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Post by arrivaarriva on Mar 6, 2018 22:09:43 GMT
Just received an e-mail from Hallmark Buses (operators of the 555) containing this sentence.
QUOTE We do honour the free fare zone within Heathrow but it is not applicable to outer boundaries such as Hatton Cross Station. UNQUOTE
Surely Hatton Cross Station IS within the Heathrow Free Fare Zone which is one single zone.
How can an operator "honour" one part of the zone and not another?
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Post by YY13VKP on Mar 6, 2018 22:29:52 GMT
Just received an e-mail from Hallmark Buses (operators of the 555) containing this sentence. QUOTE We do honour the free fare zone within Heathrow but it is not applicable to outer boundaries such as Hatton Cross Station. UNQUOTE Surely Hatton Cross Station IS within the Heathrow Free Fare Zone which is one single zone. How can an operator "honour" one part of the zone and not another? Hatton Cross should be the end of the Heathrow free travel zone. You have to remember that Hallmark are not a TfL operator and I'm pretty sure that the Heathrow free travel zone is a TfL initiative. The only TfL route which is not part of the Heathrow free travel zone is the X26. |
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Post by kmkcheng on Mar 6, 2018 22:32:39 GMT
Just received an e-mail from Hallmark Buses (operators of the 555) containing this sentence. QUOTE We do honour the free fare zone within Heathrow but it is not applicable to outer boundaries such as Hatton Cross Station. UNQUOTE Surely Hatton Cross Station IS within the Heathrow Free Fare Zone which is one single zone. How can an operator "honour" one part of the zone and not another? I know Hatton Cross is not free if you travel there from one of the Heathrow terminals on the Piccadilly line except using it as an interchange between the terminals |
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Post by snoggle on Mar 6, 2018 23:46:29 GMT
Just received an e-mail from Hallmark Buses (operators of the 555) containing this sentence. QUOTE We do honour the free fare zone within Heathrow but it is not applicable to outer boundaries such as Hatton Cross Station. UNQUOTE Surely Hatton Cross Station IS within the Heathrow Free Fare Zone which is one single zone. How can an operator "honour" one part of the zone and not another? Hatton Cross should be the end of the Heathrow free travel zone. You have to remember that Hallmark are not a TfL operator and I'm pretty sure that the Heathrow free travel zone is a TfL initiative. The only TfL route which is not part of the Heathrow free travel zone is the X26. The Heathrow Free Travel Zone is nothing to with TfL. It is funded by Heathrow Airport as part of trying to keep emissions under control and to encourage public transport usage. Clearly TfL contracted services are in scope as are a load of other operators. I struggle to see how Hatton Cross is not part of the zone given the zones ends about 5 stops beyond Hatton Cross on the 423 for example. I-Bus announces the boundary stop. Sounds to me like Hallmark are not able to write in plain English how the scheme works within the airport. One wonders if their fare structure charges people more to Heathrow than it does to Hatton Cross - if so they're berks because all it will do is encourage people to pay as far as Hatton Cross, get off the bus and then get straight on again. This map (possibly out of date) shows that the 555 zone coverage actually stretches beyond Hatton Cross and along the Southern Perimeter Road. Heathrow also fund cheap season tickets for airport employees that cover rail, bus and coach services and which stretch over fairly long distances such as to Oxford. |
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Post by M1199 on Mar 6, 2018 23:51:08 GMT
Surely the Free fare zone for the 555 runs between Terminal 4 all the way round to the Central Bus Station!
Speaking of the Free fare zone, does anyone know how come the 423 free fare zone ends at the Litchfield Road stop on Sailsbury Road, just off Green Lane, quite some distance from Hatton Cross. Whereas no other Heathrow route gets such an extension!
