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Post by southlondon413 on Nov 12, 2024 13:28:03 GMT
When did the more standardised flat fares come in? I remember in 90s the 60p and 80p fare depending on how far you went and I think I remember people being charged £1 to go to Highdown on the 80 which at the time was considered outside Zones. I remember it being 40p for kids and 70p for adults but never paid 60p or 80p - was that an outer zone thing? I don’t either, it was a flat 40p child and 70p adult when I grew up in the 90s. I used to take the money from my friends mum because she didn’t want me to walk home in the dark after a few hours at their house. I also remember signing up for the Oyster when I went to secondary school in 2002 because you had to get the school to sign it off back then and the female dogy receptionist kept me waiting nearly an hour for the school to stamp it. |
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Post by M1104 on Nov 12, 2024 14:31:57 GMT
Whilst not condoning wrongful nor unlawful actions those routes were among many "out-county' ones which had non-standard fares applied. These were higher than the LT "Central Area" standard rates but lower than the "Country Area" ones and applied, generally, where red buses ran outside the then-defined London County Council boundary into the Shires and "green bus" territory. Crews should have been well aware of the fares which in any case were (or should, to comply with the law) have been displayed on the vehicles. RFs, which ran the 218 / 219, carried the fare chart inside the destination blind box facing down the gangway; in any case of dispute crews and passengers could readily check the correct fare to be charged. Long before the change to letter codes for fare values it was necessary to issue combinations of tickets for some fares especially from Gibson machines which had a limited range of options. These should have had the code C/M or COM printed rather than the S or C (single / child) for a solo ticket. Some fares into Hertfordshire and Surrey were on the higher scale - on the 279 for example, where you might have had a passenger boarding in Smithfield for Hammond Street - and were not within the scope of the Gibson machine so required combination tickets to be used. London Country inherited a goodly number of Gibsons and wasn't able to change them all quickly. I remember being issued a Golden Rover as five 15p tickets in a long strip! Once the conductors got Setrights they could issue a single 75p ticket as could their one-man colleagues using Almex machines. Code V2 for a Golden Rover. When did the more standardised flat fares come in? I remember in 90s the 60p and 80p fare depending on how far you went and I think I remember people being charged £1 to go to Highdown on the 80 which at the time was considered outside Zones. Trying to rattle my memory of the 1990s on the 295 I seem to remember 40p for short hop journeys (around four stops) and 70p for longer journeys. This is bearing in mind that the 295 was solely within the old London bus zone 2. Zone 1 fares were higher, which I seem to remember on the 239¹ including 80p and £1.20 fares, the route serving zones 1 and 2. Child fare I then remember initially as 30p which then went up to 40p with the short hoppa increasing to 50p (70p fares then unchanged). I believe the flat fare came in around 2004 when it was then £1. ¹ - now part of the 170 Victoria to Clapham Junction |
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Post by matthieu1221 on Nov 12, 2024 17:02:49 GMT
When did the more standardised flat fares come in? I remember in 90s the 60p and 80p fare depending on how far you went and I think I remember people being charged £1 to go to Highdown on the 80 which at the time was considered outside Zones. In 1981 the Ken Livingstone-led Greater London Council promised cheaper fares across the GLC region under the banner "Fares Fair". Tube fares were slashed by around 30% (some by more, some less) and bus fares became a standard 25p outside of the central area. Whilst certain law lords decreed that the politics and methodology of that was unlawful it was to prove the birthplace of two very important developments. Zonal rather than distance-travelled fares and the Travelcard. London opted for three and later four zones with drivers (and still a goodly number of conductors) taking fares and who could charge the appropriate "country" fares where required. Instead of hopping on a bus and asking the conductor for your destination (or for the fare value, if known), it became more common to simply ask for "two please" for you and your travelling companion. Fare zones are a very coarse system of graduated per-distance charging but have become widely accepted in many urban areas. The system has also been applied in some places to very much wider areas with very mixed success. The Australian State of Victoria uses 82 zones to cover almost the same land area as England and for all public transport options within it. It requires so much of the back-end that each tag-on and tag-off is noticeably slow. When 95% of journeys are made within Zones 1 and / or 2 that has caused a lot of criticism; the system still needs to interrogate your Myki card to determine whether you have in fact travelled from Zone 82 via Zone 1 to Zone 36 for example. It has also become necessary to offer a "free tram zone" within the CBD as the sheer numbers of passengers boarding and alighting is way beyond the system's ability to cope in a meaningful time. It is not uncommon for 100 to alight (and need to tag off) then another 100 to board (and tag on) at a single stop for example. London has opted for the flat-fare option on buses since the advent of electronic charging. It could have used zones but this relies upon 100% of users tagging on and off as the system requires. As in Melbourne the numbers can be quite high and the bus network would grind to a halt if it were tried. Hand in hand with TfL pulling in to operate almost exclusively within its own boundary the need for "country fares" has largely been eradicated. The 405 and 465 are the most honourable exceptions still charging less for end-to-end rides deep into Surrey than London & Country ever did. Dorking to Kingston is currently £1.75 but was at one time I believe over £5. Iirc now one does not need to tap out in journeys made entirely in Zone 1 on the trams in Melbourne anymore (tapping out in Z1 didn't last very long).
