS can issue most LUL tickets, as I understand it, and even if it couldn't you could fudge something by using specified destinations as zones). More Oyster validators will be required, but that would be the case anyway if Oyster is extended fully to NR, regardless of what the fares are or who sets them. For the Tube to go point-to-point there would be a massive cost, because TfL's ticketing equipment is *not* geared up to point-to-point. The barriers would probably be easily adaptable, but there are vast numbers of old-style ticket machines out there with only zonal buttons, and they'd all have to be replaced. 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. |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
In message , Neil Williams
writes And that, as I see it, is a serious fault with the way TfL, and much of the rest of the UK's public transport, is operated. A proper connectional public transport system (yes, one of those things you don't see a lot of in the UK, not even in London) is made up of a number of interlinked modes, and any one journey may use any or all of those modes depending on the quickest or most practical route from point A to point B. As such, the fare from point A to point B (or over however many zones - whether the system is zonal or not is irrelevant to the argument) should be the same, for the use of any or all of those modes. Although I have some sympathy with such a system, London is so large and complex (and busy), that charging a supplement for Underground travel (which is effectively what happens when compared to buses) is I feel justified in return for the faster journey. (Hamburg has - or had - something similar for its express buses). Paris also has no bus-metro transfer beyond the sort of passes available in London. The actual *price* of those fares is a different matter, of course. -- Ian Jelf, MITG Birmingham, UK Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
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Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 11:51:24 +0000, Ian Jelf
wrote: Although I have some sympathy with such a system, London is so large and complex (and busy), that charging a supplement for Underground travel (which is effectively what happens when compared to buses) is I feel justified in return for the faster journey. (Hamburg has - or had - something similar for its express buses). It does, but not for that reason. The reason for the Schnellbus-Zuschlag is not that the express buses are particularly quick (they're not - most of the routes are surprisingly circuitous), but because they provide a "value added" function of direct journeys into the city centre without having to change. IOW, they're an additional service on top of the normal service map. That contrasts somewhat from the fact that the normal "integrated" service map in London (which I'd say does, or should, consist of the Tube, the city buses and the inner-suburban NR lines, especially in South London) has different fares across all modes, with the Travelcard being the only thing bringing them together. Your point about a "Tube supplement" being a sensible add-on due to the chronic overcrowding. especially in Zone 1, is a valid one. However, the current system doesn't only provide that, it provides a harsh penalty for someone making a single journey involving two buses, or bus-Tube-bus, which is precisely the kind of journey you want to encourage in that kind of system. 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. |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 12:07:49 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote: [1] it was certainly the case when I used to run the fare computer! It is possible it has changed as a result of Prestige but I somehow doubt that LU would have removed that part of the system design. It's not so much whether the "mastering" system can cope, but the vast array of 10-button "simplified" ticket machines certainly cannot, and would all have to be replaced. 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. |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
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Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
"Barry Salter" wrote in message ... Compare this to TfL's fares, where the vast majority of the fares structure is printed in a 16 page booklet (about the only thing that's not in there being staff privilege tickets and Railcard discounted Travelcards). They don't list the reduced prices for some short boundary-crossing journeys either. I've also never seen them published online by TfL either. You have to go to the station involved to find them out, or look in the ATOC's National Fares Manual. That these reduced fares exist does show that London Underground realise that a strict zonal pricing system can lead to "unfair" fares. Dave |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 21:07:05 +0000, Dave Arquati wrote:
Personally, my purchase of baked beans is related to how many I can carry back from the supermarket... My dad got strange looks when he bought 200 4-packs from Asda last year. -- Everything I write here is my personal opinion, and should not be taken as fact. |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 13:39:59 -0000, "Solar Penguin"
