Crossrail

[samsonyuen]

That's crazy, seeing as how Crosslink goes UNDER it!

[GazKinz]

I don't know if anyone will know this but when crossrail is completed will we be to use it with a normal tube ticket?

[DarJoLe]

Originally Posted by GazKinz

I don't know if anyone will know this but when crossrail is completed will we be to use it with a normal tube ticket?

Of course.

[Metrolink]

Of course.

Spoken like someone who most likely only uses public transport in London - you really don't know how lucky you are with your transport system, you really don't.

[Metrolink]

Out of interest, since we were on the subject, something that has always been nagging at me...

what was the reason the Tories gave for not deregulating the London buses in the 80's when they did for the rest of the country - this single move totally fucked up all semblence of integrated transport outside the capital.

[DarJoLe]

Originally Posted by Metrolink

Spoken like someone who most likely only uses public transport in London - you really don't know how lucky you are with your transport system, you really don't.

Move to London then if it bothers you that much.

[Metrolink]

Why should I?

I was simply asking why London was treated differently than everywhere else (yet all Londoners on here seem to insist this type of thing doesn't occur).

Prehaps other parts of the country being treated a similar manner to London may help address some of the huge inbalances we have in this country.

[DarJoLe]

Originally Posted by Metrolink

I was simply asking why London was treated differently than everywhere else.

Because it's the capital?

[Metrolink]

and what difference does that make exactly to how public transport should be ran?

Surely if the government of the day thought that deregulating buses would be a good thing for the country then it would have been most important that London should get it?

Or was the aim of dregulating buses not to improve the services offered?

[Metrolink]

Because it's the capital?

that just about seems to sum up why some people seem to think London should get preferential treatment over and over again.

I wonder how other countries manage so well not using such logic.

[Rational Plan]

Integrated ticketing does not just occur in London. Tyne & Wear has an integrated ticketing system between the Metro and Buses. I wonder what the arrangements are for the other metropolitan regions are? Is metrolink completly seperate in its ticket arrangements from the local rail and buses or can interchange from at least one of them on the same ticket.

[sarflonlad]

I was simply asking why London was treated differently than everywhere else (yet all Londoners on here seem to insist this type of thing doesn't occur).

Because asides from being the Capital, London and its transport works in a completely unique and different way from the generic radial methods used elsewhere in the UK. This London bias transport argument is so tiresome - people clearly don't understand how Transport in London works.


Take for example TRAMS. In Manchester and elsewhere - Trams/Light Rail function as radial methods of transport, as do Buses - though admittedly some commuter bus corridors could justify the building of a tram network.

The majority of London's buses function to FEED INTO radial methods of transport (heavy rail/tube) - about half the daytime bus network doesn't go near central London at all. The one existing Tram Network in London itself is not a form of radial transport either. This is a whole different concept to what people outside of London understand as working in and commuting within a city. The sprawl of London contains many small and medium size hubs of acitivity right up to its home county borders - people go to, from and between them not to mention the huge world class hubs such as the city, west end, victoria and canary whaff.

Heavy Rail in London is the equivalent to Manchester's, Leed's etc. buses and tram network - Its radial and designed the maximum number of people possible in to and out of big hubs for commerce etc. Other UK cities have suburbs from which people commute - London has several rings of suburbs plus the Home counties - this adds up to some 1/3 of the UK population who are potentially directly dependent on London to make a living etc.

New London tram and London heavy rail proposals will be paid for by Londoners. New projects elsewhere will be paid for by ALL - even though most of us will never gain from them. Crossrail will increase the economy in London which will ultimately increase the amount thats taken out of it and given to x y z elsewhere (for example, provincial tram projects). Also remember Crossrail spans the South East - not just London.

One final point about who pays for what.... London's transport may be subsidised - but a good couple of million people who don't actually live in London use it everyday.

[Metrolink]

Rational - no cross ticketing between bus companies is a nightmare in Manchester let alone between forms of transport. We have 65 bus companies, all seperate, all with different tickets, which unless you pay a heavy premium the tickets are not valid on each others buses. Don't even think about getting a ticket for a tram and a bus before 9:30am - it is simply not possible, why???? Because our local PTE has virtually no control of the public transport, we lost that in the 80's.

