On Tue, 12 Sep 2006 18:09:35 +0100, Arthur Figgis
] wrote:

The name of the langauge, in that langauge, is better eg
* English, Nederlands, Deutsch, tlhIngan Hol

That last one, I'd *love* to see...

--
James Farrar
. @gmail.com

In message , Graham J
writes
- Under-16s get a 50p Tube single or £1 daily cap on Oyster

How nice for them. I am one of those unconvinced by all these incentives,
especially free bus fares. What is wrong with learning to pay your way in
life at an early age instead of learning to be subsidised?

How about encouraging young people to use, become confident with and
perhaps even enjoy using public transport rather than become accustomed
to always travelling everywhere in an inefficient congestion causing
car? It probably very fair given that all the young people (i.e.
students) concerned don't earn money! Some social justice.

The only problem is if those buses are already full (like the ones near
me are now in the rush hour); it does illustrate great demand for the
schemes though.


--
Paul G
Typing from Barking

On 12 Sep 2006 03:51:03 -0700, "Neil Williams"
wrote:

James Farrar wrote:

Sure it is. There's posters all over the network comparing the cash
and Oyster PAYG fares.

There might be. But, if you've never heard of Oyster? Likely answer
is that you'll tune out.

There are endless posters and announcements. There are leaflets and
booklets in racks at all tube stations. There are thousands of "ticket
stops" across London that can handle Oyster.

I think I must be some sort of freak because I take a few minutes to
check out the transport and ticket options for anywhere that I am
visiting. I then try to understand - even through a poor understanding
of most European languages - where I might be able to buy the ticket
that looks like the best option. This is done via a combination of a
decent guide book and the Internet.

I can't speak Italian but I managed to get a 7 day ticket, when I
visited Rome last year, which I made a financial loss on but I had the
freedom of the public transport network. I certainly had no desire to
find a news stand or tobacco place every time I wanted to catch a bus -
crazy! In Berlin I got a 3 day card at the Airport and happily whizzed
here and there. None of these tickets were available via machines - I
had to find a human being to sell them to me.

I have held a HK Octopus Card for years despite only visiting maybe once
a year or so. Very easy process to get the card checked for value, taken
off the hotlist if it has been removed from use due to no journey
activity and then adding some value. I don't think it has ever taken
more than 3 minutes to do. Adding value while in HK has only been a
breeze and I cannot speak or read Chinese. Same in Singapore with
their electronic ticket - again no issue and no ticket machine. Same in
Paris with the Mobilis ticket.

Most of the above tickets are not the tourist offer - they are simply
what the locals would buy. If I had to come to London to visit I would
almost certainly get an Oyster card. I agree that the rules around PAYG
are fairly complex but they can be explained.

If the Mayor wants to go Oyster-only, fine, I have no issue with that.
There are, I believe, other cities where public transport is pre-paid
only, with no cash accepted at stations or on buses.

There are loads of them.

However, there
needs to be a simple, step-by-step set of instructions, and it needs to
be more accessible.

Well yes I agree but I think you would struggle to find equivalents of
what you are suggesting for most other cities in Europe or further
afield. What you go get is promotion of special Tourist tickets which
typically represent very poor value for money and are simply another
form of "rip off" that everyone is getting so irritated about with the
latest fare changes for 2007.

Everyone in this NG knows what Oyster is, how to get one, what it costs
etc, thus if anyone on this NG pays one of these rip-off fares they
have only themselves to blame. You cannot, however, apply this
argument to a non- or poor-English-speaking tourist, or visitor to
London who doesn't frequent big cities and their transport systems, who
would just go to the ticket machine and prod the likely looking button.

So I deserve special treatment when I wander aimlessly into a bus or
train station in Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Italy, Germany, the
Netherlands or France because I cannot deal with their respective
languages to any great level of competence and I'm not an expert on
their tickets?

Come on - there is a limit to what any of us can expect in terms of how
well we are treated when we arrive in a foreign land for all sorts of
issues. As English speakers we are really spoilt rotten as so many
systems have some level of English signage and publicity. While it is
good that countries make an effort to accommodate visitors it is also
true that visitors should be prepared to make a bit of effort as well -
it's why I always try to learn and speak some of the local language.
People appreciate the fact that you make an effort.

TfL are going to retail Oyster abroad to aid the tourist market so I
think the concerns have been heard. It will be interesting to see what
approach they take.

You also can't apply this to purchasers of out-boundary through
tickets on LUL and cross-London tickets, which I believe are also
indirectly being hit by these punitive fares.

