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Post by Paul on Aug 17, 2014 15:33:50 GMT
I am surprised the Kingston - Esher direct via Portsmouth Road isn't supported by TfL. In dreamland would be nice to see a TfL Bromley to Sevenoaks service ... But then again they support Westerham which is within Sevenoaks... ? I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility that the 402 may one day become a TfL route, even if only between Bromley and Sevenoaks, with beyond being passed to the fairly new 403. I hope so, I wouldn't mind a crack at the 402 and TfL (or it's predecessor) have operated as far as Sevenoaks before |
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Post by metrobusfan on Aug 17, 2014 15:39:08 GMT
Well its odd that TfL support the K3 & 411 , plus the 406 418 & 467 but ignored Portsmouth Road. The 465 got a re-route to cover a piece of it , then the 465 itself all the way to Dorking TfL funded ! A new 218 could do Kingston - Walton On Thames. But as Snoggle says Abellio have put quite some investment into their surrey routes. How much profit they make I don't know ? TfL chose the 405 over the 409...why i dont know. Croydon - Godstone would make sense. Weekend extension to the wonderful Godstone Farm would be popular Would make sence for 409 to take oyster to godstone. It would pay for it self after 6 months as you said because of godstone farm |
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Post by vjaska on Aug 17, 2014 15:43:42 GMT
TfL chose the 405 over the 409...why i dont know. Croydon - Godstone would make sense. Weekend extension to the wonderful Godstone Farm would be popular The 405 has always been used far more than the 409 - when the 409 did Croydon to East Grinstead, it was hardly used within the Greater London boundary and it was no surprise when it was cut back to Selsdon. |
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Post by vjaska on Aug 17, 2014 15:46:31 GMT
Well its odd that TfL support the K3 & 411 , plus the 406 418 & 467 but ignored Portsmouth Road. The 465 got a re-route to cover a piece of it , then the 465 itself all the way to Dorking TfL funded ! A new 218 could do Kingston - Walton On Thames. But as Snoggle says Abellio have put quite some investment into their surrey routes. How much profit they make I don't know ? TfL chose the 405 over the 409...why i dont know. Croydon - Godstone would make sense. Weekend extension to the wonderful Godstone Farm would be popular Would make sence for 409 to take oyster to godstone. It would pay for it self after 6 months as you said because of godstone farm I'm afraid it wouldn't make sense as the 409 was very lightly used within the Greater London area so I don't see why all of a sudden people will flock to it whether you allow Oyster payment to be accepted or not. |
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Post by YY13VKP on Aug 17, 2014 16:44:24 GMT
Well its odd that TfL support the K3 & 411 , plus the 406 418 & 467 but ignored Portsmouth Road. The 465 got a re-route to cover a piece of it , then the 465 itself all the way to Dorking TfL funded ! A new 218 could do Kingston - Walton On Thames. But as Snoggle says Abellio have put quite some investment into their surrey routes. How much profit they make I don't know ? TfL chose the 405 over the 409...why i dont know. Croydon - Godstone would make sense. Weekend extension to the wonderful Godstone Farm would be popular Would make sence for 409 to take oyster to godstone. It would pay for it self after 6 months as you said because of godstone farm And Caterham too! I use the route between Caterham Station and Caterham Village. Otherwise it would make sense to extend the 466 to Caterham Station. I've heard a few other passengers making quite a fuss about it lol |
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Post by YY13VKP on Aug 17, 2014 16:52:18 GMT
Would make sence for 409 to take oyster to godstone. It would pay for it self after 6 months as you said because of godstone farm I'm afraid it wouldn't make sense as the 409 was very lightly used within the Greater London area so I don't see why all of a sudden people will flock to it whether you allow Oyster payment to be accepted or not. Some of the early morning services (which i use) are quite filled up with commuters heading to Caterham Station for trains to London, most of which use oyster cards, so it would be convenient to accept Oyster cards. Regarding the "light use" of the route, thats probably why Metrobus put 4 MPD's on the route lol, However one bus rota became a Double Decker. I have a picture of 471 (YN53USG) on that rota on my flickr page. |
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Post by vjaska on Aug 17, 2014 17:05:29 GMT
I'm afraid it wouldn't make sense as the 409 was very lightly used within the Greater London area so I don't see why all of a sudden people will flock to it whether you allow Oyster payment to be accepted or not. Some of the early morning services (which i use) are quite filled up with commuters heading to Caterham Station for trains to London, most of which use oyster cards, so it would be convenient to accept Oyster cards. Regarding the "light use" of the route, thats probably why Metrobus put 4 MPD's on the route lol, However one bus rota became a Double Decker. I have a picture of 471 (YN53USG) on that rota on my flickr page. Anyone in the Greater London area would get to East or West Croydon on a 64 or T33 as they are far more frequent & then use the train to get to Central London. The 'light use of the route' was being referred to when it ran Croydon to East Grinstead under Metrobus & Southdown PSV. The allocation under the first spell of Metrobus at the time of 2005 seemed to be Volvo Olympians, under Southdown PSV, it was Pointer Darts with a Transbus Enviro 300 regularly turning up and then, under the 2nd spell of Metrobus, it had one ex 261 Lolyne which was replaced by one of the ordered Omnicity DD's (the other being for the 411) and the rest of the allocation was Caetano Nimbus Darts. |