Tap in tap out works well in Singapore (only place I've really seen it work decently well -- Japan too actually but I'll leave that as an aside) because of the 2 exit (and 2 entrance) readers on buses. And the readers are very quick. Oyster readers are incredibly slowwww compared to their Singaporean EZ-Link counterparts. The plastic and plexiglass now surrounding them doesn't help (though the tube ones which remain unhindered are still far slower than in Singapore).
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Post by vjaska on Nov 12, 2024 18:20:54 GMT
When did the more standardised flat fares come in? I remember in 90s the 60p and 80p fare depending on how far you went and I think I remember people being charged £1 to go to Highdown on the 80 which at the time was considered outside Zones. Trying to rattle my memory of the 1990s on the 295 I seem to remember 40p for short hop journeys (around four stops) and 70p for longer journeys. This is bearing in mind that the 295 was solely within the old London bus zone 2. Zone 1 fares were higher, which I seem to remember on the 239¹ including 80p and £1.20 fares, the route serving zones 1 and 2. Child fare I then remember initially as 30p which then went up to 40p with the short hoppa increasing to 50p (70p fares then unchanged). I believe the flat fare came in around 2004 when it was then £1. ¹ - now part of the 170 Victoria to Clapham Junction Most trips when I was younger was either wholly within Zone 2 or Zone 2-1 and Zone 2-3 and it was always 40p for kids and 70p for adults until later on when I think it was made 70p for all before the rise to £1. Regular trips were Brixton to Streatham, Brixton to the West End, Brixton to Clapham Junction or Common & Brixton to Camberwell - I'm even sure it was still only 40p & 70p on a 109 from Brixton to Croydon? |
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Post by southlondonbus on Nov 12, 2024 19:37:16 GMT
I remember it being 40p for kids and 70p for adults but never paid 60p or 80p - was that an outer zone thing? I don’t either, it was a flat 40p child and 70p adult when I grew up in the 90s. I used to take the money from my friends mum because she didn’t want me to walk home in the dark after a few hours at their house. I also remember signing up for the Oyster when I went to secondary school in 2002 because you had to get the school to sign it off back then and the female dogy receptionist kept me waiting nearly an hour for the school to stamp it. It was pre the 70p and £1 zone 1 fare so must have been 90s. |
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Post by WH241 on Nov 12, 2024 20:06:28 GMT
I remember it being 40p for kids and 70p for adults but never paid 60p or 80p - was that an outer zone thing? I don’t either, it was a flat 40p child and 70p adult when I grew up in the 90s. I used to take the money from my friends mum because she didn’t want me to walk home in the dark after a few hours at their house. I also remember signing up for the Oyster when I went to secondary school in 2002 because you had to get the school to sign it off back then and the female dogy receptionist kept me waiting nearly an hour for the school to stamp it. That was a short hop fare in the 1990s it was as far as I remember 50p. I can't remember when it was removed but was still around in 1999. |
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Post by WH241 on Nov 12, 2024 20:09:34 GMT
Whilst not condoning wrongful nor unlawful actions those routes were among many "out-county' ones which had non-standard fares applied. These were higher than the LT "Central Area" standard rates but lower than the "Country Area" ones and applied, generally, where red buses ran outside the then-defined London County Council boundary into the Shires and "green bus" territory. Crews should have been well aware of the fares which in any case were (or should, to comply with the law) have been displayed on the vehicles. RFs, which ran the 218 / 219, carried the fare chart inside the destination blind box facing down the gangway; in any case of dispute crews and passengers could readily