wrote: --- tim said... It's complicated in the sense that all journeys are individually priced. And why is being individually priced a bad thing? Look at the example I gave elsewhere in the thread: the Northern Line ticket from Morden to Waterloo costs the same as the ticket from Morden going all the way to Mill Hill East. Passangers to Waterloo are paying for around twice as much journey than they actually use. An individually priced Morden-Waterloo ticket would solve this problem. In the days of point-to-pint fars on LUL a season ticket was restrictive. You coud only alight at stations on the direct line of route. A zonal season (or one day) ticket is much more useful - oh sorry, according to yyour argument "less fair". Rob. -- rob at robertwoolley dot co dot uk |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
Paul Terry wrote:
In message , Dave Arquati writes We were comparing baked beans to TfL tickets. Annabel rightly pointed out that Tesco might offer 2 cans of baked beans for 40p when one can costs 25p. That's not a bad thing - you're saving money! I've never known them do that (and I don't think that is what Annabel meant). Baked beans last for years, so the consumer would need only half the quantity and thus Tesco would lose out. I expect they come to some arrangement with the manufacturers who are eager to get a lot of stock shifted. Much more common is to offer two bags of veg or salad (or two almost expired pizzas) for a reduced price. And space on the train can be regarded as the most perishable product around - once the train has gone, it vanishes completely! People fall for the offer but cannot consume that much fresh food before it goes off - so they throw away the out-of-date goods. Don't they have freezers? They then need to buy the same quantity of goods as before ... so instead of selling two lots of goods at 25p, Tesco has managed to sell one at 40p and the other at 25p (if not 40p again!). Sadly, this is becoming *very* common (especially in Sainsburys, but also Tesco). Safeway used to have a few two for one offers, but always just marked nearly expired goods down. Has the takover by the BOGOF specialists changed that? Linking it to the topic (but not the subject), Next to Bromley South station there's a Waitrose (which sometimes had BOGOF minced beef) that looks like its carpark is partly built on either old railway land or land that the railway's eventually planned to expand into. Which is it? Getting back on topic, rail-fare offers will only make an impact if a reasonable number of people can benefit from them - if the benefit is limited to a few people, the benefit to the TOC will similarly be very limited. As will the cost. |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
Solar Penguin wrote:
--- Dave Arquati said... What makes you think that passengers to Waterloo are paying twice the distance they're travelling? Given that the number of people travelling from Morden to Zone 1 must *vastly* outnumber those travelling beyond into northern parts of the outer zones, I find it much more likely that passengers to Mill Hill East are actually paying *less* than they would under a point-to-point system. Ahhh... You think it's those elusive across-London-to-Mill-Hill-East passengers that TfL are so eager to attract with artificially low fares? Or given that the number of people travelling from Morden to Zone 1 must *vastly* outnumber those travelling beyond into northern parts of the outer zones, is it more likely that TfL have artificially high prices to discourage all those passengers congesting the network and only going into zone 1. Artificially low fares to MHW or artificially high fares to zone 1? Which are they really doing? If you go by marginal cost then they're both artificially high, but there is an enormous fixed cost that has to be paid for somehow. Either way, it doesn't matter, as long as they're stopped. On the contrary, it doesn't matter as long as they're not stopped. The ability to get to any part of London (and some places beyond it) without having to buy another ticket is one of the nice things about London. They're not being charged twice what they should; the Mill Hill East travellers are paying less than they would under your system. And how many times do people actually want to travel across London to Mill Hill East? Compare that to the number of times people want to travel to Central London. There are more people getting ripped off than there are getting good value. Their "getting ripped off" is not the result of giving the Mill Hill East travellers good value. (unsnip) I'm quite happy that should I decide to travel from one side of London to the other, I'm paying less under the current system. How would Travelcards - the most useful and flexible ticket - work under a point-to-point system? You say "flexible" like it's a good thing. But it isn't. It's just a con to make you pay for routes you don't actually use. So now you object to paying for routes you don't use? Either single/return fares decrease - which is unlikely and would be a bad move on the part of TfL as it would increase Tube crowding and reduce revenue - or Travelcard prices increase, which doesn't really benefit anyone. People aren't always making a simple return journey; they