Now here I would agree with you if it is the case that the LU cash fares
are being used for summation purposes. They traditionally were but I
would find it somewhat extraordinary if £3 is being added each way for
cross London transfer purposes.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On Tue, 12 Sep 2006 15:53:56 +0100, asdf
wrote:

On Mon, 11 Sep 2006 21:01:17 +0100, Dave Arquati wrote:

- TOCs will introduce zonal fares in January 2007, thus paving the way
for an easy PAYG rollout

This point seems to be the most intruiging, and the biggest shake-up.
It seems that the same fares will apply across all TOCs. I suppose
this means that fares on some routes will go up and on other routes
will go down. What will happen to CDRs and Railcard discounts? Will
the changes spread outside the zones, or could it be cheaper to buy a
return from the first station outside the zones if travelling from
Zone 6 to Zone 1? How will fares from NR to Tube stations be
calculated? What about if the NR journey starts outside the zones?

I printed off the 2007 fares guide at work so I'll stick a post up
tomorrow about what the tube-train fares are. I don't have enough info
to answer most of your questions but the numbers might help explain
things a bit.

No mention of the PAYG trials on Southern, either - has that fallen by
the wayside?

Not heard anything on this. The Victoria - Balham trial was scheduled
for last January so something must have gone horribly wrong about the
proposal for it to be this late. I imagine data capture and transfer
between systems will be part of the problem.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

MIG wrote:
Graham J wrote:
Almost all Oyster fares remain the same except:
-- off-peak bus journeys (from £0.80 to £1.00)

Ouch, 25% fare increase.

Cash fares go up significantly:
-- via Zone 1 singles from £3 to £4 (!)
-- bus singles from £1.50 to £2
-- but paper daily bus passes are frozen, as are non-Z1 travelcards

Surely it is about time they announced a date when cash fares will be
abolished, at least for buses, so at least the punitive increases would make
more sense.

- Under-16s get a 50p Tube single or £1 daily cap on Oyster

How nice for them. I am one of those unconvinced by all these incentives,
especially free bus fares. What is wrong with learning to pay your way in
life at an early age instead of learning to be subsidised?

It is bad enough that school kids bundle onto buses for a two or three stop
journey instead of a five minute walk, preventing other passengers boarding,
but free fares encourages them to bundle on the rear doors as well. If they
wish to encourage the use of public transport by children then fine, but how
about limiting it to evenings, weekends and school holidays instead so it is
encouraging leisure use?

- £4 penalty charge to be introduced on Oyster PAYG for those who do not
touch in and out (from November this year)

Fine, as long as they make an effort to explain exactly where you are
supposed to touch in and out. For example at Farringdon the correct
procedure, verified with TfL, when changing from London Underground to
National Rail and vice versa is to touch out on one platform and touch in on
the other. All the signs do is tell PAYG users to touch the validators, not
under what circumstances and whether they need to look for one.



It is absolutely immoral to introduce even the £3 penalty fare, let
alone £4, before the means of avoiding it are fully available.

If you have a period paper travelcard from NR, plus a bit of PAYG on
your Oyster for when you go beyond your Underground zones, you can't
touch in or out without leaving the train, going up the escalator,
touching in/out, going back down and waiting for another train. A £3
fine for finding that ludicrously inconvenient is not justifiable.

Given that trains generally know where they are now, why not have
readers in trains, as in buses, that you can touch as you leave your
paper travelcard zone?

No one on pure PAYG would be able to get away with touching it as they
saw the inspector coming, because they'd have had to get into a station
somehow. People who used Oyster to get in would already have touched
at the gate. People with paper travelcards would have to touch in the
train at some point or else get caught by the gates when leaving their
destination station.

The only issue then is the range of possible extension fares (ie any
benefit to touching just before getting off), but I think that the
range of possible fares is limited, since it would be either Zone 1 or
non-Zone 1.


And an even more bleedin obvious solution would be to offer £1
extension tickets to people who can show a paper travelcard purchased
from NR.

On Tue, 12 Sep 2006 21:19:36 +0100, Ian Jelf wrote:

Now to the down side of all this. It is difficult, VERY difficult to
explain PAYG and Oyster to causal visitors. Paper Travelcards and the
savings from them are no problem and people usually have something
similar "at home". But the concept of stored value tickets and
specifically daily capping is so alien to people as to be not worthwhile
mentioning.

I said in a posting last year that people are remarkably ill-at-ease
using public transport in London sometimes. We a few weeks ago I had a
large group of people from the North of England who, during their time
with me had effectively a full day to explore London. They were
staying in Zone 1 and - almost as an experiment - I tried a simplified
explanation of Oyster PAYG on the way down. I really wished I hadn't.
Confusion reigned supreme and most of them simply couldn't get their
heads around it all. The more I tried to explain it, the worse it became
as they muddled up period Travelcards, paper Travelcards, the GBP3
deposit and daily capping. All this to save people 50p. I don't
think I'll do it again; I'll just send people off to buy a paper
Travelcard and save myself the ulcer! :-) (My coach driver thought I
was mad to have tried and maybe he was right.)

