Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
I suspect I'm going to get in trouble for incorrect usage of the word
'differential', but nevermind... I'm hoping that someone in the know (probably Paul C, given that he was involved in the development of Oyster) might be able to provide some background to this query. As we all know bus fares in London are flat rate - Oyster PAYG users pay 90p, cash fares are £2 - and the flat fare for London buses has been around since 2004 (I think). There were peak (pre-0930) and off- peak Oyster PAYG fares on buses for a period - but there have never been different fares according to distance travelled. The fact that there is a flat fare makes implementing Oyster PAYG on buses very easy - everyone who touches-in (i.e. validates their Oyster by scanning it) pays the same standard fare (though yes, daily price capping may mean that they don't!). However I was just wondering if the system had been designed so that it could be used in a non-flat fare environment - i.e. fares based on distance or zones. I cannot envisage a scenario where passengers had to touch-out when they exited the bus as being remotely workable whatsoever, so that's not really what I'm asking about. Instead the situation I have in mind is one where the passenger has to specifically request a destination (or zone) to the driver, who then has to enter in into their ticket machine before the passenger then touches-in their Oyster on the ticket machine's Oyster pad - and are possibly also issued with a paper ticket. Please note that I'm not advocating anything like this whatsoever - I think it would be a total and unmitigated disaster as it would completely negate the advantage that passengers could board the bus quickly. However I'm interested to know whether the Oyster system is at all capable of such a thing, or whether the presumption that bus fares would go flat rate was built into Oyster from the start. I ask prompted by thoughts of how, if and when stored value ITSO smartcard ticketing finally arrives on buses elsewhere in the UK, how the situation with regards to fares |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:25:20 -0800 (PST), Mizter T
wrote: I suspect I'm going to get in trouble for incorrect usage of the word 'differential', but nevermind... I'm hoping that someone in the know (probably Paul C, given that he was involved in the development of Oyster) might be able to provide some background to this query. As we all know bus fares in London are flat rate - Oyster PAYG users pay 90p, cash fares are £2 - and the flat fare for London buses has been around since 2004 (I think). There were peak (pre-0930) and off- peak Oyster PAYG fares on buses for a period - but there have never been different fares according to distance travelled. The fact that there is a flat fare makes implementing Oyster PAYG on buses very easy - everyone who touches-in (i.e. validates their Oyster by scanning it) pays the same standard fare (though yes, daily price capping may mean that they don't!). However I was just wondering if the system had been designed so that it could be used in a non-flat fare environment - i.e. fares based on distance or zones. I cannot envisage a scenario where passengers had to touch-out when they exited the bus as being remotely workable whatsoever, so that's not really what I'm asking about. Instead the situation I have in mind is one where the passenger has to specifically request a destination (or zone) to the driver, who then has to enter in into their ticket machine before the passenger then touches-in their Oyster on the ticket machine's Oyster pad - and are possibly also issued with a paper ticket. In the very early days of Prestige (later Oyster) there was no policy decision that TfL would implement flat fares on the bus network. The fare scale at the time had several zonal fare values for adults plus IIRC a flat child rate. There was a huge discussion about the practicality of exit validation but done without active validation by passengers. In other words you effectively walked through a door wide scanner when you alighted and that would read the card and deduct the fare (or add back if a max fare on entry system was used). The problem was that the exit technology was nowhere near mature enough, no one had ever tested such an application and there were big questions about what happened if there was a misread, people had two cards on their person etc etc. The early promotional videos from Transys showed a Dart minibus in deepest Merstham with a ETM plus a validator whereby passengers could select their fare and then tap their card. The driver could also set the fare for deduction via the ETM. You don't need to be a genius to spot some potential loopholes with such a system. I believe the system can deal with more than one fare as that was certainly in the spec when I was around and it would be nonsensical for TfL to have taken such a function out of the system. Paper tickets were also considered as being necessary to give people confidence that the electronic system had deducted the correct fare - thankfully that aspect was never implemented! My guess is that the reality of making zonal fares work on buses forced TfL into considering flat fares (although simplification had been working its way through LT Buses for several years). This consideration then meshed nicely with the aspirations of the Mayor to drive up bus usage. The rest, they say, is history. To counter the arguments that exit validation can't work and that fare self selection can't work either I would point to Singapore and the EZ Card (and magnetics beforehand). Prior to the EZ Card the bus system had magnetic stored value ticket acceptance but without exit validation. There were huge (for a bus) machines with multiple buttons for the appropriate fare stages. You dropped your magnetic ticket in the machine, pressed for your fare and the money was taken off your ticket and the ticket returned to you. I suspect if you are a regular user then this becomes second nature. As a visitor I found it awful and a real impediment to using buses. There was no issue on the MRT as it was gated and it was like using a magnetic ticket anywhere in the world. With EZ card the self selection has gone and been replaced by smartcard validation on entry and exit. There are two readers at each entrance / exit door so two stream boarding and alighting is possible. You tap your card on entry but nothing is deducted from the card but the entry point is obviously written to the card. All bus stops have a display that shows the number of stages from that stop to all other stops on routes serving that stop. There is also the fare scale based on the number of stages. EZ Card fares are cheaper than cash. When the bus closes it doors and moves off the exit