"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

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.

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

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.

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)

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

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:

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:

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.

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!