On Tue, 6 Mar 2007 19:20:10 +0000 (UTC), Mike Bristow
wrote:

In the last 6 months I've handed over my Oyster many times
(and had it looked at - but not scanned - many more times).

I quite frequently take Heathrow Connect between Paddington and Ealing
Broadway. The conductors very rarely have a handheld reader any more.
I just thrist my wallet at them in a "scan this" pose, and normally
they just say "OK, thanks".

One once asked to see that I had an Oyster card in there, which I did,
though I told him I didn't understand why he wanted to see it as it
could quite easily not have held a valid ticket.

On Mar 6, 11:19 pm, "Tim Roll-Pickering" T.C.Roll-
wrote:
(And for
that matter Forest Gate-Wanstead Park isn't a valid out of station
interchange so I doubt you could buy a ticket there.)


This is something that needs work when London Overground starts, I
think. There are a fair few walkable interchanges on these lines that
could do with being valid interchanges and better signposting - Forest
Gate/Wansted Park, Hackney, Camden, Walthamstow. With some investment
I think these could make a fair difference to how useful these lines
are.

Jonn

wrote:

(And for
that matter Forest Gate-Wanstead Park isn't a valid out of station
interchange so I doubt you could buy a ticket there.)

This is something that needs work when London Overground starts, I
think. There are a fair few walkable interchanges on these lines that
could do with being valid interchanges and better signposting - Forest
Gate/Wansted Park, Hackney, Camden, Walthamstow. With some investment
I think these could make a fair difference to how useful these lines
are.

Forest Gate/Wanstead Park is quite well signposted at the Forest Gate end -
there's a clear sign at the main exit to turn left and it's hard to miss
Wanstead Park.

Why these two stations aren't a valid interchange is beyond me - they're a
darnsight closer then even the extremities of some stations, let alone many
boroughs and towns where street level interchange is valid. But can London
Overground do anything about this when they will only operate one station?
(I guess that they could, however, do something for stations like Leyton
where TfL will operate both.)

John B wrote:
On Mar 6, 1:00 pm, "Andrea" wrote:
I have travelled several times on the Silverlink Gospel Oak to Barking
service in the past fortnight. What has shocked me is the apparent
large-scale fare evasion on this route.

I imagine most legitimate travellers will have period tickets, and
therefore it will be pretty hard to judge whether or not they are
evading fares.

There is always a guard present on the train but he/she never
materialises to check tickets.

It isn't feasible for guards to do ticket inspections on lines like
the NLL/Goblin, where loadings are tight and stops are only a few
minutes apart - indeed AIUI Silverlink Metro guards aren't even
revenue trained. I'm hoping London Overground will adopt the DOO route
and redeploy surplus guards into revenue protection (given that LO
trains have much the same passenger characteristics as LU, where DOO
works just fine). But RPIs aren't much use when a train is full-and-
standing.

I have heard dozens of people say that
they never buy tickets as there is no deterrent factor (many stations
are open and unstaffed, e.g. Leytonstone High Road).

Dozens? Did you carry out a survey or something?

Access from the
overground to the underground at Blackhorse Road os open, so anybody
can access the underground without a ticket.

...which is useful if they want to go to Finsbury Park, but otherwise
not much help, since every other plausible destination is barriered
during the day (OK, possibly you could go to Chigwell or Chesham).

It really annoys me when Silverlink seems to be doing nothing about
this. Talking to several fare-paying regulars on this line,
ticketless travel is rife.

Silverlink recently imposed a penalty fare scheme, which sounds rather
unlike "doing nothing about this".

Northbound trains in the morning also tend
to be cancelled, leaving many customers unable to board at
imtermediate stations, such as Leytonstone, due to the 2 carriage
train being full.

Northbound? I'd tend to say "westbound" myself... anyway, yes, this
sucks [both the short trains and the relative unreliability] and is a
common problem on NLL/GOBLIN services. I'm deeply sceptical that
better revenue protection would make much of a difference to # of pax
though - how many people genuinely travel in the peak just for the
hell of it?

I hope tFL will take a hard line on the revenut side of things when
they take over this line later this year.

I hope they take a hard line on the revenue issue off-peak, because of
the knock-on security implications (ie antisocialists tend to travel
without tickets, and there are too many of them on the GOBLIN and NLL
- although they wisely avoid peak services). If it's cost-effective to
provide gates etc to enforce payment on-peak, I hope they do that too;
if it isn't then I'd rather they spent our money on improving the
service...

Not sure what the line regarding on-board inspections will be, but
apparently the vast majority of GOBLIN passengers pass through a select
group of stations; there are proposals to gate these stations, hopefully
forcing the opportunistic fare-evaders into ticket purchase.


--
Dave Arquati
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

"Dave A" wrote in message
...
John B wrote:


I hope they take a hard line on the revenue issue off-peak, because of
the knock-on security implications (ie antisocialists tend to travel
without tickets, and there are too many of them on the GOBLIN and NLL
- although they wisely avoid peak services). If it's cost-effective to
provide gates etc to enforce payment on-peak, I hope they do that too;
if it isn't then I'd rather they spent our money on improving the
service...

Not sure what the line regarding on-board inspections will be, but
apparently the vast majority of GOBLIN passengers pass through a select
group of stations; there are proposals to gate these stations, hopefully
forcing the opportunistic fare-evaders into ticket purchase.


Not quite Goblin, but on a WLL service this afternoon there was a very
thorough ticket check, Oyster Travelcards were checked, and the staff were
also recording destinations into Dictaphones.