check the correct fare to be charged. Long before the change to letter codes for fare values it was necessary to issue combinations of tickets for some fares especially from Gibson machines which had a limited range of options. These should have had the code C/M or COM printed rather than the S or C (single / child) for a solo ticket. Some fares into Hertfordshire and Surrey were on the higher scale - on the 279 for example, where you might have had a passenger boarding in Smithfield for Hammond Street - and were not within the scope of the Gibson machine so required combination tickets to be used. London Country inherited a goodly number of Gibsons and wasn't able to change them all quickly. I remember being issued a Golden Rover as five 15p tickets in a long strip! Once the conductors got Setrights they could issue a single 75p ticket as could their one-man colleagues using Almex machines. Code V2 for a Golden Rover. When did the more standardised flat fares come in? I remember in 90s the 60p and 80p fare depending on how far you went and I think I remember people being charged £1 to go to Highdown on the 80 which at the time was considered outside Zones. I just replied elsewhere but you are right there was two different fares in the 1990s as I remember paying the shorter hop fare and getting off the bus the last stop before the higher fare kicked in. This was when I had to start paying adult fares in the last year of school. |
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Post by southlondonbus on Nov 12, 2024 20:10:13 GMT
I don’t either, it was a flat 40p child and 70p adult when I grew up in the 90s. I used to take the money from my friends mum because she didn’t want me to walk home in the dark after a few hours at their house. I also remember signing up for the Oyster when I went to secondary school in 2002 because you had to get the school to sign it off back then and the female dogy receptionist kept me waiting nearly an hour for the school to stamp it. That was a short hop fare in the 1990s it was as far as I remember 50p. I can't remember when it was removed but was still around in 1999. I'm thinking it was in 2000. I remember the posters with cup of tea and the froth was £1 and the rest of the tea was 70p. Also there was one of a fried egg with the yolk £1 and white 70p. |
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Post by WH241 on Nov 12, 2024 20:18:42 GMT
That was a short hop fare in the 1990s it was as far as I remember 50p. I can't remember when it was removed but was still around in 1999. I'm thinking it was in 2000. I remember the posters with cup of tea and the froth was £1 and the rest of the tea was 70p. Also there was one of a fried egg with the yolk £1 and white 70p. Yes it was from January 2000 just had a look at the old TLBs online. www.ltsv.com/lots/pdfs/TLB424_Dec1999.pdf Page 40 |
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Post by M1104 on Nov 12, 2024 21:49:14 GMT
Trying to rattle my memory of the 1990s on the 295 I seem to remember 40p for short hop journeys (around four stops) and 70p for longer journeys. This is bearing in mind that the 295 was solely within the old London bus zone 2. Zone 1 fares were higher, which I seem to remember on the 239¹ including 80p and £1.20 fares, the route serving zones 1 and 2. Child fare I then remember initially as 30p which then went up to 40p with the short hoppa increasing to 50p (70p fares then unchanged). I believe the flat fare came in around 2004 when it was then £1. ¹ - now part of the 170 Victoria to Clapham Junction Most trips when I was younger was either wholly within Zone 2 or Zone 2-1 and Zone 2-3 and it was always 40p for kids and 70p for adults until later on when I think it was made 70p for all before the rise to £1. Regular trips were Brixton to Streatham, Brixton to the West End, Brixton to Clapham Junction or Common & Brixton to Camberwell - I'm even sure it was still only 40p & 70p on a 109 from Brixton to Croydon? I definately remember the 50p hoppa in the 90s, more on the latter half of that decade |
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