may have several destinations to visit. Why should they be penalised just because you think that it's wrong that a Travelcard is cheaper than a return ticket in some cases? Return tickets certainly aren't going to decrease in price, so the only other way is for Travelcards to increase. That question (which you snipped) deserves an answer! Suppose you want to travel, for example, from Crystal Palace to Oxford Circus. Why can't you simply buy a cheap day return from Crystal Palace to Oxford Circus? Instead you *have* to buy a One Day Travelcard for zones 1-4, which means you're also paying for the flexibility of travelling to Morden, Mill Hill East, Waterloo, and dozens of other places that you won't actually visit today! You *can* buy a return between those stations, but it's more expensive than a Travelcard, so you get a Travelcard instead. Are you sure it's more expensive? I don't know about from Crystal Palace, but from some NR stations a return ticket to Underground Zone 1 is cheaper than a travelcard. And that's exactly what I'm complaining about! Common sense says a return should cost less than a Travelcard. That depends on your objective. If your objective is to reduce car use, a travelcard is much better, as bus and train journeys then have zero marginal cost. Instead of thinking "I've paid for the car so I may as well use it" people think "I've paid for the travelcard so I may as well use it". The fact that it costs more is **proof** that there's something seriously wrong with the current system. What more evidence do you need!?! (*snip vague off-the-top-of-my-head ideas about ways to streamline a poin-to-point fares system*) It's a nice idea (and I especially support a ticket for all modes of transport), but you need a method of managing demand on busy routes and in busy areas too. Why? That just gives the transport providers an excuse for not increasing supply to match demand. The transport providers don't need such an excuse as they've already got a very good reason not to increase supply: lack of adequate funding. What about families? Rail can't possibly compete with car without some sort of discount for groups travelling together. Yes it can. The question is how much group discount should be provided to attract families - or should it stick to what it's best at. And the answer really depends on the time of day - when the trains are full, attracting families is probably best avoided, but when there is spare capacity, it's often worth putting on special offers in order to attract more passengers. Well, if you really want to encourage families, then myabe children could be added as a supplement to the adult ticket along with the first class supplement etc. Or just add a surcharge to all adult tickets. (But it's starting to get complicated again. It's worth going for the simpler system, especially if it means we don't have to put up with noisy kids on our trains! Keep them in cars, where only their parents will have to suffer! nirg) And once again, I think you'll find the child is being undercharged (i.e. encouraged), rather than the adult being overcharged (i.e. penalised). It works both ways. You can't aid the children without also penalising the adults. Yes you can, as I have explained. Train journeys are hardly comparable to baked beans or magazines. But they could become comparable. That's what I'm aiming towards with this system. They could, but when the fixed to marginal cost ratio to the provider is so high, that is not a good aim. Your system certainly has some merit; however, it falls down in one major factor, which is demand management, dealt with quite simply and easily by a zonal system in cities. OTOH I'd say the fact that it doesn't have any demand management nonsense is a big advantage of my scheme. It gives the transport providers some incentive to actually improve the supply of transport where it's needed most, instead of discouraging customers from travelling. (E.g. if London had had something like that, instead of zones, maybe we'd have T2K and Crossrail by now!) Are you seriously suggesting that TL2K and Crossrail have been held up by doubts about whether there's the demand for them? And if Central London fares stayed low, how do you think they could afford to increase supply? (snip) |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
Neil Williams wrote:
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 13:28:20 +0000 (UTC), Stephen Osborn wrote: Every can of beans / newspaper / magazine / item of clothing / etc you buy is individually priced and you cope with that don't you. Yes, but there is enough room in your average shop for all these items to be out on display. With a probable average of, say, 5 or 6 ticket types per relation (which would be N(N-1) where N is the number of stations on the national system, or on LUL, as applicable), that ain't practical. True, but I am not sure that this is fully relevant. I doubt that you compare the price of every can of baked beans every time you go shopping to see which is the best value, but you might do so now and then. However if you were to buy some caviar then you probably would check out the best value. So, if you want to check out the prices (caviar / London to Edinburgh) then you can do so. If you are happy with what you usually get (beans / day return your-local-station to London) then you can do that. The key thing is that the system needs to reliably gives the appropriate ticket. One basic point to bear in mind is that, in general, systems can be fair or they can be simple. A zonal system can be simpler but full of anomalies (e.g. four stops crossing a zonal boundary costing more than 10 stops with a single zone) and so less fair. A point to point system can be fairer (charging for the distance traveled) but will be more complex. 