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Post by YY13VKP on Aug 17, 2014 17:39:07 GMT
Some of the early morning services (which i use) are quite filled up with commuters heading to Caterham Station for trains to London, most of which use oyster cards, so it would be convenient to accept Oyster cards. Regarding the "light use" of the route, thats probably why Metrobus put 4 MPD's on the route lol, However one bus rota became a Double Decker. I have a picture of 471 (YN53USG) on that rota on my flickr page. The 'light use of the route' was being referred to when it ran Croydon to East Grinstead under Metrobus & Southdown PSV. The allocation under the first spell of Metrobus at the time of 2005 seemed to be Volvo Olympians, under Southdown PSV, it was Pointer Darts with a Transbus Enviro 300 regularly turning up and then, under the 2nd spell of Metrobus, it had one ex 261 Lolyne which was replaced by one of the ordered Omnicity DD's (the other being for the 411) and the rest of the allocation was Caetano Nimbus Darts. Oh, i thought you were referring to the current route! Thanks for clarifying that!  |
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Post by vjaska on Aug 17, 2014 17:49:38 GMT
The 'light use of the route' was being referred to when it ran Croydon to East Grinstead under Metrobus & Southdown PSV. The allocation under the first spell of Metrobus at the time of 2005 seemed to be Volvo Olympians, under Southdown PSV, it was Pointer Darts with a Transbus Enviro 300 regularly turning up and then, under the 2nd spell of Metrobus, it had one ex 261 Lolyne which was replaced by one of the ordered Omnicity DD's (the other being for the 411) and the rest of the allocation was Caetano Nimbus Darts. Oh, i thought you were referring to the current route! Thanks for clarifying that! No worries mate. |
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Post by snoggle on Aug 17, 2014 19:45:23 GMT
I'm afraid it wouldn't make sense as the 409 was very lightly used within the Greater London area so I don't see why all of a sudden people will flock to it whether you allow Oyster payment to be accepted or not. Some of the early morning services (which i use) are quite filled up with commuters heading to Caterham Station for trains to London, most of which use oyster cards, so it would be convenient to accept Oyster cards. Regarding the "light use" of the route, thats probably why Metrobus put 4 MPD's on the route lol, However one bus rota became a Double Decker. I have a picture of 471 (YN53USG) on that rota on my flickr page. The question is whether people want to use an Oyster Card and pay a commercial fare or do they want to use an Oyster Card and pay the subsidised £1.45 fare? I make the distinction because we are soon going to get to the point where Go Ahead's "Key" is going to be accepted on the TfL network if it has a Travelcard loaded on it (not sure about PAYG). In theory it should be possible to have a Key Card which has a Travelcard season on it and also load Brighton and Hove and / or Metrobus season tickets too. Therefore people will have a card that will work locally on commercial bus services operated by Go Ahead subsidiaries, on Southern Trains and then on all of the TfL network provided a valid TfL product is loaded to the card. This is because all of the TfL readers have been modified to read ITSO spec cards (which is what the Key is). With the new Thameslink Southern Great Northern (TSGN) Franchise, which will absorb Southern next year, the plan is to extend the Key to all as TSGN stations *and* extend Oyster acceptance to some bits of the railway outside of the zonal area. Southern have also just introduced a limited form of PAYG for rail journeys. Unfortunately I can't see a situation where Oyster cards are accepted on non TfL buses outside London because the technology is incompatible. It would obviously be nice for an Oyster card to work elsewhere even if it meant a commercial fare was deducted from PAYG - I suspect passengers would like the convenience. The other advance is for bus companies outside London to accept contactless bank cards for travel - First Group were going to do this but seem to have switched to mobile phone based ticketing instead. |
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Post by thesquirrels on Aug 17, 2014 20:13:20 GMT
Abellio Surrey are transparent enough to include faretables for their Surrey routes on their website - as a guide, a short hop is £2 and a single from Esher to Walton is £3.60. Kingston to Esher down the Porstmouth Road is £2.60. Cheap is not the first word that comes to mind, especially in the context of their TfL neighbours. But I'm presuming from the relative stability of their routes in the last couple of years that those fare levels have allowed them to cover costs.
