On 31 May, 11:58, D DB 90001 wrote:
On 31 May, 09:03, "Richardr" wrote:



"D DB 90001" wrote

However, I still think that local suburban services that *do*
terminate inside of Z1-6 or at stations such as Sevenoaks or Dartford
just outside Z6 should be managed by TfL, just like all bus routes,
even those which run outside of London but are mainly inside Z1-6, are
managed and run by TfL. Frankly because TfL are more likely to get
better results than other local authorities or DfT.

But the capacity on the roads isn't constrained in the same way as that on
the railways.

I believe that a lot of London commuter routes run at pretty much capacity
at peak times. Allowing one part of the route to determine what happens
there fixes what happens elsewhere.

Take Thameslink, for example, which stops and potentially stops at a lot of
London stations. If the Mayor of London had sole rights to determine
stopping patterns in London, then he would, quite rightly for him and his
electors, choose patterns wanted by his constituents, which I would imagine
would mean stopping all trains at all stops in Greater London. Thus those
passengers from outside London, e.g. Brighton and Bedford, would get a
massive deterioration in service.

I can't see why letting London alone decide the Thameslink timetable in its
own interests is such the bonus you think to Brighton or Bedford people?

Isn't it the same for most south-east routes - nearly all of which are
designed mainly for non-Londoners to get to and from London, or share tracks
with such a route?

OK, yes, TfL controlling Thameslink probably wouldn't be a good idea,
but then I was suggesting that Thameslink would be included because I
would have classified thameslink as an outer London service, because
the main core services on thameslink only call at the major London
termini at STP, Farringdon, Blackfriars and London Bridge, and then
East Croydon only, not calling at the intermediate stations, and a
fair proportion of the route is outside Z1-6, so it would be
classified as a local London suburban service.

The problem is that this problem in differentiating the services
between London Suburban and outer-London services that happen to call
at some, but not a lot of London stations is not always obvious.

Oops, terrible typo there, I meant to say:

OK, yes, TfL controlling Thameslink probably wouldn't be a good idea,
but then I **wasn't** suggesting that Thameslink would be included because I
would have classified thameslink as an outer London service, because
the main core services on thameslink only call at the major London
termini at STP, Farringdon, Blackfriars and London Bridge, and then
East Croydon only, not calling at the intermediate stations, and a
fair proportion of the route is outside Z1-6, so it would be
classified as a local London suburban service.

Take Thameslink, for example, which stops and potentially stops at a lot
of
London stations. If the Mayor of London had sole rights to determine
stopping patterns in London, then he would, quite rightly for him and his
electors, choose patterns wanted by his constituents, which I would
imagine
would mean stopping all trains at all stops in Greater London. Thus those
passengers from outside London, e.g. Brighton and Bedford, would get a
massive deterioration in service.

Thameslink already has two quite separate services, the metro (via the
Sutton Loop), and the Bedford to Brighton. It would make perfect sense for
LOROL to control the metro service, but not the long distance. LOROL would
then take a chair at the timetabling meetings and negotiate paths liek
everyone else. LOROL can share lines with other services just like the
other TOCs do.
--

Andrew
http://www.kwoted.com/

"If A is success in life, then A = x + y + z.
Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut." ~ Albert Einstein

On 31 May, 13:02, "Andrew Heenan" wrote:
Thameslink already has two quite separate services, the metro (via the
Sutton Loop), and the Bedford to Brighton. It would make perfect sense for
LOROL to control the metro service, but not the long distance.

Except late at night when the trains run all stops Bedford - St P, and
during the peaks when the service patterns get complicated. They also
share stock and depots and drivers. It would take a major
reorganisation to try to run the metro service as a separate
operation.

The FCC GN side has a much clearer separation between inner and outer
services, with separate stock and termini, and to a large extent,
separate tracks. Few if any inner trains run north of Welwyn/Stevenage
(via Hertford), for example.

U

D DB 90001 writes:

On 31 May, 10:33, Graham Murray wrote:
D DB 90001 writes:
Would it not be possible to adopt a system whereby once the cap is
reached, each operator gets the proportion of the capped fair according
to usage. So if (for simplicity of illustration) all single fares were
£1 and the cap £5 and someone makes 2 journeys on operator A and 1 on
operator B, operator A would get £2 and operator B £1. If the cap is
reached and the person makes 4 journey on operator A and 2 on operator
B, then operator A would get £5 x 4/6 = £3.33 and operator B £5 x 2/6 =
£1.67.

Potentially that could work, but would operator A get more than
operator B if the journey was twice as long (and would it be in terms
of distance or time?).

That is a result of the simplification. In practice I would expect the
sharing to done on ratio of the cost of uncapped fares for journeys made
on each operator. So, in my examples, if each journey on operator A
still cost £1 but those on operator B cost £2, then in the capped case
each operator would have received £2.50 as the total 'uncapped' fare
would have been £4 for each operator.