validators are automatically switched off to stop people all tapping their cards and then overriding. I believe the system is linked to GPS or similar as the validators are only reactivated when you are within about 100m of a stop. This is useful if you are already at the exit as you can tap just before the stop and then alight. Others following simply tap on exit. Interestingly the second stream validator at the front door can also act as an exit validator for about 50 seconds once the doors are open or longer at a terminal point where lots of people may be alighting. I have to say I have found the whole system very easy to use and not encountered any problems. I have witnessed others having the odd difficulty at exit rejection but the driver calls them back and will either take a cash fare or else do some reset transaction to allow another go at exiting. I don't understand the technicalities of exactly what happens but it's obviously something Transit link have specified. The Singapore system will not allow you to board if you have negative value on the card - they operate a deposit system which allows cards to go negative but you must then top up off bus or pay cash. Checking the Transit link Guide there is a wide range of fares with some flat fares on feeder routes to MRT stations, distance based, premium fares for expresses as well as differential charges for air conditioned and non air conditioned vehicles (this applies to cash as well - the same concept is used in Hong Kong too). Everyone pays for their travel but there are concessionary cards for OAPS, children and servicemen. This apply concessionary charges for journeys undertaken by bus / MRT. You also get transfer rebates for interchange trips. You can get a rebate for up to two transfers after your first trip provided you board the next vehicle within 45 mins of exit. This applies MRT to bus and vice versa as well as bus to bus. Interchange between MRT lines is free as many metro networks. The rebates aren't huge but it works seamlessly - the display tells you if you've received a rebate. Last transfer has to be within 2 hours of the first boarding - the card reader must look back through journey history to check the timings. In Hong Kong you don't have exit validation but the fares structure employs a tapering effect (and has done for decades AFAIK). The bus system has a hierarchy in HK with feeder routes, local routes, expresses / cross harbour services, routes with sectional fares and premium routes like Airbus. Typically your fare is deducted on entry. However it is perfectly possible to pay completely different fares to get between A and B. A feeder or local service may be flat fare throughout - that's easy the fare value never changes. On other longer routes as well as Cross Harbour routes the assumption is that most people will travel a long distance or across the harbour and the fare is set for that market. You'd therefore be crazy to board such a bus to travel 3 stops down the road as you'd be charged the rate to go 25 stops. However as the bus gets closer and closer to its terminal the fares drop as it can act as a local bus without risking turning away people for a premium fare. For example a bus starts on HK Island and crosses the Harbour and will terminate at a housing development in Kowloon. If you board on the Island you may pay say $8.50, even at the other side of the tunnel it may be the same fare but perhaps within 12 stages of the eventual terminus the fare may drop to $5 to attract some local custom but it's likely that fare will be more expensive that a local bus in Kowloon serving the same stretch of road to the housing development. In the reverse direction the fare of $8.50 would apply all the way to HK Island to deter all local traffic as the major flow is to the Island not intermediately! Confused? A couple of service have sectional fares - this is more like our traditional UK fare stage approach. These run to Stanley from Central on HK Island. These services carry heavy flows to Stanley but provide the only service to intermediate areas. On boarding everyone is charged the Stanley fare but if you get off where a sectional fare applies you tap again on exit and value is added back to your card balance. Bus to Bus interchange discounts are widely offered by the bus operators but Bus - MTR - KCR discounts are not. Prior to the MTR takeover of the KCRC the rail networks were completely separate and there were no through fare discounts. I understand through fares are now being offered and intermediate gatelines are being removed - it's fare to say that the stations were all designed for gated interchange so they avoided the problems we have in London in having to have validators. I take your point about the efficacy of such a system in a somewhat less compliant society like London. Obviously part of the success in Singapore is the "controlled" nature of society and a social sanction if people were to cheat. I've not seen an obvious fraud taking place but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I think it might be an interesting experiment for TfL to try exit validation on buses to see what the issues might be in a London environment. The final point to make is that you get interchange discounts in Singapore if you change from Hope that's long enough for you! -- Paul C Admits to working for London Underground! |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
On Jan 25, 7:38 pm, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:25:20 -0800 (PST), Mizter T wrote: What I cannot comprehend is how a bendibus driver can simply get on with the job of driving EXCEPT when he has to deal with those crappy Bus Sava tickets. The wild, ****ty, hexagonal ones. Why do they still exist? |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
The Netherlands is working on a touch in and touch out zonal fare
system, and it's not working well at all. |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
"sweek" wrote in message ... The Netherlands is working on a touch in and touch out zonal fare system, and it's not working well at all. Where I'm currently living will implement "oyster" this year and has a zonal system. There's no way they will have a flat fare (the longest route is about 100km) and I'm wondering how they will do it. I suspect that you will still have to "ask the driver" and all that will happen is the "ticket" is put on the card, rather than supplied as a piece of paper. They have an "oyster" system in Helsinki and there, if you want to go more than one zone (IIRC you can do 1-3), you press a numbered button on the validator as you "touch". tim |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:25:20 -0800 (PST), Mizter T