Why would TfL favour a link to Godstone over Redhill? A sizeable number of people in the southern half of LB Croydon travel into Redhill for work and education (can't speak for schools but East Surrey College has a considerable number of students living in Croydon) - TfL has more of an obligation there for the sake of it's own ratepayers. Godstone is a much smaller town - effectively a large commuter village, and I think most travel would be towards Caterham (for trains to Croydon and London) and Croydon AM and reverse PM. So to actually have a tfl 409 would be brilliant for the burghers of Godstone (and a few weekend daytrippers from London), but it makes no sense to fund it from City Hall when it would instantly lose TfL money.
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Post by thesquirrels on Aug 17, 2014 23:30:31 GMT
All things said, I think a 409 in it's pre-2001 guise *could* have made it into the TfL network as far as Godstone Green. In those days it ran via Purley Cross and played a major role between Croydon and Caterham over the roads which would come to be served by the 466 (frequencies were 2bph to Godstone, one continuing to EG - it combined with the 400 to give 4bph as far as Caterham-on-the-Hill). But the tramlink route changes in 1999 and the consequent inception of the 466 did for the 409's viability on that corridor - it was quickly reduced to hourly throughout, then a couple of years later was diverted via Selsdon and Chelsham to cover the old Metrobus 483 and various other local links in that part of the world.
I took a 409 once for the ride, back when Metrobus ran the full Croydon-EG route with Olympians. It took just under an hour to get from Croydon to Caterham - consider that the 407 and 466 take about 35 minutes, being generous. Caterham through Godstone to East Grinstead took a more direct route, but you could understand why the decision was made to break it up it to reflect the nature of the shorter journeys made along the route - I don't think many would have made the end-to-end journey of two hours.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2014 2:03:07 GMT
Some of the early morning services (which i use) are quite filled up with commuters heading to Caterham Station for trains to London, most of which use oyster cards, so it would be convenient to accept Oyster cards. Regarding the "light use" of the route, thats probably why Metrobus put 4 MPD's on the route lol, However one bus rota became a Double Decker. I have a picture of 471 (YN53USG) on that rota on my flickr page. The question is whether people want to use an Oyster Card and pay a commercial fare or do they want to use an Oyster Card and pay the subsidised £1.45 fare? I make the distinction because we are soon going to get to the point where Go Ahead's "Key" is going to be accepted on the TfL network if it has a Travelcard loaded on it (not sure about PAYG). In theory it should be possible to have a Key Card which has a Travelcard season on it and also load Brighton and Hove and / or Metrobus season tickets too. Therefore people will have a card that will work locally on commercial bus services operated by Go Ahead subsidiaries, on Southern Trains and then on all of the TfL network provided a valid TfL product is loaded to the card. This is because all of the TfL readers have been modified to read ITSO spec cards (which is what the Key is). With the new Thameslink Southern Great Northern (TSGN) Franchise, which will absorb Southern next year, the plan is to extend the Key to all as TSGN stations *and* extend Oyster acceptance to some bits of the railway outside of the zonal area. Southern have also just introduced a limited form of PAYG for rail journeys. Unfortunately I can't see a situation where Oyster cards are accepted on non TfL buses outside London because the technology is incompatible. It would obviously be nice for an Oyster card to work elsewhere even if it meant a commercial fare was deducted from PAYG - I suspect passengers would like the convenience. The other advance is for bus companies outside London to accept contactless bank cards for travel - First Group were going to do this but seem to have switched to mobile phone based ticketing instead. When you say Go-Aheads Key will be accepted on TfL network, do you mean the whole of the group or just the Southern Key. I have a staff key from Metrobus and at the moment it is only compatible with other readers in the group for example B&H and the Oxford Bus Company. I also get free travel on Go-Ahead/Govia trains(Southern/Southeastern/London Midland) but for that a paper ticket is issued. Each company in the group has a separate key card, it is likely to be very confusing to try and merge these all in to one. A further problem that springs to mind is the products on the card. If I had a 4 Week Metrobus Metrovoyager, a Tfl one week travelcard as a few single tickets, it will become very confusing. I can see what your saying though- one card for everything. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2014 2:07:23 GMT
