One hour bus ticket in London

[Busaholic]

The 1-hour hopper bus fare in London will be available from Monday 12th September 2016.

Expect the first adverse reports in the Standard on Tuesday 13th or, at latest, Wednesday 14th.

 

[jon0844]

I'm amazed that we've had this for a couple of years, even if somewhat unintentionally.

Uno Bus single m-tickets are set to allow travel for 1 hour, so you can use them as many times as you want. Uno doesn't advertise that fact and I suspect they may have set them up incorrectly, but at the end of the day they can claim to have beaten TfL.

Downside is that there are rather a lot fewer buses and come next year probably even less, so the chance of being able to find another bus within the hour will be slim!

 

[infobleep]

The 1-hour hopper bus fare in London will be available from Monday 12th September 2016.

I'm sure this will change my travel habits whenever I'm in London. Previously I would try to get as few buses as possible. Now it doesn't matter so much.

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk

 

[bb21]

Expect the first adverse reports in the Standard on Tuesday 13th or, at latest, Wednesday 14th.

"I was only 10 minutes late and the bloody jobsworth of a driver refused to refund me the second fare I was charged." accompanied by a stock photo taken off "Angry people in local papers" facebook group.

 

[jon0844]

Is there a grace period at all?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

The 1-hour hopper bus fare in London will be available from Monday 12th September 2016.

Is that definite? I see nothing about it on the TfL website, apart from an article dated 11 May which - from the publication date - I would assume to be aspirational in nature.

 

[glbotu]

the ITV press coverage has missed out a rather crucial new feature being developed for 2018 that is mentioned in the Mayor's Press Release

I quote the relevant bit



That looks to me to a step towards multi modal single journey through ticketing at one overall fare. Not the "full monty" obviously but interesting nonetheless.

And one other little nightmare (and one which wasn't there earlier I'm sure) is this



I'm not surprised by it but SWT strike again!! Not saying it's their fault but having the tram inside a rail / tube paid area really does cause complications. I assume people using Contactless will never see a charge if they catch a bus at Wimbledon having exited the tram system as the "black box" charge calculator will automatically waive the fare if the journey time parameter is met.

SWT are frankly the worst when it comes to oyster integration (although my understanding is they were one of the TOCs who were against it). Even without the atrocity that is Wimbledon, you also have the awfulness of Clapham Junction, whereby if you want to get the Overground, having just got off a SWT regional service, you have to physically leave the station first.

 

[greatkingrat]

SWT are frankly the worst when it comes to oyster integration (although my understanding is they were one of the TOCs who were against it). Even without the atrocity that is Wimbledon, you also have the awfulness of Clapham Junction, whereby if you want to get the Overground, having just got off a SWT regional service, you have to physically leave the station first.

No you don't, the Overground platforms are accessible from the other platforms via either the subway or the bridge.

 

[Clip]

No you don't, the Overground platforms are accessible from the other platforms via either the subway or the bridge.

And I do believe they have oyster readers on the platforms now dont they?

 

[Romilly]

There's a press release on the Mayor of London's website:

https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/hopper-bus-fare-begins

 

[MikeWh]

Is there a grace period at all?

I'd be quite surprised if the cut-off wasn't actually 70 minutes as this is the time allowed between two tram touches and between a tram touch and one of the feeder buses in New Addington.

I think I know what I'm doing on Monday morning next week!

 

[Hophead]

No you don't, the Overground platforms are accessible from the other platforms via either the subway or the bridge.

I think that glbotu was referring to the need to pass twice through the barriers in order to swap between paper ticket and contactless card of some sort. It is certainly an inconvenience, easy to overlook and inhibiting rapid changes to/from the TfL services.

 

[duncanp]

[QUOTE/] The new ‘Hopper’ ticket means 30 million bus journeys every year will now become free – journeys that currently cost people £1.50.
[/QUOTE]

So that is £45 million pounds of lost revenue then. Where is that going to come from? -

Watch the price of travelcards go up by a little more than necessary in order to compensate.

I see lots of complaints when the second bus turns up a minute after expiry of the transfer window, having been delayed in traffic. Or when the first bus turns up in time but is too full, and the second bus then arrives after expiry of the transfer window
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
[QUOTE/] The new ‘Hopper’ ticket means 30 million bus journeys every year will now become free – journeys that currently cost people £1.50.
[/QUOTE]

So that is £45 million pounds of lost revenue then. Where is that going to come from? -

Watch the price of travelcards go up by a little more than necessary in order to compensate.

I see lots of complaints when the second bus turns up a minute after expiry of the transfer window, having been delayed in traffic. Or when the first bus turns up in time but is too full, and the second bus then arrives after expiry of the transfer window[/QUOTE]

 

[Kite159]

I think that glbotu was referring to the need to pass twice through the barriers in order to swap between paper ticket and contactless card of some sort. It is certainly an inconvenience, easy to overlook and inhibiting rapid changes to/from the TfL services.