wrote: I suspect I'm going to get in trouble for incorrect usage of the word 'differential', but nevermind... I'm hoping that someone in the know (probably Paul C, given that he was involved in the development of Oyster) might be able to provide some background to this query. As we all know bus fares in London are flat rate - Oyster PAYG users pay 90p, cash fares are £2 - and the flat fare for London buses has been around since 2004 (I think). There were peak (pre-0930) and off- peak Oyster PAYG fares on buses for a period - but there have never been different fares according to distance travelled. The fact that there is a flat fare makes implementing Oyster PAYG on buses very easy - everyone who touches-in (i.e. validates their Oyster by scanning it) pays the same standard fare (though yes, daily price capping may mean that they don't!). However I was just wondering if the system had been designed so that it could be used in a non-flat fare environment - i.e. fares based on distance or zones. I cannot envisage a scenario where passengers had to touch-out when they exited the bus as being remotely workable whatsoever, so that's not really what I'm asking about. Instead the situation I have in mind is one where the passenger has to specifically request a destination (or zone) to the driver, who then has to enter in into their ticket machine before the passenger then touches-in their Oyster on the ticket machine's Oyster pad - and are possibly also issued with a paper ticket. This would be useful on the two LLSA bus routes where Oyster PAYG is only valid on part of the route. (Metroline 84 to Potters Bar & Unobus 614 to Barnet) |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
Paul Corfield wrote: (snip) In the very early days of Prestige (later Oyster) there was no policy decision that TfL would implement flat fares on the bus network. The fare scale at the time had several zonal fare values for adults plus IIRC a flat child rate. There was a huge discussion about the practicality of exit validation but done without active validation by passengers. In other words you effectively walked through a door wide scanner when you alighted and that would read the card and deduct the fare (or add back if a max fare on entry system was used). The problem was that the exit technology was nowhere near mature enough, no one had ever tested such an application and there were big questions about what happened if there was a misread, people had two cards on their person etc etc. The early promotional videos from Transys showed a Dart minibus in deepest Merstham with a ETM plus a validator whereby passengers could select their fare and then tap their card. The driver could also set the fare for deduction via the ETM. You don't need to be a genius to spot some potential loopholes with such a system. I believe the system can deal with more than one fare as that was certainly in the spec when I was around and it would be nonsensical for TfL to have taken such a function out of the system. Paper tickets were also considered as being necessary to give people confidence that the electronic system had deducted the correct fare - thankfully that aspect was never implemented! My guess is that the reality of making zonal fares work on buses forced TfL into considering flat fares (although simplification had been working its way through LT Buses for several years). This consideration then meshed nicely with the aspirations of the Mayor to drive up bus usage. The rest, they say, is history. To counter the arguments that exit validation can't work and that fare self selection can't work either I would point to Singapore and the EZ Card (and magnetics beforehand). Prior to the EZ Card the bus system had magnetic stored value ticket acceptance but without exit validation. There were huge (for a bus) machines with multiple buttons for the appropriate fare stages. You dropped your magnetic ticket in the machine, pressed for your fare and the money was taken off your ticket and the ticket returned to you. I suspect if you are a regular user then this becomes second nature. As a visitor I found it awful and a real impediment to using buses. There was no issue on the MRT as it was gated and it was like using a magnetic ticket anywhere in the world. With EZ card the self selection has gone and been replaced by smartcard validation on entry and exit. There are two readers at each entrance / exit door so two stream boarding and alighting is possible. You tap your card on entry but nothing is deducted from the card but the entry point is obviously written to the card. All bus stops have a display that shows the number of stages from that stop to all other stops on routes serving that stop. There is also the fare scale based on the number of stages. EZ Card fares are cheaper than cash. When the bus closes it doors and moves off the exit validators are automatically switched off to stop people all tapping their cards and then overriding. I believe the system is linked to GPS or similar as the validators are only reactivated when you are within about 100m of a stop. This is useful if you are already at the exit as you can tap just before the stop and then alight. Others following simply tap on exit. Interestingly the second stream validator at the front door can also act as an exit validator for about 50 seconds once the doors are open or longer at a terminal point where lots of people may be alighting. I have to say I have found the whole system very easy to use and not encountered any problems. I have witnessed others having the odd difficulty at exit rejection but the driver calls them back and will either take a cash fare or else do some reset transaction to allow another go at exiting. I don't understand the technicalities of exactly what happens but it's obviously something Transit link have specified. The Singapore system will not allow you to board if you have negative value on the card - they operate a deposit system which allows cards to go negative but you must then top up off bus or pay cash. Checking the Transit link Guide there is a wide range of fares with some flat fares on feeder routes to MRT stations, distance based, premium fares for expresses as well as differential charges for air conditioned and non air conditioned vehicles (this applies to cash as well - the same concept is used in Hong Kong too). Everyone pays for their travel but there are concessionary cards for OAPS, children and servicemen. This apply concessionary charges for journeys undertaken by bus / MRT. You also get transfer rebates for interchange trips. You can get a rebate for up to two transfers after your first trip provided you board the next vehicle within 45 mins of exit. This applies MRT to bus and vice versa as well as bus to bus. Interchange between MRT lines is free as many metro networks. The rebates aren't huge but it works seamlessly - the display tells you if you've