All things said, I think a 409 in it's pre-2001 guise *could* have made it into the TfL network as far as Godstone Green. In those days it ran via Purley Cross and played a major role between Croydon and Caterham over the roads which would come to be served by the 466 (frequencies were 2bph to Godstone, one continuing to EG - it combined with the 400 to give 4bph as far as Caterham-on-the-Hill). But the tramlink route changes in 1999 and the consequent inception of the 466 did for the 409's viability on that corridor - it was quickly reduced to hourly throughout, then a couple of years later was diverted via Selsdon and Chelsham to cover the old Metrobus 483 and various other local links in that part of the world. I took a 409 once for the ride, back when Metrobus ran the full Croydon-EG route with Olympians. It took just under an hour to get from Croydon to Caterham - consider that the 407 and 466 take about 35 minutes, being generous. Caterham through Godstone to East Grinstead took a more direct route, but you could understand why the decision was made to break it up it to reflect the nature of the shorter journeys made along the route - I don't think many would have made the end-to-end journey of two hours. Luckily for those travelling to East Grinstead are still able to take Metrobus' 400 from Caterham Direct there via Godstone, Redhill, Gatwick & Crawley. That route appears to have been very successful- always busy when I see it. Having said that Caterham residents gave 2bph to East Grinstead with the 400 & 509(Southdown) |
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Post by metrobusfan on Aug 18, 2014 8:52:49 GMT
The question is whether people want to use an Oyster Card and pay a commercial fare or do they want to use an Oyster Card and pay the subsidised £1.45 fare? I make the distinction because we are soon going to get to the point where Go Ahead's "Key" is going to be accepted on the TfL network if it has a Travelcard loaded on it (not sure about PAYG). In theory it should be possible to have a Key Card which has a Travelcard season on it and also load Brighton and Hove and / or Metrobus season tickets too. Therefore people will have a card that will work locally on commercial bus services operated by Go Ahead subsidiaries, on Southern Trains and then on all of the TfL network provided a valid TfL product is loaded to the card. This is because all of the TfL readers have been modified to read ITSO spec cards (which is what the Key is). With the new Thameslink Southern Great Northern (TSGN) Franchise, which will absorb Southern next year, the plan is to extend the Key to all as TSGN stations *and* extend Oyster acceptance to some bits of the railway outside of the zonal area. Southern have also just introduced a limited form of PAYG for rail journeys. Unfortunately I can't see a situation where Oyster cards are accepted on non TfL buses outside London because the technology is incompatible. It would obviously be nice for an Oyster card to work elsewhere even if it meant a commercial fare was deducted from PAYG - I suspect passengers would like the convenience. The other advance is for bus companies outside London to accept contactless bank cards for travel - First Group were going to do this but seem to have switched to mobile phone based ticketing instead. When you say Go-Aheads Key will be accepted on TfL network, do you mean the whole of the group or just the Southern Key. I have a staff key from Metrobus and at the moment it is only compatible with other readers in the group for example B&H and the Oxford Bus Company. I also get free travel on Go-Ahead/Govia trains(Southern/Southeastern/London Midland) but for that a paper ticket is issued. Each company in the group has a separate key card, it is likely to be very confusing to try and merge these all in to one. A further problem that springs to mind is the products on the card. If I had a 4 Week Metrobus Metrovoyager, a Tfl one week travelcard as a few single tickets, it will become very confusing. I can see what your saying though- one card for everything. I think it's crazy that different go ahead company have the key they are not valid on each other |
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