Sarlondon - why does your explanation mean that London's buses should not have been deregulated? GMPTE would love to be able to use buses as feeders to the Metrolink, and be able to force cross ticketing, but they cannot - those powers have been taken away in the regions - but not in London.

Why on earth why these powers removed from the regional cities but not London? The government of the day said it would lead to better services, therefore London with it's high public transport usage would have been the ideal city for deregulated buses surely???

[Metrolink]

plus...

Sarlondon - have a read of the Report into the effectivness of light rail published by the Transport committee last April - one of it's main proposals is to give the regions control back of the local buses, as at the moment they are trying to set up effective new tranport systems (e.g. new tram lines) but the buses compete with them - this raises the costs (less revenue) and therefor makes them less liekly to proceed, this is NOT a problem in London.

Also, compare the Merseytram problems with what would have happened in London - London (TfL) are allowed to borrow money and it does not appear against the national debt, therefore the treasury don't care that much, therefore, systems like DLR lease vehicles from holding companies - this is not possible in the regions since all leasings are essentially borrowings, and therefore the treasury veto them - the cost of this has effectively put a stop to the Liverpool tram system - if it were in London it would have gone ahead as the leasing agreement would not have been a problem.

When were the people of Liverpool givern the option of having an equivelent of TfL???

[Englishman]

Originally Posted by Metrolink

Spoken like someone who most likely only uses public transport in London - you really don't know how lucky you are with your transport system, you really don't.

WEll it will soon cost £3 to go one stop on the underground if you intend to pay cash.

Compared to how much somewhere else? In Newcastle you can get for just £350 a year an all zone pass. You'd spend that much in 2 months in London. It's not all free this.

[bileduct]

Originally Posted by Metrolink

Why on earth why these powers removed from the regional cities but not London? The government of the day said it would lead to better services, therefore London with it's high public transport usage would have been the ideal city for deregulated buses surely???

It's a fair question but in fact it's an accident of history, not a conspiracy.

London Transport was broken apart in 1984, two years before the other PTEs, so when the buses were completely deregulated in 1986 they weren't able to extend it to London because London was already halfway through the process they'd started two years previously. The intention was to extend it to London later, but it became so obvious so quickly that it was a disaster that they had to abandon the plan.

So it isn't a case of London getting favours - quite the opposite, it was singled out for punishment first because Ken's high profile "fare's fair" policy at the GLC meant that getting control away from him was a political priority. London was just lucky that the fact that it had its bus system broken up first meant that it wasn't broken up quite as badly.

I can't see any justification for not extending the London system to the other major urban areas, though, given that it obviously works so much better. London's is the only bus system that's expanding in terms of passengers carried, despite the fact that it's bus system receives less subsidy than the rest of the country (27p per passenger journey in London, 31p outside London http://www.parliament.the-stationery...t/31120w75.htm )

More passengers + less subsidy = better system, IMO. So if it works, roll it out.

(There were other areas that tried the same "local authority sub-contracting to private operators" model in the late 80s, one being Gwynedd in North Wales, which was also successful in building a robust system, so there's quite a lot of evidence to suggest it's a good way of doing things)

[Metrolink]

Englishman - nice to have the option to pre-purchase tickets on the underground, Metrolink ticket machines only take cash, half the time don't work and you cannot pre-purchase.

Single stop journeys currently cost anything between 50p and £1.90 on Metrolink.

A season ticket (annual) costs anything up to £875 - remember that is only for the 36 tram stops, no buses and no trains, double or trebbile the cost if you want to change modes of transport.

bileduct - not claiming conspiracy, simply pointing out that it is far from a level playing field here, the regions are running with their legs tied together, blindfolded and backwards, against London which is on steriods - whether a conspiracy or not this is the case.