received a rebate. Last transfer has to be within 2 hours of the first boarding - the card reader must look back through journey history to check the timings. In Hong Kong you don't have exit validation but the fares structure employs a tapering effect (and has done for decades AFAIK). The bus system has a hierarchy in HK with feeder routes, local routes, expresses / cross harbour services, routes with sectional fares and premium routes like Airbus. Typically your fare is deducted on entry. However it is perfectly possible to pay completely different fares to get between A and B. A feeder or local service may be flat fare throughout - that's easy the fare value never changes. On other longer routes as well as Cross Harbour routes the assumption is that most people will travel a long distance or across the harbour and the fare is set for that market. You'd therefore be crazy to board such a bus to travel 3 stops down the road as you'd be charged the rate to go 25 stops. However as the bus gets closer and closer to its terminal the fares drop as it can act as a local bus without risking turning away people for a premium fare. For example a bus starts on HK Island and crosses the Harbour and will terminate at a housing development in Kowloon. If you board on the Island you may pay say $8.50, even at the other side of the tunnel it may be the same fare but perhaps within 12 stages of the eventual terminus the fare may drop to $5 to attract some local custom but it's likely that fare will be more expensive that a local bus in Kowloon serving the same stretch of road to the housing development. In the reverse direction the fare of $8.50 would apply all the way to HK Island to deter all local traffic as the major flow is to the Island not intermediately! Confused? A couple of service have sectional fares - this is more like our traditional UK fare stage approach. These run to Stanley from Central on HK Island. These services carry heavy flows to Stanley but provide the only service to intermediate areas. On boarding everyone is charged the Stanley fare but if you get off where a sectional fare applies you tap again on exit and value is added back to your card balance. Bus to Bus interchange discounts are widely offered by the bus operators but Bus - MTR - KCR discounts are not. Prior to the MTR takeover of the KCRC the rail networks were completely separate and there were no through fare discounts. I understand through fares are now being offered and intermediate gatelines are being removed - it's fare to say that the stations were all designed for gated interchange so they avoided the problems we have in London in having to have validators. I take your point about the efficacy of such a system in a somewhat less compliant society like London. Obviously part of the success in Singapore is the "controlled" nature of society and a social sanction if people were to cheat. I've not seen an obvious fraud taking place but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I think it might be an interesting experiment for TfL to try exit validation on buses to see what the issues might be in a London environment. The final point to make is that you get interchange discounts in Singapore if you change from Hope that's long enough for you! -- Paul C You tapered off at the end somewhat... but never mind that, thanks very much for your very comprehensive and most informative post. The pictures you paint of how things are done in Singapore and HK are great, and rebuff my notion that a system that requires passengers to touch-out would be unworkable. The early Presige idea of a door wide scanner isn't something I had really considered at all - it sounds very sci-fi! As you say it would have presented problems for people carrying two cards, something I have certainly done on numerous occasions. I note that in Singapore, you say there is no fare deducted at all on entry - it all happens on exit. I'm afraid to say (in what is perhaps an illustration of the criminal mindset here in contrast with Singapore!) one thing that instantly sprang to mind was what happens is a passenger doesn't tap out on exit - would they have managed to wangle a "free" journey, or would this discrepancy be flagged up the next time they tried to use their EZ card? The idea of a rebate if one transfers to another bus is an interesting one - there are occasionally discussions here about whether free bus transfers in London would be a good idea , perhaps instead a half- price second bus fare might be an idea. The idea of free bus travel before or after using the Underground also gets raised from time to time - for a bus to Tube transfer this would take the form of a rebate, applied on exit from the Tube. I note in HK that there are only a couple of routes - the Stanley from Central examples you gave - where passengers are required to touch- out. I'm afraid again one of my early thoughts is that passengers will be tempted to tap out early then override - and HK doesn't quite have the same societal notions of obedience that Singapore does, so I'm left wondering if that is an issue. I guess the threat of inspectors boarding at any time might be enough to dissuade many from doing that. I note what you say about the hierarchy of bus services in HK, where - apart from the couple of examples as discussed above - flat fares are charged on entry. How good is the fare information given at bus stops - after all, you don't want to end up paying $8.50 simply because you've got on a longer distance bus. Or does the type of bus and/or the colour and branding mean the distinction between longer distance and local buses is pretty obvious? This has got me wondering about the notion of a similar hierarchy of bus services in London, with more expensive 'premium' routes - perhaps express routes. That said, there are only two express London buses routes these days - the X68 and the X26 - and it's only really the X68 that is aimed at commuters. I remember reading a past comment on here of how, courtesy of traffic congestion, the X68 wasn't really that expressey, as it were! (I'll try it out some day.) I'm pretty sure that a premium priced air conditioned bus would attract a good bit of custom in the middle of a blistering summer heatwave! I'm not sure whether TfL could really do a proper experiment with exit validation - if there was no incentive to touch-out on exit, then most people wouldn't bother. If however there was some kind of max fare charged, then TfL would be inundated with complaints from people who had been charged the max fare and didn't realise or understand why that one bus route operated differently to every other! If however there was some incentive such as a half-price fare for shorter journeys, then I think you'd find the statistics reporting that an implausibly large number of passengers had apparently only hopped on the bus for a couple of stops! This could only really be countered by extensively deploying inspectors along the route. However confusion would still reign! It is for the very reason that passengers would be tempted to override - which is really just euphemism for saying 'go where they wanted to all along but don't pay for it' - that I find it difficult to imagine such a system working in London, or indeed elsewhere in the country. Still, if it ever was implemented it would provide a fresh bit of material for the perennially grumpy Evening Standard to gripe about. |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