A simplification that you can get away with if you're sure they're not
going to need NR within the zones, is as follows:

- Tube and bus are the only modes of transport that matter. NR is
something big and scary and they probably shouldn't go near it. And
Oysters definitely aren't valid there, ever.
- Oysters are PAYG only. (If they need a season, get them to get a
paper one.)
- ODTCs are day passes for Tube and bus. Capping is the same thing as
having an ODTC on your Oyster. (I'll probably get shot for saying that
here, but it does seem to make capping much easier to understand.)
Just don't forget to tell them they need to keep touching in and out
even after reaching the cap.

Unresolved journeys are a pain to explain. You could skip it, but if
they get one on their card, ticket offices won't refund the £3
deposit.

Having said all that, I still can't blame you if you just forget it.
Getting them to just stick to 1 or 7 day Travelcards is much simpler,
and unlikely to cost them a huge amount more. Besides, it's a small
price to pay for your sanity...

Phil Richards wrote:

The information is there in printed format at tube stations and the
(few) travel information desks scattered across the capital. I think
you'll find plenty of information on how much it costs with Oyster vs
cash albeit not spelled out in different languages.

It's there, just about - but there could really do with being a big
poster by the ticket machines telling people not to use them! (Or just
do away with the rip-off - or do away with the ticket machines and
replace them with some kind of Oyster machines!)

Yes, some will research on the WWW, and it's right that it should be
there (and yes, it should be in as many languages as possible). But
many won't.

Of course one still
needs to get their head around the maze of zones etc, which of course
have been around much longer than Oyster and of course are the backbone
of most other public transport systems in large cities.

This is true - particularly in .nl where you need to work out how many
zones you're travelling through in order to stamp your Strippenkaart
correctly. Notably, there's one major "blip" in this otherwise
sensible system - and that's that precisely none of the official
national information - anywhere, including on the WWW - is in any
language other than Dutch. (Fortunately I can read it, but it is a bit
poor).

Neil

Ian Jelf wrote:

Secondly, I applaud the current TfL policy of vigorously promoting
Oyster use by making big differences between on vehicle or at station
cash fares and those you can get from Oyster. A lot of other
organisations would pussy-foot around giving 10% savings or something.
TfL, or Ken if you like, has decided to go the whole hog with this and
make a BIG distinction. Again, I reckon its good in principle.

Good in principle, were it a discount. But a gbp4 minimum single (and
that's effectively what it is, as most tourists will travel involving
zone 1) is a rip-off, pure and simple. The taxi fare would be cheaper
for a good number of shorter journeys, or certainly not a lot more.

If Ken really had guts he wouldn't do that (and openly admit to
dragging in more cash by ripping off tourists). He'd get the right
infrastructure in place, and then, and *only* then, remove paper
ticketing completely.

Neil

Earl Purple wrote:

maybe so the rest of us are not stuck on the bus waiting while your mum
goes through all the options with the bus driver about where she is
going and what ticket she should get?

The ticketing system should be simple enough that *nobody* needs to do
that. Oyster is a good way in which that could be implemented, if done
carefully.

Neil

Paul Corfield wrote:

There are endless posters and announcements. There are leaflets and
booklets in racks at all tube stations. There are thousands of "ticket
stops" across London that can handle Oyster.

*But if you haven't been to London before*? You wouldn't know that.

I think I must be some sort of freak because I take a few minutes to
check out the transport and ticket options for anywhere that I am
visiting. I then try to understand - even through a poor understanding
of most European languages - where I might be able to buy the ticket
that looks like the best option. This is done via a combination of a
decent guide book and the Internet.

You do. I do. But then we are clued up about transport, and we both
read and post to a newsgroup that discusses it in depth. Most people
mainly travel by car, or by local bus on which they just buy single
fares, or maybe a weekly. It is *not* obvious to them that London
would be any different.

Come on - there is a limit to what any of us can expect in terms of how
well we are treated when we arrive in a foreign land for all sorts of
issues.

Agreed. However, it is not reasonable to rip people off in the way the
gbp4 single fare does. Even the tourist cards of which you speak
aren't, IMX, as ridiculous.

TfL are going to retail Oyster abroad to aid the tourist market so I
think the concerns have been heard. It will be interesting to see what
approach they take.

Indeed.

Now here I would agree with you if it is the case that the LU cash fares
are being used for summation purposes. They traditionally were but I
would find it somewhat extraordinary if £3 is being added each way for
cross London transfer purposes.

ISTR it still is, but I'll check again when I buy one on Monday (going
to City Airport). They have been replaced by outboundary Peak
Travelcards for most return buyers, but that's no good if you just want
a single (which a lot of people do).

Neil