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Post by redexpress on Mar 7, 2018 0:39:15 GMT
The Heathrow Free Travel Zone is nothing to with TfL. It is funded by Heathrow Airport as part of trying to keep emissions under control and to encourage public transport usage. Clearly TfL contracted services are in scope as are a load of other operators. I struggle to see how Hatton Cross is not part of the zone given the zones ends about 5 stops beyond Hatton Cross on the 423 for example. I-Bus announces the boundary stop. Sounds to me like Hallmark are not able to write in plain English how the scheme works within the airport. One wonders if their fare structure charges people more to Heathrow than it does to Hatton Cross - if so they're berks because all it will do is encourage people to pay as far as Hatton Cross, get off the bus and then get straight on again. This map (possibly out of date) shows that the 555 zone coverage actually stretches beyond Hatton Cross and along the Southern Perimeter Road. The farechart on Hallmark's site doesn't show any difference between fares to T4 and fares to Central. Hatton Cross isn't a farestage, but the chart shows a zero fare between T4 and Central (via Hatton Cross), so how they can claim that Freeflow doesn't apply to travel to Hatton Cross is beyond me. In any case I'm baffled as to why they would want to refuse people free travel within the airport. They certainly don't have a capacity problem on the 555, and it's not as if anyone is going to be daft enough to pay them for a journey that they could do for free on the 285 (Hatton X - Central) or 482/490 (Hatton X - T4). When they first took over the 555 I did travel between Heathrow Central and Hatton X without trouble. The farechart also states "TfL Passes, Travelcards & oyster are accepted in oyster match area". Now I'm sure they mean that holders of these tickets qualify for the reduced fare of £1.60, but it could easily be taken to mean that Travelcards are accepted for travel within the area without further payment. All in all it looks to me as if they don't entirely know what they're doing! |
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Post by redexpress on Mar 7, 2018 0:42:53 GMT
Speaking of the Free fare zone, does anyone know how come the 423 free fare zone ends at the Litchfield Road stop on Sailsbury Road, just off Green Lane, quite some distance from Hatton Cross. Whereas no other Heathrow route gets such an extension! I've always assumed that it's something to do with that BA base on Green Lane. Could be wrong though, especially as I think that base didn't exist when Freeflow was first introduced. Of course the zone may have been extended to Lichfield Road when the base opened. |
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Post by RandomBusesGirl on Mar 7, 2018 7:41:04 GMT
So they are basically saying they will be defying the actual Free Zone due to their fancy-free? As if the buses weren't empty enough, great way to lose patronage - you couldn't make it up  By the way, does anyone know why Hatton Cross as a tube station isn't part of the Free-Flow? Like, I once made the mistake of getting a train from T123 to HC and got charged, finding out the hard way :/ |
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Post by M1199 on Mar 7, 2018 9:24:55 GMT
Speaking of the Free fare zone, does anyone know how come the 423 free fare zone ends at the Litchfield Road stop on Sailsbury Road, just off Green Lane, quite some distance from Hatton Cross. Whereas no other Heathrow route gets such an extension! I've always assumed that it's something to do with that BA base on Green Lane. Could be wrong though, especially as I think that base didn't exist when Freeflow was first introduced. Of course the zone may have been extended to Lichfield Road when the base opened. Not sure how long this extension has been in place for now, but if you look at the map that snoggle posted, it's not on there but yet it's a relatively new map as it has the already withdrawn First Berks N7 going to Terminal 4. Never really thought of that BA base before! and I drive down Green Lane to get to & from work on the Staines Road, where ironically, BA is one of the airlines we've got a contract with! |
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Post by SILENCED on Mar 7, 2018 9:30:26 GMT
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Post by redexpress on Mar 7, 2018 12:05:17 GMT
I've always assumed that it's something to do with that BA base on Green Lane. Could be wrong though, especially as I think that base didn't exist when Freeflow was first introduced. Of course the zone may have been extended to Lichfield Road when the base opened. Not sure how long this extension has been in place for now, but if you look at the map that snoggle posted, it's not on there but yet it's a relatively new map as it has the already withdrawn First Berks N7 going to Terminal 4. Never really thought of that BA base before! and I drive down Green Lane to get to & from work on the Staines Road, where ironically, BA is one of the airlines we've got a contract with! This archived timetable panel for the H23 is dated August 2001 and shows the Freeflow zone running upto Lichfield Road, so it's not a very recent extension. Not sure how long the BA base has been there though. |
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Post by redexpress on Mar 7, 2018 12:06:24 GMT
That diagram is dated April 2017, when the 555 was running to T5 rather than Heathrow Central, so was not included in the Freeflow zone. It reverted to Heathrow Central when Hallmark took over later in 2017. |
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Post by snoggle on Mar 7, 2018 13:18:22 GMT
That diagram is dated April 2017, when the 555 was running to T5 rather than Heathrow Central, so was not included in the Freeflow zone. It reverted to Heathrow Central when Hallmark took over later in 2017. Google brought up both maps but I opted to go with the later map in the hope it was more accurate. |
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Post by snowman on May 21, 2021 18:09:49 GMT
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