2. AFAIK, the reason, AFAIK, that fares structure takes 7 volumes or whatever and it takes an age to buy a ticket is that BR had made thousands of special terminal in the 1970s and these are what are still being used by counter staff today. The memory capacity of these is very limited indeed. The complexity of the fares structure has nothing to do with the machines which issue it, which as it happens are largely in the process of being replaced with machines which do "know" the entire fares structure. I was not clear. The 7 volumes are only relevant in that station staff have to look things up in a number of large paper books and often get them wrong, because there are so many options /discounts / etc. It does not really matter if there are 7 volumes or 17 volumes if the system reliably gives the appropriate ticket. A modern box (probably running Linux and with a cheap 80-120GB hard drive) could easily cope with all of the data and spit out the cheapest or quickest option in a fraction of a second. With a decent UI[*] that is what the passenger accessible machines would have as well. The cheapest/quickest *single* ticket, yes (where I mean one ticket, not just a one-way). The number of possible fares *combinations* is staggering, and because the fares system (if you'd call it that) is so badly broken, it is necessary to investigate these for best value. But single tickets (i.e. A to B and back either one day or seasonal) versus travelcards is what this discussion is about. If you regularly travel A to B to C to D to A or your journeys are irregular (home to work to one of many clients to different one of many clients to work to pub to home) then a travelcard is almost guaranteed to be better for you. If all you do is local train station to London to local train station then a travelcard is almost guaranteed to be worse for you. BTW, I would totally agree that the number of possible tickets is unnecessarily wide. I went from London to Edinburgh last year and there were well over 20 possible fares. Neil |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
In article , Solar Penguin
writes When zone-based fares are used, it's always possible to find anomalies. Yes, it's "always possible". Always possible, because zone based systems *always* go against common sense. Rubbish. They're simple and easy to understand. Then you'd need some kind of honeycomb zoning system, like they have in certain other mass conurbations. Well, once you get to things like honeycombs, it's no longer really a zonal system anyway; Of *course* it is. Look at the Tyneside system or the one in the Netherlands - *clearly* zonal, but with a honeycomb rather than concentric rings. Would having seperate fares for Waterloo and Mill Hill East lead to *significantly* increased costs for equipment, staff, gates etc.? Yes, because if it isn't going to be a zonal system, then you need a complete fares mesh, which will mean about 40,000 different fares in the system instead of 12. And how are people happy when "they can easily understand" that they're being charged *twice* as much You mean they aren't happy on the occasions they want to travel "twice" the distance and it's the same fare? It can cut both ways. And how many times do people actually want to travel across London on a long journey? Compare that to the number of times people just want to travel to Central London. I suspect there are more people getting ripped off then are getting good value. On the contrary, given London's physical structure it is very probably the case that the Z1 to Zn fares are priced about "right" for a radial journey. Diametric journeys then discounted, but they're relatively rare. And you're "charge by crow-flies distance" method is full of anomalies as well. Golders Green to Highgate would be cheaper than either Golders Green or Highgate to Camden Town, yet what is the route? And as for West Ruislip to Ruislip .... -- Clive D.W. Feather | Home: Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work: Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is: |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
In article , Paul Terry
writes We were comparing baked beans to TfL tickets. Annabel rightly pointed out that Tesco might offer 2 cans of baked beans for 40p when one can costs 25p. That's not a bad thing - you're saving money! I've never known them do that I have. Local geography means that we do most of our food shopping at Tesco. Much more common is to offer two bags of veg or salad (or two almost expired pizzas) for a reduced price. People fall for the offer but cannot consume that much fresh food before it goes off - so they throw away the out-of-date goods. Rubbish. It might be a problem for single people - but you don't *have* to take the 2-for-1.5 offer - but for families you end up saving significantly. And plenty of the discounted stuff is nowhere near expiry, or can be frozen, or is in small units or is otherwise easy to use up long before it expires. Now explain 2-for-1 offers, which our Tesco does a lot of. I can even point at items where N+1 cost *less* than N. How does this fit your conspiracy theory? -- Clive D.W. Feather | Home: Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work: Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is: |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
