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Post by snoggle on Apr 8, 2014 18:32:59 GMT
Courtesy of Assembly Member John Biggs and the Information Commissioner TfL have been forced to release confidential fares advice relating to the 2013 Fares Revision. The Mayorwatch website has published the briefing paper. PaperThere are several important issues / options to note 1. Proposed removal of nearly all paper ticketing by 2016. No One Day Travelcards but caps on Oyster / bank cards would remain. 2. Option to make buses cashless (now policy). Note reference to Oyster top up machines at interchanges which never made it to the consultation proposal! 3. Proposal for reduced rate / free "second journeys" for buses. 4. Proposal to introduce charging for some child / young adult fares. All interesting and potentially controversial stuff. |
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Post by romfordbuses on Apr 8, 2014 21:44:58 GMT
No One Day Travelcards but caps on Oyster / bank cards would remain. There goes happy days of train/tube vegging around London if it goes ahead!  |
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Post by snoggle on May 29, 2014 13:22:33 GMT
The London Assembly have secured the release of some more briefing papers on fares options on recent years. There's quite a lot to read but there are some striking budget choices whereby a lack of funds has stopped hundreds of millions of pounds (£450m) of bus route improvements as well as two Tramlink extensions and possible DLR extensions. What a mess. Worse the scope for TfL to fund things for the future is getting tighter and tighter and they are saying that the options for more efficiencies to free up money is getting harder with service cuts, big staff cuts and possible reductions to transport policing and local borough schemes. |
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2014 19:39:02 GMT
Time to take it all back in house. They'd save a fortune in legal fees from the tendering process alone!
Its sad that the 'year of the bus' is nothing but a distraction from an otherwise sad turning point in what London buses may aspire to be. Heres hoping the Night tube scheme helps by shifting some financial burden to the tube.
Course, I could go further and say that if the tube had kept up with meeting demand for expansion post war its unlikely that the buses would be so severely strained now.
Politics, politics, politics...
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Post by snoggle on May 30, 2014 21:11:16 GMT
Time to take it all back in house. They'd save a fortune in legal fees from the tendering process alone! Its sad that the 'year of the bus' is nothing but a distraction from an otherwise sad turning point in what London buses may aspire to be. Heres hoping the Night tube scheme helps by shifting some financial burden to the tube. Course, I could go further and say that if the tube had kept up with meeting demand for expansion post war its unlikely that the buses would be so severely strained now. Politics, politics, politics... Well you can turn it round and argue that if Ken had not introduced the congestion charge (with expanded bus routes to cope) and secured the tube upgrades funding we'd be in a much bigger mess with a very unreliable tube network and far, far fewer buses running on the network. Imagine the overcrowding and delays that would result from that particular combination of nasties. Obviously something would probably have given and some "sticking plaster" measures would have been done but it would probably be less than what we have now. As you say, politics! |
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2014 21:57:59 GMT
The cuts to the transport policing teams are going ahead very soon. 30% cut.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2014 12:06:13 GMT
Snoggle; oh I totally agree. Whats the phrase, cometh the man, cometh the hour?
At this point its worth remembering that **Jeffrey Archer** was the runner up for conservative candidate in 2000! And I think its fair to say that whilst Steve Norris, the eventual candidate, has a history in public transport, it seems mostly to involve utilising public transport solely as a trough at which private business could gorge themselves silly.
Where would we be now had the election gone the other way in 2000???
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Post by VPL630 on Jun 1, 2014 13:10:50 GMT
Courtesy of Assembly Member John Biggs and the Information Commissioner TfL have been forced to release confidential fares advice relating to the 2013 Fares Revision. The Mayorwatch website has published the briefing paper. PaperThere are several important issues / options to note 1. Proposed removal of nearly all paper ticketing by 2016. No One Day Travelcards but caps on Oyster / bank cards would remain. 2. Option to make buses cashless (now policy). Note reference to Oyster top up machines at interchanges which never made it to the consultation proposal! 3. Proposal for reduced rate / free "second journeys" for buses. 4. Proposal to introduce charging for some child / young adult fares. All interesting and potentially controversial stuff. Would make sense to have Oyster top up machines at Every bus station |
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Post by snoggle on Jun 1, 2014 15:45:44 GMT
Snoggle; oh I totally agree. Whats the phrase, cometh the man, cometh the hour? At this point its worth remembering that **Jeffrey Archer** was the runner up for conservative candidate in 2000! And I think its fair to say that whilst Steve Norris, the eventual candidate, has a history in public transport, it seems mostly to involve utilising public transport solely as a trough at which private business could gorge themselves silly. Where would we be now had the election gone the other way in 2000??? I think it is impossible to say. If Archer had been elected then I suspect he'd have been found to be out of his depth very, very quickly. Every Mayoral administration has had its woes and Mayor Johnson had a particularly difficult start due to a lack of experience and preparation. Of course it was also the first time an administration had changed party so there was an element of the unknown. One important factor is that transport is a major issue for London voters so if you do badly on the core things like "do the tubes run well" or "are the buses on time" then you are in trouble. Boris only just realised he faced problems on the first aspect about 18 months before the 2012 election so a mad panic ensued to find some cash to shore up tube reliability before the election. That worked and to be fair reliability has continued to improve since then. The Overground is OK and is getting more money spent on it with "photo ops for grinning Boris beside a 5 car train" due in 2015 and 2016. Ditto for extra trams for Croydon and 600th NB4L - all timed for election impact. If Archer had won they we'd have had a Labour Mayor in 2004 and it's anyone guess what followed after that - we'd certainly be further behind with things like Crossrail, Overground and Buses as Ken used his 2 terms pretty judiciously to lever as much money as he could get. He also used the Olympics cleverly and I wonder if another Mayor would have even considered bidding for the Games. We can sit and play political guessing games all day and not get it right - of much greater concern is what the heck happens from 2016 onwards given the dire funding situation and general lack of progress on several things plus evident problems on other programmes. Whoever takes over has a mammoth job on their hands to try to get an alternative strategy in place that doesn't stop whatever sensible things are happening come 2016. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2014 0:11:06 GMT
Getting a bit more back towards the topic in hand then, what are your views then on Christian Wolmar - he was supposedly running for the next term? There was some talk of him running on the Labour ticket but it got turned down or something.
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I'm hoping Labour actually try to sell their candidate in 2016 - they just didnt bother in 2012. Almost like they didnt want their candidate to win for some reason...
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