Mizter T wrote The fact that there is a flat fare makes implementing Oyster PAYG on buses very easy - everyone who touches-in (i.e. validates their Oyster by scanning it) pays the same standard fare (though yes, daily price capping may mean that they don't!). However I was just wondering if the system had been designed so that it could be used in a non-flat fare environment - i.e. fares based on distance or zones. I cannot envisage a scenario where passengers had to touch-out when they exited the bus as being remotely workable whatsoever, so that's not really what I'm asking about. Posters here have in fact noted that many European cities DO require bus users to touch-out on exit. Instead the situation I have in mind is one where the passenger has to specifically request a destination (or zone) to the driver, who then [...] Most cities and PTE areas in the UK are smaller than the GLC so flat rate in a central zone seems likely. I am sure the NG experts will comment. However when the charging scheme also has to work for supertram and express services (greenline or Oxford tube in London terms) something more is needed. If these are limited stop and since the cost of "pay before you board" machines is apparently tolerable a U'ground type scheme seems possible with validators at stops. Assuming standard buses are flat £1 fare, the card would have say £5 deducted when the user boards and touches-in and if the journey finished at a express stop or tram stop within the city touching-out at a stop validator would return value so the journey would cost from £1 upwards, perhaps with a minimum fare of £2 for express buses. If the journey finished outside the city where there were no validators then the maximum would apply. For added complication a discount for a subsequent return journey could be allowed, even on the following day. -- Mike D |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
Mizter T wrote:
This has got me wondering about the notion of a similar hierarchy of bus services in London, with more expensive 'premium' routes - perhaps express routes. That said, there are only two express London buses routes these days - the X68 and the X26 - and it's only really the X68 that is aimed at commuters. 607 (express 207/427) When I first moved to Ealing I was rather surprised that you didn't have to pay extra to go on this, having been brought up with Greenline coaches. Both rely mainly on fewer stops rather than faster driving to save time. Colin McKenzie -- No-one has ever proved that cycle helmets make cycling any safer at the population level, and anyway cycling is about as safe per mile as walking. Make an informed choice - visit www.cyclehelmets.org. |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
On Jan 25, 9:31*pm, Mizter T wrote:
two long, comprehensive posts cut The idea of a rebate if one transfers to another bus is an interesting one - there are occasionally discussions here about whether free bus transfers in London would be a good idea , perhaps instead a half- price second bus fare might be an idea. The idea of free bus travel before or after using the Underground also gets raised from time to time - for a bus to Tube transfer this would take the form of a rebate, applied on exit from the Tube. On this particular point, I am not quite sure what the situation currently is anyway. If, for example, you touch on route 555 and it breaks down or stops short so that you get the next bus on route 555 where you get inspected ... Does each bus have its own ID so that the inspector can tell that you touched on that particular bus, or does the reader just show that you touched on route 555 within the allowed time? In general, unlimited travel for a period of time is easier to enforce than a (possibly unjust) charge per vehicle regardless of distance. (I remember a combination of metro and bus being allowed in Lille in the 1980s within an hour of clunking the ticket.) Whatever the answer about bus IDs, it must be impossible to enforce on the DLR and, in fact, why should you be charged double on your journey from Shadwell to Greenwich just because you want to do some shopping at Canary Wharf Tescos on the way (within the time)? If you drove, you wouldn't use double the petrol. |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:25:20 -0800 (PST), Mizter T
wrote: I cannot envisage a scenario where passengers had to touch-out when they exited the bus as being remotely workable whatsoever, so that's not really what I'm asking about. As mentioned, it is entirely workable and is implemented or about to be implemented like that in a number of countries. Indeed, with London-style split entrances and exits it is dead easy to implement and glaringly obvious as to the purpose of each reader. Neil -- Neil Williams Put my first name before the at to reply. |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:38:10 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote: The early promotional videos from Transys showed a Dart minibus in deepest Merstham with a ETM plus a validator whereby passengers could select their fare and then tap their card. The driver could also set the fare for deduction via the ETM. You don't need to be a genius to spot some potential loopholes with such a system. I believe the system can deal with more than one fare as that was certainly in the spec when I was around and it would be nonsensical for TfL to have taken such a function out of the system. Paper tickets were also considered as being necessary to give people confidence that the electronic system had deducted the correct fare - thankfully that aspect was never implemented! It is in Milton Keynes, where you are even issued a ticket if you "validate" a smartcard season ticket. One of the real oddities of that system. I take your point about the efficacy of such a system in a somewhat less compliant society like London. Obviously part of the success in Singapore is the "controlled" nature of society and a social sanction if people were to cheat. I think the easy way to make it work would be to, as I mentioned elsewhere, charge the card with the maximum fare for that bus journey and refund the difference on exit. Thus, anyone failing to touch out would only disadvantage themselves, and anyone touching out before alighting would just have to be caught by the same mechanism as anyone who currently boards a bendy bus without touching in, or in other locations someone who pays the minimum cash fare and rides the whole length of the route. One of the great things about smartcards implemented in this way is that GMPTE and the likes could go ahead with it now without harmonising any fares at all, having the card initially purely as a convenience thing (like it was in London to start with). Singapore, for that matter, has two main bus companies with totally different fare structures. Neil -- Neil Williams Put my first name before the at to reply. |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 13:31:37 -0800 (PST), Mizter T