Ian Jelf wrote:
Although I have some sympathy with such a system, London is so large and complex (and busy), that charging a supplement for Underground travel (which is effectively what happens when compared to buses) is I feel justified in return for the faster journey. (Hamburg has - or had - something similar for its express buses). Paris also has no bus-metro transfer beyond the sort of passes available in London. Strangely (to me), in Paris, there is in effect a supplement charged for the buses. One ticket will take you right across the city on the Metro, but 3 tickets may be needed for the same distance on a bus. I have often wondered why this is. -- John Ray, London UK. |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 13:40:42 +0000, Robert Woolley
wrote: In the days of point-to-pint fars on LUL a season ticket was restrictive. You coud only alight at stations on the direct line of route. Some nice typos there Rob :-) A zonal season (or one day) ticket is much more useful - oh sorry, according to yyour argument "less fair". Or even less fare?! -- Paul C Admits to working for London Underground! |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
"Aidan Stanger" wrote in message ... Linking it to the topic (but not the subject), Next to Bromley South station there's a Waitrose (which sometimes had BOGOF minced beef) that looks like its carpark is partly built on either old railway land or land that the railway's eventually planned to expand into. Which is it? I think it was probably a goods yard many years ago, but there's been no railway use of that land for at least the last 40 years. Peter |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
John Ray wrote to uk.transport.london on Sun, 13 Feb 2005:
Strangely (to me), in Paris, there is in effect a supplement charged for the buses. One ticket will take you right across the city on the Metro, but 3 tickets may be needed for the same distance on a bus. I have often wondered why this is. I know that was the case in the 1970s when I lived there, but I *thought* - and I could easily be mistaken - that now it was one ticket per zone, same as the metro? I've just checked - it is one ticket now, except on the Balabus and four other lines, the 221, 297, 299, 350 & 351. Don't know where those run, but the 3-figure numbers tend to be in the suburbs. And you can't change bus without another ticket. -- "Mrs Redboots" http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/ Website updated 23 January 2005 with new photos |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 15:41:32 +0000, John Ray
wrote: Ian Jelf wrote: Although I have some sympathy with such a system, London is so large and complex (and busy), that charging a supplement for Underground travel (which is effectively what happens when compared to buses) is I feel justified in return for the faster journey. (Hamburg has - or had - something similar for its express buses). Paris also has no bus-metro transfer beyond the sort of passes available in London. Strangely (to me), in Paris, there is in effect a supplement charged for the buses. One ticket will take you right across the city on the Metro, but 3 tickets may be needed for the same distance on a bus. I have often wondered why this is. This is entirely a guess but I doubt that RATP want to encourage people to use buses too much. This is simply because the network is nowhere near as comprehensive as that in London and also it has fairly restrictive operating hours. Given that a lot of people still live close in to the centre and that Paris retains its local centres there is less need for a comprehensive bus service. In recent years there has been some improvement / expansion of the buses but it is still the poor relation to the rail network. It gets even worse once you leave the Paris city area and get to the suburbs. I stay with friends to the North West of Paris and there is a good RER and SNCF service but the only RATP bus is once an hour and the local operator does not provide anything even resembling a bus service when compared to the sheer excess of service we have in London for the same sort of area. As an example I catch a SNCF local service from Gare du Nord and then have to connect one stop by RER. Ideally I'd be able to get a local bus from the SNCF station which is barely 10 mins by car from my friends place. However there is NO local bus service between the two places and I've only ever seen one bus (running off service) at about 8pm. It's worse than some parts of deregulated Britain! -- Paul C Admits to working for London Underground! |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
