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Post by M1199 on Feb 3, 2019 21:02:17 GMT
Would be good if they could fit those supermarket style entrance barriers, which only open outwards allowing people to exit, which I believe was used to some Artics outside of London, once upon a time. The need of the use of the ramp will however make that a no go. They may as well fix shut the rear door if this goes ahead!
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Post by sid on Feb 3, 2019 21:02:41 GMT
So what should TfL do? Just carry on allowing free travel? I realise that some people will try and board through the rear doors anyway just as some will just walk past the driver without touching in but they're separate issues, obviously fare evasion isn't going to be totally eliminated but let's face it, three door open boarding encourages it. The same problems occurred in Berlin and they subsequently switched to front door only boarding and surprise surprise revenue increased considerably and as far as I'm aware journey times haven't been increased resulting in cuts in services as forecast earlier in the thread, clearly project fear isn't confined to Brexit😅! So if three door boarding is removed, surely you agree then that LT’s are then redundant in comparison to conventional buses? They'll just be front door entry like other buses.
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Post by sid on Feb 3, 2019 21:08:44 GMT
So what should TfL do? Just carry on allowing free travel? I realise that some people will try and board through the rear doors anyway just as some will just walk past the driver without touching in but they're separate issues, obviously fare evasion isn't going to be totally eliminated but let's face it, three door open boarding encourages it. The same problems occurred in Berlin and they subsequently switched to front door only boarding and surprise surprise revenue increased considerably and as far as I'm aware journey times haven't been increased resulting in cuts in services as forecast earlier in the thread, clearly project fear isn't confined to Brexit😅! Tbh since the bendy bus they should have stopped the 3 door open boarding system but hey I guess that's just my opinion. I agree, it was a daft idea having open boarding on any type of bus.
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Post by redexpress on Feb 3, 2019 22:33:46 GMT
Would be good if they could fit those supermarket style entrance barriers, which only open outwards allowing people to exit, which I believe was used to some Artics outside of London, once upon a time. The need of the use of the ramp will however make that a no go. They may as well fix shut the rear door if this goes ahead! They have those one-way barriers at the rear doors of the Brighton artics, but they are easily bypassed from what I've seen at night! Which may explain why they mostly use DDs at night.
On these buses the centre door has been panelled over, and the wheelchair ramp relocated to the front door.
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Post by M1104 on Mar 1, 2019 12:08:20 GMT
They have those one-way barriers at the rear doors of the Brighton artics, but they are easily bypassed from what I've seen at night! Which may explain why they mostly use DDs at night.
On these buses the centre door has been panelled over, and the wheelchair ramp relocated to the front door.
In principle the LTs could be set up similarly with the exception of keeping the centre doors in operation for restricted[1] use as wheelchair access, buggies and an emergency exit. Additionally have a marked up one-way system for the staircases, front for going up and rear for coming down... baring emergency evacuations. Just to clarify I'm not at all on the idea of restrictive boarding on LTs (their present system being their greatest advantage), simply suggesting theoretical possibilities on such a scenario. [1] - although that will increase dwell time even more so
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Post by redbus on Mar 1, 2019 19:02:59 GMT
Firstly the horse has already bolted. Everyone expects 3 door boarding and exit on an LT, and as others say that is a key benefit for passengers. This idea of restricting boarding to the front door reminds me of school, you punish the whole class because one or two children are naughty. Trying to restricting LT boarding to the front door is holding passengers in complete contempt.
Does that mean you simply allow fare evasion, no not at all. Firstly while LTs are a source of fare evasion they are not the only source. Arguably LTs were built to have conductors, which would have resolved any fare evasion issues. One simple solution would be to employ and then deploy more revenue enforcement officers on these routes. The fines would pay for the extra staff, and in time people would realise there is no free ride. TfL know the problem areas and where to deploy enforcement officers.
I suspect fare evasion on LTs varies considerably from route to route. Perhaps it should be considered to deploy LTs on routes less susceptible to fare evasion.
Then there's technology, perhaps CCTV can be used to match those entering and not touching in. There are other possibilities too.
Finally for this post, while I note fare evasion overall has supposedly hit the huge figure of £100 million, there have been no more LTs introduced in the last year, so I wouldn't thought LTs are proportionately more 'responsible' for fare evasion than have historically been.
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Post by Volvo on Mar 1, 2019 20:35:46 GMT
Taken from latest bus news week.