"Andrew Heenan" wrote in message
...

Divvying up fares between operators has been done without problems for 150
years; the issue that's different is the fact that TfL's customers have
been paying lower fares (with the zonal system) than National Rail
customers (except in SE London, where TfLs fares have often been higher).
So the fighting has been about resolving that without rioting TfL
passengers - or rioting NR passengers - or TOCs lowering their fares as
they face bankruptcy.

It's not the zonal system that has made TfL's prices lower that NR's it is
the substantial Oyster discount. I suspect Ken's desire to bring in lower
fares was a significant driver for Oyster as it allowed him to do so under
the cover of encouraging Oyster.

Even now there are mid-week off-peak return journeys within the zonal system
that are cheaper on NR than TfL/Oyster; there were a lot more before the
introduction of off-peak Oyster fares in the middle of the day.

Comparing single fares on TfL and NR ignores the substantial discount that
NR gives on off-peak day return tickets which are unavailable on TfL.

Dave.

"Andrew Heenan" wrote

Thameslink already has two quite separate services, the metro (via the
Sutton Loop), and the Bedford to Brighton. It would make perfect sense for
LOROL to control the metro service, but not the long distance. LOROL would
then take a chair at the timetabling meetings and negotiate paths liek
everyone else. LOROL can share lines with other services just like the
other TOCs do.


But then that doesn't solve the revenue allocation question, which is what
this discussion is about, it just moves it.

You have even more shared journeys between the privately owned and run
Bedford to Brighton service and the TfL service.

What's more, it is then in the interests of the privately run Bedford trains
to stop at, say, Mill Hill, Hendon, West Hampstead, and Kentish Town, for
example, purely to share in the revenue from those stations, even though
that pattern isn't optimal for anyone outside of Greater London.

"Richardr" wrote ...
"Andrew Heenan" wrote
Thameslink already has two quite separate services, the metro (via the
Sutton Loop), and the Bedford to Brighton. It would make perfect sense
for LOROL to control the metro service, but not the long distance. LOROL
would then take a chair at the timetabling meetings and negotiate paths
liek everyone else. LOROL can share lines with other services just like
the other TOCs do.
But then that doesn't solve the revenue allocation question, which is what
this discussion is about, it just moves it.
You have even more shared journeys between the privately owned and run
Bedford to Brighton service and the TfL service.
What's more, it is then in the interests of the privately run Bedford
trains to stop at, say, Mill Hill, Hendon, West Hampstead, and Kentish
Town, for example, purely to share in the revenue from those stations,
even though that pattern isn't optimal for anyone outside of Greater
London.

The post I responded to widened the discussion (as have others and your
post), to cover the effects on service.

The divvying of fares is currently an issue because TfL and NR have
historically assesed fares in very different ways; Oyster with zones, NR
with cheap day returns, etc., etc., It's an issue because the different
stakeholders unsurprisingly want the best outcome.

But it really isn't a make or break for London's railways; eventually
they'll come up with a formula (sadly much more complex than those proposed
in this thread), and life will go on, with Oysters for all.

The eventual outcome will almost certainly be that all fares totally within
the zones will be based on the TfL system, and at a common price; journeys
reaching outside the zones will continue as now - and, either way, the
Railway_Clearing_House's successors will continue to divide the spondulux
successfully they have continuously since 1842 on the national network.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Clearing_House

Whether TfL takes on more metro services is quite separate, and will (almost
inevitably) happen at some point.

The only really interesting thing about the squabble is that it has
highlighted the variation in NR fares around London, and this has been used
as an excuse (for example) to further raise Southeastern's fares,
conveniently forgetting that the main reason that they're historically low,
is that they've generally provided a relatively poor, very slow service.

What's more, it is then in the interests of the privately run Bedford
trains to stop at, say, Mill Hill, Hendon, West Hampstead, and Kentish
Town, for example, purely to share in the revenue from those stations,
even though that pattern isn't optimal for anyone outside of Greater
London.

Not so; filling their trains with local passengers for a few bob will deny
the space to long distance travellers, and lose them pounds. Longer distance
operators generally hate short distance passengers, and it's only anomolies
in the system (eg Virgins protection against competition on the WCML) that
leads to stupid stopping patterns.


--

Andrew

On May 31, 2:54*pm, "Andrew Heenan" wrote:

[snip]

The eventual outcome will almost certainly be that all fares totally within
the zones will be based on the TfL system, and at a common price; journeys
reaching outside the zones will continue as now - and, either way, the
Railway_Clearing_House's successors *will continue to divide the spondulux
successfully they have continuously since 1842 on the national network.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Clearing_House

Wow, Andrew - you do so love bringing a confident sense of certainty
when there's no real justification for it, and hence you end up making
wrongheaded assumptions or jumping to simplistic conclusions.