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Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 12:40:50 +0000 (UTC), David Jackman
wrote: Why couldn't the existing system remain for Cash fares but a distance based one applied for Pre-pay? It probably could - but is it really worth it? That said, it could make certain revenue enforcement easier - you could just say that the price from A to B was X, regardless of which route you took. 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. |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
"Aidan Stanger" wrote in message ... The question is how much group discount should be provided to attract families - or should it stick to what it's best at. And the answer really depends on the time of day - when the trains are full, attracting families is probably best avoided, but when there is spare capacity, it's often worth putting on special offers in order to attract more passengers. TfL certainly try to attract families. An off-peak ODTC (Zones 1-6) costs GBP6.00. If you take a child with you, you qualify for a Family Travelcard for GBP4.00 plus GBP0.80 for the child. On Saturdays and Sundays the Family Travelcard is even better value - the child still needs a ticket, but the child ticket is free. Peter |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 14:42:23 +0000 (UTC), Stephen Osborn
wrote: But single tickets (i.e. A to B and back either one day or seasonal) versus travelcards is what this discussion is about. Oh, true. The thing I was referring to was the rather annoying situation on the National Rail system where it's often cheaper to split tickets on a simple, point-to-point single or return journey, just because the fares system is such a mess. 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. |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
Paul Corfield writes:
I acknowledged this point but if you have any memory of the Tube prior to zonal fares and I just about do then the old set up had arrays of free standing single fare machine with huge signs above them saying which stations for that fare. If you were very lucky you had a machine with 10 buttons on it. Also, IIRC, there were some larger machines which had a button for every LUL station. |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
"Aidan Stanger" wrote in message
... The question is how much group discount should be provided to attract families - or should it stick to what it's best at. And the answer really depends on the time of day - when the trains are full, attracting families is probably best avoided, but when there is spare capacity, it's often worth putting on special offers in order to attract more passengers. TfL certainly try to attract families. An off-peak ODTC (Zones 1-6) costs GBP6.00. If you take a child with you, you qualify for a Family Travelcard for GBP4.00 plus GBP0.80 for the child. On Saturdays and Sundays the Family Travelcard is even better value - the child still needs a ticket, but the child ticket is free. (reposted, as it didn't appear at this end first time) Peter |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 17:13:19 +0000, Graham Murray
wrote: Paul Corfield writes: I acknowledged this point but if you have any memory of the Tube prior to zonal fares and I just about do then the old set up had arrays of free standing single fare machine with huge signs above them saying which stations for that fare. If you were very lucky you had a machine with 10 buttons on it. Also, IIRC, there were some larger machines which had a button for every LUL station. Well yes but they were part of the Underground Ticketing System equipment. I was referring to the old stand alone machines in the middle of ticket halls which printed the yellow oxide tickets. My first "proper" job with LU involved creating and testing the ticket machine data. As part of that I had to stand at a machine and press every ticket combination on the multi fare machines, read out the fare to the colleague who checked that it was right. You could say I've bought a ticket from every station to every other one on the Underground! You got rather sore fingers and arms ;-) -- Paul C Admits to working for London Underground! |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
Solar Penguin wrote:
Trouble is, the stupid zones have been around so long that too many people have got into the habit of thinking that they're a good thing, even when they're clearly not -- and won't hear a word said against them. Maybe it would have been better if TfL abandoned their zones and came into line with the rest of the country with a point-to-point system. Might work fine for the tube as almost every station is gated, perhaps you would like to put forward ideas on how a point-to-point bus fares structure in London can be efficiently run with proper revenue protection. -- Phil Richards London, UK Home Page: http://www.philrichards1.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
Solar Penguin wrote:
Suppose you want to travel, for example, from Crystal Palace to Oxford Circus. Why can't you simply buy a cheap day return from Crystal Palace to Oxford Circus? In all probability I could then do some shopping, wander about and decide to end up at Piccadilly Circus before going back to Crystal Palace. A zonal ticket will work fine, your inflexible point-to-point return ticket of course won't. -- Phil Richards London, UK Home Page: http://www.philrichards1.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