wrote: It is for the very reason that passengers would be tempted to override - which is really just euphemism for saying 'go where they wanted to all along but don't pay for it' - that I find it difficult to imagine such a system working in London, or indeed elsewhere in the country. I really don't see it being any more of an issue than over-riding on paper tickets is. If you made it so that once you touched out you can't touch back in on that bus without speaking to the driver, I think it would be unlikely to be any more of a problem than it already is. Neil -- Neil Williams Put my first name before the at to reply. |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
On Sat, 26 Jan 2008 15:35:34 GMT, Neil Williams wrote:
I think the easy way to make it work would be to, as I mentioned elsewhere, charge the card with the maximum fare for that bus journey and refund the difference on exit. Thus, anyone failing to touch out would only disadvantage themselves, and anyone touching out before alighting would just have to be caught by the same mechanism as anyone who currently boards a bendy bus without touching in, i.e. none at all? |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
On Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:23:38 +0000, asdf
wrote: On Sat, 26 Jan 2008 15:35:34 GMT, Neil Williams wrote: I think the easy way to make it work would be to, as I mentioned elsewhere, charge the card with the maximum fare for that bus journey and refund the difference on exit. Thus, anyone failing to touch out would only disadvantage themselves, and anyone touching out before alighting would just have to be caught by the same mechanism as anyone who currently boards a bendy bus without touching in, i.e. none at all? Inspectors operate from time to time on the bendies, though admittedly not often enough. That said, if TfL catch 1/20 of the people who fail to touch in, they don't come out any worse off in a sense. (This is one of the ways Penalty Fares work - you set them effectively at a "market" level whereby if you catch the likely percentage of people you won't lose overall). Neil -- Neil Williams Put my first name before the at to reply. |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
MIG wrote: On Jan 25, 9:31pm, Mizter T wrote: two long, comprehensive posts cut The idea of a rebate if one transfers to another bus is an interesting one - there are occasionally discussions here about whether free bus transfers in London would be a good idea , perhaps instead a half- price second bus fare might be an idea. The idea of free bus travel before or after using the Underground also gets raised from time to time - for a bus to Tube transfer this would take the form of a rebate, applied on exit from the Tube. On this particular point, I am not quite sure what the situation currently is anyway. If, for example, you touch on route 555 and it breaks down or stops short so that you get the next bus on route 555 where you get inspected ... You're supposed to get a transfer ticket from the driver of the first bus. I think they scan your Oyster to check that you have properly paid the fare before issuing you with a transfer ticket. If you have a paper ticket bought on board the bus then again I understand the proceedure is that a transfer ticket should be obtained. I don't know whether transfer tickets are supposed to be issued when the bus was advertised as stopping short of the normal destination. I have also been on a bus which was turned short by a service controller, and all passengers were merely escorted from one bus to the other (which was just in front) by that controller without any rechecking of tickets by the second driver - we were just waved on - which of course is a sensible course way of doing things in such an event. A friend has also told of a couple of recent-ish occasions when the bus they were on was turned short without a service controller present (late in the evening) - so I presume the instructions were issued by radio - and they didn't obtain a transfer ticket, but merely got on the bus behind and after a quick explanation were waved on by the bus driver. The fact that the other bus that had been turned short was still in the bus stop would have helped this second bus driver realise what was going on - and of course they may have also had radio communications about it. That does sound like an occasion when transfer tickets should have been issued/obtained - but the truth is most passengers aren't aware of the transfer ticket system. I think perhaps it would be a good idea if bus drivers were more upfront in communicating this to passengers. When it comes to bendy buses, then I don't know whether technically the rules are any different. However I have certainly been on bendy buses a number of times that have been turned short, and when this has happened and I've paid using Oyster PAYG I've simply got on the next bendy bus of the same route number and not touched-in. I think this is absolutely fine given that I had already paid for a journey to destination Z yet I'd only been taken as far as Y. I'm pretty sure I've had my ticket inspected after this has happened and there wasn't a problem. I don't recall anyone obtaining transfer tickets from the bendy bus driver on such occasions either. I don't know what the situation is when a bendy bus is only advertised as going so far, but not to the normal end point of the route - though on such occasions I really don't think it would be an issue if passengers transferred from the terminating bus to one behind that was going all the way. I may have done this myself, I really can't remember. Next time I see some RPIs on board a bus I shall ask them. Does each bus have its own ID so that the inspector can tell that you touched on that particular bus, or does the reader just show that you touched on route 555 within the allowed time? I've no idea - I'd be interested to know what the situation was. Each bus ticket machine (or ETM - Electronic Ticket Machine?) must of course have a serial number of some kind which is recorded on an Oyster card when it is touched-in. I've seen RPIs using different handheld Oyster readers, and I understand some are more sophisticated than others, and so can display more comprehensive data. The typical handheld Oyster reader I see used looks much like a pocket calculator, and has a small LCD text display and also a red and green light. I presume that it is programmed with a few parameters, such as what bus route the RPI is inspecting, and it then gives a green or red light when the Oyster card is inspected. I've seen someone get done because they didn't have enough PAYG credit, and the RPI was able to display the last time the Oyster had been used properly - in this instance on a bus the previous day. In general, unlimited travel for a period of time is easier to enforce than a (possibly unjust) charge per vehicle regardless of distance. (I remember a combination of metro and bus being allowed in Lille in the 1980s within an hour of clunking the ticket.) Hmm, maybe. Of course the London bus fare model is the same as in (much of) the rest of the UK, where in essence one pays a fare for a journey on one particular bus. It can serve as an incentive to passengers to get a through bus for their journey, rather than chopping and changing which one could argue slows things down. That said of course so many people are using passes or will expect to reach a daily cap when using Oyster PAYG that this only works to an extent. Nonetheless, when I've been using Oyster PAYG I've certainly waited for my through bus, and I know many others who do the same, because I don't see the need to pay the extra for a second fare for that journey. Whether there should be free or reduced rate transfers to another bus is of course a discussion that often comes up on utl. Whatever the answer about bus IDs, it must be impossible to enforce on the DLR and, in fact, why should you be charged double on your journey from Shadwell to Greenwich just because you want to do some shopping at Canary Wharf Tescos on the way (within the time)? If you drove, you wouldn't use double the petrol. I think the rules are pretty clear that one should touch-out at the end of the journey, and touch-in before you start the next - so in the case of leaving Canary Wharf DLR station to go shopping at Tesco's one is leaving the DLR network and should touch-out. That said, I'm of the fairly strong suspicion that if you did this you would still only get charged for one through journey. My reasoning for this is that the Oyster readers at DLR stations cannot determine whether or not you are entering or leaving the network with certainty, unlike entrance and exit gates. Therefore I think that they might well presume you were touching-in mid journey when you changed from one DLR train to the other. I'm curious about that, not least because it is very much a real world scenario, so I will try to give it a go myself sometime soon. |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
On 26 Jan, 14:54, Colin McKenzie wrote:
Mizter T wrote: This has got me wondering about the notion of a similar hierarchy of bus services in London, with more expensive 'premium' routes - perhaps express routes. That said, there are only two express London buses routes these days - the X68 and the X26 - and it's only really the X68 that is aimed at commuters. 607 (express 207/427) When I first moved to Ealing I was rather surprised that you didn't have to pay extra to go on this, having been brought up with Greenline coaches. Both rely mainly on fewer stops rather than faster driving to save time. Colin McKenzie Indeed, good point - I'd forgotten about the 607. Of course that whole busy bus corridor up the Uxbridge Road was a good part of the impetus behind the now dead West London Tram scheme. AFAICS charging a premium fare on the 607 wouldn't produce any benefits, but would instead produce the disbenefit that more passengers would crowd onto the already heavily laden routes 207 and 427. |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
On Jan 27, 1:33*pm, Mizter T wrote:
MIG wrote: On Jan 25, 9:31pm, Mizter T wrote: two long, comprehensive posts cut The idea of a rebate if one transfers to another bus is an interesting one - there are occasionally discussions here about whether free bus transfers in London would be a good idea , perhaps instead a half- price second bus fare might be an idea. The idea of free bus travel before or after using the Underground also gets raised from time to time - for a bus to Tube transfer this would take the form of a rebate, applied on exit from the Tube. On this particular point, I am not quite sure what the situation currently is anyway. If, for example, you touch on route 555 and it breaks down or stops short so that you get the next bus on route 555 where you get inspected ... You're supposed to get a transfer ticket from the driver of the first bus. I think they scan your Oyster to check that you have properly paid the fare before issuing you with a transfer ticket. If you have a paper ticket bought on board the bus then again I understand the proceedure is that a transfer ticket should be obtained. I don't know whether transfer tickets are supposed to be issued when the bus was advertised as stopping short of the normal destination. I have also been on a bus which was turned short by a service controller, and all passengers were merely escorted from one bus to the other (which was just in front) by that controller without any rechecking of tickets by the second driver - we were just waved on - which of course is a sensible course way of doing things in such an event. A friend has also told of a couple of recent-ish occasions when the bus they were on was turned short without a service controller present (late in the evening) - so I presume the instructions were issued by radio - and they didn't obtain a transfer ticket, but merely got on the bus behind and after a quick explanation were waved on by the bus driver. The fact that the other bus that had been turned short was still in the bus stop would have helped this second bus driver realise what was going on - and of course they may have also had radio communications about it. That does sound like an occasion when transfer tickets should have been issued/obtained - but the truth is most passengers aren't aware of the transfer ticket system. I think perhaps it would be a good idea if bus drivers were more upfront in communicating this to passengers. When it comes to bendy buses, then I don't know whether technically the rules are any different. However I have certainly been on bendy buses a number of times that have been turned short, and when this has happened and I've paid using Oyster PAYG I've simply got on