For example, in Manchester we have cronic overcrowding on the Metrolink - as there is I understand on the DLR. TfL borrowed against future ticket revenues to pay for the new trains that they are currently buying, this will enable them to make more money in the future, which in turn will help pay for further expansion. GMPTE however are not allowed to borrow against future ticket revenue - it is against the treasury rules for the regions to borrow like this as it shows up on the books as government borrowing - not a good thing for a government. Therefore, Manchester has to beg at the table of the government (along with every other part of the country) for money (has been doing in this case for about 10 years now!!!) to get the money up front to pay for those new trams it needs. If Manchester had the same rules as London then those trams would have been bought, and paid for through the extra revenue years ago.

Similarly for Liverpool - they are struggling to find the money that will be held as a contingency in case the fares collected are not as high as is predicted. In London, you are in the envious position of having your tube/DLR/trams/trains all feed by buses, in the regions they compete. I live near Dane Road - Alty line on the Metrolink. I regulalry get adverts through the door from local bus companies trying to get me to use their buses instead of the Metrolink (having said that, don't think about getting a return ticket on these buses, since the return part of the journey would have to be made on the same comapnies buses as the outward journey, you may have some wait) - therefore taking passengers away from the trams, reducing the revenues taken, making it more expensive to build new lines in the future since any operator needs to cover the risk of lower revenues, and in the case of Liverpool most likely pushing it over the edge of not getting built - simply having the London setup would have meant that Manchester would have more trams, and most likely be expanding the network since the costs would be much lower, and Liverpool would be getting the go ahead as less money would be needed as a contingency in case revenues are not high enough.

A final thought, if Crossrail was being built in the regions, then the scheme would have a much lower chance of proceeding, the costs would be much higher since there would be no feeder buses to the trains (less passengers therefore less revenue, therefore higher costs to construct), buses would be competing against Crossrail (less passengers therefore less revenue, therefore higher costs to construct) and the oppurtunity for through ticketing would be virtually nil, making it a much less atractive method of public transport.

Let it also not be forgotten that the PTEG (passenger transport executive group - a group of the regional PTEs) have been campaigning for years to get the same conditions as in London, but got absolutely no where.


So no, it may not be a conspiracy, but there is not a level playing field, and those who claim that regional cities should simply work together, or get off their arses to get these built are not seeing the reality.

(Hope that wasn't a load off gobbeldie gook).

[Bob]

London's ticketing isn't all that integrated. Fully integrated ticketing is where you buy a single that lasts a couple of hours during which you can use any form of transport and change as often as you like. This happens in Berlin, for example, where you can catch a boat, then a train, U-bahn and bus all for a couple of Euro's. In London if you buy a ticket from Sydenham (my home) to Liverpool Street you have to use the tube. The ticket is not valid on the bus, which is by far the quickest.

It does seem that cities other than London have the regulation even worse though. Does anyone know why Labour would not want to tackle this????? Seems a very labour thing to do, would get lots of new investment and no borrowing on the Government books.

[Metrolink]

Bob - I agree, having just returned from Barcelona, a city with a transport system on a par with London (smaller city therefore on a smaller scale) i.e. very well integrated trams, underground, veniculars, trains etc the ability to go from one system to another without the need for additional ticketing is great.

Cheap too, a book of ten tickets (each ticket lasts for 90mins I think) costs €6.30.

Doesn't the Oyster card allow you to use all London transport?



Back to the price, last time I was in London I was stunned by how cheap the buses are. From where I live in Sale (Dane Road) to get to my health clinic (when I was ill I couldn't drive) I had to get the bus (the clinic is no where near a tram stop) to Meadway (about 2km each way), the ticket was about £2.20 each way - i.e. I was having to spend about £4.40 a day to travel 4km on the bus.

Aren't the buses so efficiently ran that it costs bugger all to use the bus in London - as someone said tis isn't due to high subsidies, but simply because they are ran in a manner that they compliment each other and therefore raise the number of people using them, instead of the shite 'competition' we have elsewhere that actively discourages people from using public transport.

[Capzilla]

It's called Oyster, or a daily Travelcard. Integrated ticketing means one ticket system for an entire journey, no more.