Paul

Paul Corfield wrote:
On 6 Mar 2007 05:00:54 -0800, "Andrea" wrote:

I have travelled several times on the Silverlink Gospel Oak to Barking
service in the past fortnight. What has shocked me is the apparent
large-scale fare evasion on this route.

There is always a guard present on the train but he/she never
materialises to check tickets. I have heard dozens of people say that
they never buy tickets as there is no deterrent factor (many stations
are open and unstaffed, e.g. Leytonstone High Road). Access from the
overground to the underground at Blackhorse Road os open, so anybody
can access the underground without a ticket.

It really annoys me when Silverlink seems to be doing nothing about
this. Talking to several fare-paying regulars on this line,
ticketless travel is rife. Northbound trains in the morning also tend
to be cancelled, leaving many customers unable to board at
imtermediate stations, such as Leytonstone, due to the 2 carriage
train being full.

I imagine Silverlink have taken the view that as they are losing the
service they will simply keep it ticking over until handover. I imagine
they have no incentive to really pursue revenue protection given that
most of the stations are unmanned (they only staff Gospel Oak directly,
Bhr Rd is LU and Barking is C2C). I'd also guess that all of their
costs are covered either by franchise payments or TfL "top up" payments
for the extra peak, evening and Sunday services that run. As the line is
unlikely ever to make a profit they have probably adopted a "no minimum"
philosophy.

Years ago the guards did wander through the trains checking tickets but
stations are quite close together which makes it something of a slog to
keep returning to the back cab to control the doors.

Not heard about trains being cancelled on a regular basis though. It
used to be awful with the old slam door trains but they were on their
absolute last legs so it was perhaps understandable if nonetheless very
irritating if you were delayed in consequence.

I hope tFL will take a hard line on the revenut side of things when
they take over this line later this year.

As I understand TfL are taking the revenue risk on the North London
Railway concession they may well take a different line on revenue
matters. However I would argue they have a big task to get these
stations upgraded to the point where ticket selling could actually take
place at most of them and where there'd be decent staff accommodation.
They may simply put in portacabins as a first step which may well help
but the layout of the stations is not what I'd call particularly
convenient even for that approach. I very much doubt you'd see ticket
gates going in but I might be proved wrong on that score.

It will be interesting to see what actually happens to this line. The
plans are fine in theory but Network Rail have to spend money to sort
out the decaying bridges and viaducts before you can get any real
performance out of the line. It's currently very slow due to
infrastructure restrictions on the western part of the line. I just
don't see this line being the priority given the pressures to raise
capacity on the North London Line and to build the ELLX.

AIUI, infrastructure work by Network Rail is already pencilled in for
summer 2011, following work on the western NLL and then the eastern NLL.

As for station works, there are proposals for an extensive package of
work which will be firmed up once the concession has been let. It's very
likely that several stations will have quite extensive works involving
big alterations to the ticket areas. Ticket gates are very likely to go
in at those stations. I believe that *every* station will have ticket
machines installed (this being most relevant to the GOBLIN); ticket
*offices* are very unlikely as the philosophy will be to follow LU in
freeing up staff to work more visibly throughout the station, rather
than sitting behind ticket windows with poor visibility.

There is still some question over how the Mayor's plan for full staffing
will work - it depends on the final concession agreement. One suggestion
is to have staff roaming between stations, which of course will have the
side effect of putting them on board trains too.

--
Dave Arquati
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 23:14:25 +0000, Dave A wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:

It will be interesting to see what actually happens to this line. The
plans are fine in theory but Network Rail have to spend money to sort
out the decaying bridges and viaducts before you can get any real
performance out of the line. It's currently very slow due to
infrastructure restrictions on the western part of the line. I just
don't see this line being the priority given the pressures to raise
capacity on the North London Line and to build the ELLX.

AIUI, infrastructure work by Network Rail is already pencilled in for
summer 2011, following work on the western NLL and then the eastern NLL.

Any definition as to what this work will be? A shame we have to wait 4
years but better late than never if it gets the line back into some sort
of decent shape.

As for station works, there are proposals for an extensive package of
work which will be firmed up once the concession has been let. It's very
likely that several stations will have quite extensive works involving
big alterations to the ticket areas. Ticket gates are very likely to go
in at those stations. I believe that *every* station will have ticket
machines installed (this being most relevant to the GOBLIN); ticket
*offices* are very unlikely as the philosophy will be to follow LU in
freeing up staff to work more visibly throughout the station, rather
than sitting behind ticket windows with poor visibility.

I am genuinely surprised that ticket gates will go in. I can see why
ticketing improvements are needed - after all something is better than
nothing. I still think it will be a challenge to get all of this work
properly planned and co-ordinated. Assuming the existing safety rules
apply to these future gate installations I detect a slight flaw in the
operational revenue concept when put alongside the staffing concept you
describe below. If the gates have to be powered down for periods of
time then people will simply learn how to work round the temporary
restriction.

There is still some question over how the Mayor's plan for full staffing
will work - it depends on the final concession agreement. One suggestion
is to have staff roaming between stations, which of course will have the
side effect of putting them on board trains too.

I suppose that makes sense in terms of a common philosophy but given the
relative isolation of these stations and low frequency I would have
thought a permanent presence would be preferable to provide security,
revenue protection and prevent vandalism. Still the main thing is that
at long last they are going to see some substantive improvement which is
really what is needed.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!