the next bendy bus of the same route number and not touched-in. I think this is absolutely fine given that I had already paid for a journey to destination Z yet I'd only been taken as far as Y. I'm pretty sure I've had my ticket inspected after this has happened and there wasn't a problem. I don't recall anyone obtaining transfer tickets from the bendy bus driver on such occasions either. I don't know what the situation is when a bendy bus is only advertised as going so far, but not to the normal end point of the route - though on such occasions I really don't think it would be an issue if passengers transferred from the terminating bus to one behind that was going all the way. I may have done this myself, I really can't remember. Next time I see some RPIs on board a bus I shall ask them. Does each bus have its own ID so that the inspector can tell that you touched on that particular bus, or does the reader just show that you touched on route 555 within the allowed time? I've no idea - I'd be interested to know what the situation was. Each bus ticket machine (or ETM - Electronic Ticket Machine?) must of course have a serial number of some kind which is recorded on an Oyster card when it is touched-in. I've seen RPIs using different handheld Oyster readers, and I understand some are more sophisticated than others, and so can display more comprehensive data. The typical handheld Oyster reader I see used looks much like a pocket calculator, and has a small LCD text display and also a red and green light. I presume that it is programmed with a few parameters, such as what bus route the RPI is inspecting, and it then gives a green or red light when the Oyster card is inspected. I've seen someone get done because they didn't have enough PAYG credit, and the RPI was able to display the last time the Oyster had been used properly - in this instance on a bus the previous day. In general, unlimited travel for a period of time is easier to enforce than a (possibly unjust) charge per vehicle regardless of distance. (I remember a combination of metro and bus being allowed in Lille in the 1980s within an hour of clunking the ticket.) Hmm, maybe. Of course the London bus fare model is the same as in (much of) the rest of the UK, where in essence one pays a fare for a journey on one particular bus. It can serve as an incentive to passengers to get a through bus for their journey, rather than chopping and changing which one could argue slows things down. That said of course so many people are using passes or will expect to reach a daily cap when using Oyster PAYG that this only works to an extent. Nonetheless, when I've been using Oyster PAYG I've certainly waited for my through bus, and I know many others who do the same, because I don't see the need to pay the extra for a second fare for that journey. Whether there should be free or reduced rate transfers to another bus is of course a discussion that often comes up on utl. Whatever the answer about bus IDs, it must be impossible to enforce on the DLR and, in fact, why should you be charged double on your journey from Shadwell to Greenwich just because you want to do some shopping at Canary Wharf Tescos on the way (within the time)? *If you drove, you wouldn't use double the petrol. I think the rules are pretty clear that one should touch-out at the end of the journey, and touch-in before you start the next - so in the case of leaving Canary Wharf DLR station to go shopping at Tesco's one is leaving the DLR network and should touch-out. That said, I'm of the fairly strong suspicion that if you did this you would still only get charged for one through journey. My reasoning for this is that the Oyster readers at DLR stations cannot determine whether or not you are entering or leaving the network with certainty, unlike entrance and exit gates. Therefore I think that they might well presume you were touching-in mid journey when you changed from one DLR train to the other. I'm curious about that, not least because it is very much a real world scenario, so I will try to give it a go myself sometime soon On one hand this is a technical question about which I too am curious, although not sure I want to risk the cost of finding out the wrong answer, so I hope you'll post the answer when you find it ... On the other hand, though, there's a general issue about competing with the alternatives, eg the car. Stopping to do something (or just have a rest) during a journey is a perfectly common and reasonable thing to do. If you do it on a car journey, you don't get charged double, and there's no reason why you should be. It's potentially a disincentive to using public transport. The unfairness of being charged per vehicle rather than between start and end points was largely done away with in London through the introduction of travelcards, but it has now been partially reintroduced with the introduction of PAYG as the alternative to the travelcard. You need to keep well below the cap for PAYG to be cheaper than a weekly travelcard, so it is a real issue. For example, if I am not using NR during a particular week and do absolutely nothing at evenings and weekends, I might just about get away with a comination of DLR and LU costing £2 each way, ie £20 a week, less than a zone 1 and 2 weekly travelcard. If I pay £1 extra per day for stopping to shop, it's now gone over the cost of a weekly zone 1 and 2 travelcard, and that's before weekend travel, evening bus trips, NR journeys etc etc. |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
On 27 Jan, 15:31, MIG wrote:
Stopping to do something (or just have a rest) during a journey is a perfectly common and reasonable thing to do. *If you do it on a car journey, you don't get charged double, and there's no reason why you should be. *It's potentially a disincentive to using public transport. I count fare capping as Oyster's alternative to transfer tickets. If you make 3 bus journeys in a day (well, 3 and a bit now), you aren't charged for any more. On a transfer system, it's usually make one journey, don't pay for any more for two hours. I think I prefer the Oyster approach. U -- http://londonconnections.blogspot.com/ A blog about transport projects in London |
Oyster PAYG and differential bus fares
On 26 Jan, 14:54, Colin McKenzie wrote:
Mizter T wrote: This has got me wondering about the notion of a similar hierarchy of bus services in London, with more expensive 'premium' routes - perhaps express routes. That said, there are only two express London buses routes these days - the X68 and the X26 - and it's only really the X68 that is aimed at commuters. I'm not sure what the OP meant by commuters then - the 726, now X26, always seemed to have more airport workers than airline passengers using it. Hth Henry |
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