Re the idea that "all fares within the zones will be based on the TfL
system" - in actual fact there's been some evidence to suggest that
when Oyster PAYG is accepted across NR in London, the farescale
adopted for single fares will be exactly the same as that which
currently applies to NR in London (which is now uniform across all
TOCs for journeys within the zones) - in other words Oyster PAYG won't
offer a straightforward price advantage over buying paper tickets, and
it will be more expensive than Tube PAYG fares.

In particular this appeared on the Southeastern TOC's website until
very recently - it ain't there any more as the website has been
redesigned, but that doesn't mean it no longer applies:

---quote---
27. Do you accept Oyster cards on your network?

We do already accept season tickets on Oyster on our network (within
the valid zones) but we do not currently accept Oyster pay as you go
(PAYG). We are working with Transport for London (TfL) to introduce
PAYG which requires significant investment with additional validators
needed, automatic ticket gates at some stations, etc. It's envisaged
we'll be able to introduce Oyster PAYG sometime in 2010. But it's
important to say that Oyster PAYG will not be cheaper than our usual
rail fares.
---/quote---

You can still see this via Google's cache of the page (accurate as of
16 May '09):
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache....co.uk/faq.php

We shall see what happens in the end, but I'd be *very* surprised to
see the PAYG farescale for LU and NR being the same - it's not really
in the interests of the TOCs who would be subject to pressure from the
Mayor over fares changes (and the Mayor might well be looking more at
the LU situation with regards to fares, given the Mayor's direct
control of LU), and also the Mayor wouldn't like it as (s)he'd have
less freedom of manoeuvre with regards to LU fares if they also
applied to NR as well as the TOCs and DfT would want a say. (Sure, NR
fares in London are already set centrally - but by DfT Rail, not TfL -
it is done in consultation with TfL, but the TOCs also have an input,
and this arrangement is less subject to fares becoming a bit of a
political football as they could be under the Mayor.)

Re the Railway Clearing House reference - the Rail Settlement Plan
(RSP), part of ATOC, currently divides up the money from rail tickets.
The division of Travelcard monies is more complicated, involving both
RSP and TfL. However the notion that RSP itself will divide up monies
from Oyster PAYG use in London doesn't appear to be backed up by
anything - sure, perhaps some of the formulas used by RSP will also be
used as a basis for divvying up money from the Oyster PAYG pot when it
comes to National Rail services, but TfL itself will be (as it already
is) the 'clearing house' when it comes to Oyster PAYG.


Whether TfL takes on more metro services is quite separate, and will (almost
inevitably) happen at some point.

Only if London, in the form of the Mayor, pushes for it. Ken was very
keen, Boris seems disinterested.


The only really interesting thing about the squabble is that it has
highlighted the variation in NR fares around London, and this has been used
as an excuse (for example) to further raise Southeastern's fares,
conveniently forgetting that the main reason that they're historically low,
is that they've generally provided a relatively poor, very slow service.


There are no variations now - all single and return rail-only fares
within London are priced on a zonal basis (though still issued on a
point-to-point basis) and have been since January 2007 - meanwhile
season ticket rail-only fares have been subject to a more gradual
process of alignment that started in January '07 and will be complete
at the January 2010 fares change.

In article
,
(Mr Thant) wrote:

The FCC GN side has a much clearer separation between inner and outer
services, with separate stock and termini, and to a large extent,

up to a point Lod Copper. At times they all use King's Cross.

separate tracks. Few if any inner trains run north of Welwyn/Stevenage
(via Hertford), for example.

I can see you've never been held outside Letchworth on a Cambridge/Lynn
train while they tip out an inner at the platform.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On May 31, 1:33*pm, Mr Thant
wrote:
On 31 May, 13:02, "Andrew Heenan" wrote:

Thameslink already has two quite separate services, the metro (via the
Sutton Loop), and the Bedford to Brighton. It would make perfect sense for
LOROL to control the metro service, but not the long distance.

Except late at night when the trains run all stops Bedford - St P, and
during the peaks when the service patterns get complicated. They also
share stock and depots and drivers. It would take a major
reorganisation to try to run the metro service as a separate
operation.


But isn't the eventual plan that the suburban services will gain new 8
car trains, whilst the longer distance services will gain 12 car
trains. This will lead to a separation in the rolling stock at least.
The question is surely whether the service has to be completely
separate or whether the suburban section can be specified by TfL as a
signatory to the franchise, with a suitable arrangement of fare
allocations.

The FCC GN side has a much clearer separation between inner and outer
services, with separate stock and termini, and to a large extent,
separate tracks. Few if any inner trains run north of Welwyn/Stevenage
(via Hertford), for example.


There are a few inner suburban trains that run to / from Letchworth
during the peaks. The situation will be more complex when 'Thameslink'
services are expanded onto the ECML at the end of the rebuild
schemes.