Fare dodging costs London £100m a year: Transport for London states that passengers who dodge paying fares when travelling on London’s transport systems are costing £100m a year. The amount lost to fare evasion across the network is nearly £15m higher than previous estimates, despite a 15% rise in prosecutions last year. This is the first time the estimate of lost revenue has reached £100m. The last estimate in 2016 put the annual loss at £86m. Fares go unpaid in a range of ways on London's transport network, from failing to touch in and out with an Oyster card to the use of counterfeit tickets. Some 450 revenue inspectors are employed across the network to try to stop fare dodging
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Post by sid on Mar 1, 2019 22:13:12 GMT
Firstly the horse has already bolted. Everyone expects 3 door boarding and exit on an LT, and as others say that is a key benefit for passengers. This idea of restricting boarding to the front door reminds me of school, you punish the whole class because one or two children are naughty. Trying to restricting LT boarding to the front door is holding passengers in complete contempt.
Does that mean you simply allow fare evasion, no not at all. Firstly while LTs are a source of fare evasion they are not the only source. Arguably LTs were built to have conductors, which would have resolved any fare evasion issues. One simple solution would be to employ and then deploy more revenue enforcement officers on these routes. The fines would pay for the extra staff, and in time people would realise there is no free ride. TfL know the problem areas and where to deploy enforcement officers.
I suspect fare evasion on LTs varies considerably from route to route. Perhaps it should be considered to deploy LTs on routes less susceptible to fare evasion.
Then there's technology, perhaps CCTV can be used to match those entering and not touching in. There are other possibilities too.
Finally for this post, while I note fare evasion overall has supposedly hit the huge figure of £100 million, there have been no more LTs introduced in the last year, so I wouldn't thought LTs are proportionately more 'responsible' for fare evasion than have historically been. Quite honestly I think open boarding on any type of bus is crazy, it's inevitably going to encourage fare evasion. LT's are going to be around for some time yet so should TfL carry on losing revenue or should they do something about it? I don't think more revenue inspectors are the answer, they are not going to recoupe enough income to pay for themselves. Buses in Berlin were altered from open boarding for the same reason.
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Post by redbus on Mar 1, 2019 22:48:34 GMT
Firstly the horse has already bolted. Everyone expects 3 door boarding and exit on an LT, and as others say that is a key benefit for passengers. This idea of restricting boarding to the front door reminds me of school, you punish the whole class because one or two children are naughty. Trying to restricting LT boarding to the front door is holding passengers in complete contempt.
Does that mean you simply allow fare evasion, no not at all. Firstly while LTs are a source of fare evasion they are not the only source. Arguably LTs were built to have conductors, which would have resolved any fare evasion issues. One simple solution would be to employ and then deploy more revenue enforcement officers on these routes. The fines would pay for the extra staff, and in time people would realise there is no free ride. TfL know the problem areas and where to deploy enforcement officers.
I suspect fare evasion on LTs varies considerably from route to route. Perhaps it should be considered to deploy LTs on routes less susceptible to fare evasion.
Then there's technology, perhaps CCTV can be used to match those entering and not touching in. There are other possibilities too.
Finally for this post, while I note fare evasion overall has supposedly hit the huge figure of £100 million, there have been no more LTs introduced in the last year, so I wouldn't thought LTs are proportionately more 'responsible' for fare evasion than have historically been. Quite honestly I think open boarding on any type of bus is crazy, it's inevitably going to encourage fare evasion. LT's are going to be around for some time yet so should TfL carry on losing revenue or should they do something about it? I don't think more revenue inspectors are the answer, they are not going to recoupe enough income to pay for themselves. Buses in Berlin were altered from open boarding for the same reason. For better or worse we already have the LTs as you say and they were designed with open boarding in mind. You can't just put the genie back in the bottle, and the previous Mayor (and the one before him for that matter) deemed open boarding to be fine. So the question becomes what to do. What we don't know is what the loss on LTs is, what percentage of passengers that relates to, how that compares to other buses and lots of other things. Without all of that sort of information it is difficult to make any sort of judgement.
In terms of revenue enforcement officers, for example the London Living Wage is £10.55 per hour, so if one person is caught by each revenue officer per hour, that more than pays for the enforcement officer (fine is £40), not that I am suggesting the London Living Wage is the right pay, before anyone jumps on me for that!
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Post by sid on Mar 1, 2019 22:58:22 GMT
Quite honestly I think open boarding on any type of bus is crazy, it's inevitably going to encourage fare evasion. LT's are going to be around for some time yet so should TfL carry on losing revenue or should they do something about it? I don't think more revenue inspectors are the answer, they are not going to recoupe enough income to pay for themselves. Buses in Berlin were altered from open boarding for the same reason. For better or worse we already have the LTs as you say and they were designed with open boarding in mind. You can't just put the genie back in the bottle, and the previous Mayor (and the one before him for that matter) deemed open boarding to be fine. So the question becomes what to do. What we don't know is what the loss on LTs is, what percentage of passengers that relates to, how that compares to other buses and lots of other things. Without all of that sort of information it is difficult to make any sort of judgement.