In message , Paul Corfield
writes I acknowledged this point but if you have any memory of the Tube prior to zonal fares and I just about do then the old set up had arrays of free standing single fare machine with huge signs above them saying which stations for that fare. Are there really no pictures of the old machines anywhere on the web? A Google and a look at http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk didn't turn up any. IIRC, they had the fare in huge print and the stations served by that fare on the sloping glass top. I did catch a few seconds of an old film, Seven Days to Noon, I think, the other day. The hero chases the villain into the underground but has to pause to buy a 1 1/2 d ticket! -- Michael Parry 'The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret' (Terry Pratchett, The Truth) |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 17:13:19 +0000, Graham Murray
wrote: Paul Corfield writes: I acknowledged this point but if you have any memory of the Tube prior to zonal fares and I just about do then the old set up had arrays of free standing single fare machine with huge signs above them saying which stations for that fare. If you were very lucky you had a machine with 10 buttons on it. Also, IIRC, there were some larger machines which had a button for every LUL station. Well, those existed well into the zonal fare era, until they got replaced by the touch-screen MFMs a few years ago. I still rather miss them :( |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 17:51:11 +0000, Phil Richards wrote:
Solar Penguin wrote: Might work fine for the tube as almost every station is gated, perhaps you would like to put forward ideas on how a point-to-point bus fares structure in London can be efficiently run with proper revenue protection. with conductors :) -- u n d e r a c h i e v e r |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 01:10:50 +1030, (Aidan Stanger)
wrote: Solar Penguin wrote: Are you sure it's more expensive? I don't know about from Crystal Palace, but from some NR stations a return ticket to Underground Zone 1 is cheaper than a travelcard. Form Norwood Junction (next stop on) the relative fares are Peak Day Travel Card Peak Day Return to Zone 1 Peak Return to London One Day Travel Card Off Peak Day Return to London. PRAR -- http://www.i.am/prar/ As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it. Dick Cavett Please reply to the newsgroup. That is why it exists. NB Anti-spam measures in force - If you must email me use the Reply to address and not |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
Mrs Redboots wrote: And you can't see out of a single-decker. But sat in the front seat upstairs on a double-decker (and since those are just by the stairs, no problem with headroom), and in no hurry, it's a joy! Annabel - it must have been a while since you've been on the 3 for you to describe a long journey on it as "a joy"... (On the other hand, IMHO the 137 is a very pleasant way to travel from this corner of London to Oxford St!) |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
Dave Arquati wrote: [snip useful and clear analysis] All that's left are day return journeys to London terminals, which would unfortunately be more expensive under this system. Single would be £2.50 from a Zone 4 station, return would be £4.70 (capped to the price of a Travelcard). If we take Crystal Palace as an example, a single to Victoria would be £3.10 now, or a return would be £3.60. On the plus side, you get free bus and tube travel "thrown in". I guess it all depends what proportion of day-returners arriving at London terminals don't use any other transport during the day. However, as a YP railcard holder I can get a CDR from West Dulwich to Victoria for around £2. Since railcards don't have any effect on zonal fares, a comparable journey via bus 3 and Brixton will end up costing over twice this. I wonder if they've thought about what will happen to railcards if they go zonal? (Incidentally, I'm all in favour of a fully integrated Verkehrsverbund type fare structure, but it is definitely going to hit us tubeless South Londoners the hardest...) |
Future of CDRs and NR season tickets in TfL zones?
In article , Stephen Osborn
writes One basic point to bear in mind is that, in general, systems can be fair or they can be simple. A zonal system can be simpler but full of anomalies (e.g. four stops crossing a zonal boundary costing more than 10 stops with a single zone) and so less fair. A point to point system can be fairer (charging for the distance traveled) but will be more complex. An even more basic point you are all avoiding is defining "fair". Once you have an agreed definition, *then* you can start arguing whether one particular system is "fairer". But first you need to agree the definition. For the record, I *don't* agree that a system is unfair if A-B and A-C ever have the same price. -- Clive D.W. Feather | Home: Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work: Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is: |
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