In terms of revenue enforcement officers, for example the London Living Wage is £10.55 per hour, so if one person is caught by each revenue officer per hour, that more than pays for the enforcement officer (fine is £40), not that I am suggesting the London Living Wage is the right pay, before anyone jumps on me for that!
It can be changed and as I mentioned it has been in Berlin. On the other hand if open boarding is a good idea, and I don't think it is, why not extend it to two door buses? All it needs is oyster readers at the rear doors, you don't to have three doors for open boarding. Revenue inspectors have very little power without police back up and in reality fare dodgers will refuse to give their details and just get off and get on another bus. As for fare evasion in general I just think it's the culture that has developed in London with free travel for kids and people with invalid oysters expecting to be allowed to travel to the station to top up etc.
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Post by vjaska on Mar 2, 2019 0:08:12 GMT
For better or worse we already have the LTs as you say and they were designed with open boarding in mind. You can't just put the genie back in the bottle, and the previous Mayor (and the one before him for that matter) deemed open boarding to be fine. So the question becomes what to do. What we don't know is what the loss on LTs is, what percentage of passengers that relates to, how that compares to other buses and lots of other things. Without all of that sort of information it is difficult to make any sort of judgement.
In terms of revenue enforcement officers, for example the London Living Wage is £10.55 per hour, so if one person is caught by each revenue officer per hour, that more than pays for the enforcement officer (fine is £40), not that I am suggesting the London Living Wage is the right pay, before anyone jumps on me for that!
It can be changed and as I mentioned it has been in Berlin. On the other hand if open boarding is a good idea, and I don't think it is, why not extend it to two door buses? All it needs is oyster readers at the rear doors, you don't to have three doors for open boarding. Revenue inspectors have very little power without police back up and in reality fare dodgers will refuse to give their details and just get off and get on another bus. As for fare evasion in general I just think it's the culture that has developed in London with free travel for kids and people with invalid oysters expecting to be allowed to travel to the station to top up etc. The fare evasion culture had started long before free travel for children was introduced and long before oyster was even introduced - growing up in the 90's and using the 159 a lot, many people would specifically wait for that route so they could get a free fare and the fare back then was 40p for kids and 70p for adults.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 10, 2019 21:26:54 GMT
Move the LTs out to suburban routes in smaller town hubs e.g. Edgware, swapping them with conventional two-door buses. Not only will this allow for the introduction of front door only boarding in areas where this is already the norm, but also give a chance for the fare evaders on the 'former' LT routes in central London to get used to having to pay for their journeys, just like everyone else does.
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Post by Eastlondoner62 on Mar 10, 2019 21:33:05 GMT
Move the LTs out to suburban routes in smaller town hubs e.g. Edgware, swapping them with conventional two-door buses. Not only will this allow for the introduction of front door only boarding in areas where this is already the norm, but also give a chance for the fare evaders on the 'former' LT routes in central London to get used to having to pay for their journeys, just like everyone else does. I've just solved the fare evasion crisis - simple I think that would make the issue worse. It's rare to have a town which is effectively isolated from the LT effect. Most towns are nearby to other LT routes or have LT routes. We get them as far out as Romford on the 5, and have had them as far north as Edgware on the 32.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 10, 2019 21:37:16 GMT
Move the LTs out to suburban routes in smaller town hubs e.g. Edgware, swapping them with conventional two-door buses. Not only will this allow for the introduction of front door only boarding in areas where this is already the norm, but also give a chance for the fare evaders on the 'former' LT routes in central London to get used to having to pay for their journeys, just like everyone else does. I think that would make the issue worse. It's rare to have a town which is effectively isolated from the LT effect. Most towns are nearby to other LT routes or have LT routes. We get them as far out as Romford on the 5, and have had them as far north as Edgware on the 32. Of course they are everywhere, but the further out you go the less common they are. Where the majority of buses are already 'front-door boarding only', it isn't going to be as much of a shock to the system as changing different routes on different days in LT central. There will be mass confusion in central London unless there is a switch overnight which wouldn't be feasible.
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Post by redbus on Mar 10, 2019 21:54:54 GMT
Perhaps the card readers could be moved to the middle and rear doors, so you have to tap in as you board. That could be combined with technology which could count the people entering using these doors and check the numbers entering match the number tapping in. There would be certain pressure to tap in with all the other passengers doing so, and for those that don't we are back to similar options as to what to do on a two door bus if someone say 'pretends' to tap in and walks down the bus or goes upstairs. Once people realise that it will be identified that they haven't paid, that may well change matters. Currently part of the problem is that it too easy to enter via the middle / rear doors without anyone realising that the person has not tapped in.
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