IIRC there is an oyster reader at the bottom of platform 17 in the subway, also one around the LO platform area itself [maybe a Pink one as a route validator]

 

[Tim R-T-C]

Good for London. Still costs £3.50 here for a two mile return trip, CASH ONLY.

 

[Busaholic]

I'd be quite surprised if the cut-off wasn't actually 70 minutes as this is the time allowed between two tram touches and between a tram touch and one of the feeder buses in New Addington.

I think I know what I'm doing on Monday morning next week!

Can of worms, unfortunately. I say this as someone who believes London has its first decent mayor since the position was created. I would absolutely love it to work well, but all my instincts and knowledge of London bus services lead me to believe that there will be too many instances where theoretical 'free' connectivity will not work. London's traffic problems grow by the day, a previous mayoral incumbent having allowed his attention to wander from the subject (a kind interpretation) or to specifically ignore all reports/advice in the knowledge that he'd not be around to be held accountable.

As you say, 70 minutes will almost certainly be the cut-off, but after that time passengers will be charged a second time, whether they like it or not, and it will be entirely out of the driver's control to alter that state of affairs. I still think 90 minutes would have been more proportionate, if this system had to be adopted: better ways to cut the cost of longer bus journeys could be achieved imo.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The ideal, as far as I am concerned, is that London has a transport system, and a price is charged for a single journey on that transport system regardless of what modes are involved, as that isn't within the passenger's control. Because buses are all tendered, London has the unique possibility in the UK to achieve that.

It is incredibly unfair to charge people more if they are already penalised because they don't have a direct bus or Tube to their destination.

The one concession I would make to that is that buses in London provide a manner of social inclusion by being cheaper - therefore I would be in support of there being two fare structures - a single bus journey, and then a zonal multimodal journey using any modes. To control usage levels I'd concede to river bus services having a fixed additional supplement to the multimodal fare, as adding capacity would be difficult - boats are already frequently delayed by congestion.

In many German systems this is how it's defined - any single journey, no limits as such. For Oyster limits are required for it to work, so I would propose it to be as follows.

Bus only: you can touch in on any bus within an hour of your last bus touch-in. A new touch-in resets the clock. Yes that means a few people will get cheap return journeys, but most people won't be going back home quite that quickly so the cost of that would be negligible.

Multimodal: you can touch in on any other mode of transport within 30 minutes of a touch out, or if the last touch-in was a bus you can touch in on any other mode of transport within 60 minutes of that first touch in. When you do, your journey continues. A multi-modal journey is charged based on the number of zones passed through regardless of modes used.

This to me is the fairest approach to not penalising people twice - once for needing multiple modes, once again by price.

I get the feeling this is where TfL are aiming.

 

[duncanp]

And of course it hasn't taken TfL long to use the hopper fare as an excuse to change and divert bus services, arguing that people won't have to pay extra if they have to change buses to complete their journeys.

https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/buses/routes-13-82-113-139-189

 

[Bletchleyite]

better ways to cut the cost of longer bus journeys could be achieved imo.

The issue isn't long bus journeys, really. The issue is bus journeys that cannot be completed as a direct journey - many are quite short.

Example: the Northern Line[1] is horrible, so Euston to the city by bus is more pleasant if you've got time. All such journeys require two buses; there is nothing direct. Why should such passengers be charged two fares when someone can make a very long journey across London for one?

[1] These days I'm more likely to take a Met, Circle or H&C to Moorgate and walk, but that was utterly grim too prior to the excellent S-stock's arrival.

 

[Busaholic]

The issue isn't long bus journeys, really. The issue is bus journeys that cannot be completed as a direct journey - many are quite short.

Example: the Northern Line[1] is horrible, so Euston to the city by bus is more pleasant if you've got time. All such journeys require two buses; there is nothing direct. Why should such passengers be charged two fares when someone can make a very long journey across London for one?

[1] These days I'm more likely to take a Met, Circle or H&C to Moorgate and walk, but that was utterly grim too prior to the excellent S-stock's arrival.

Perhaps I didn't make myself entirely clear. By 'long bus journeys' I didn't just mean by one bus, I meant the entirety of a passenger's journey from A to B by bus. I still think that, given there will always be even comparatively short journeys that cannot be accomplished by one or even two buses, a daily cap on Oyster of two bus fares could be not just desirable but achievable, even if it only applied to Oyster users.

The flat fare system on London's buses allied to how Oyster has been developed means that you cannot have a multi-fare approach any longer without tearing up all the precepts: not only getting people to touch out as well as in, but providing Oyster machines at all bus exits and allow the extra time that would take passengers, such that hundreds of extra buses would be needed to maintain headways. In other words, it won't happen.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

And of course it hasn't taken TfL long to use the hopper fare as an excuse to change and divert bus services, arguing that people won't have to pay extra if they have to change buses to complete their journeys.

https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/buses/routes-13-82-113-139-189

I feared this. As someone who grew up near Lewisham, went to school there and lived in the vicinity for decades, scrapping a direct bus service between there, Victoria and points north for the first time in over 100 years is an extremely retrograde step, when even during the cutbacks of the 1970s and 1980s there'd be a bus every 3-5 minutes for most of the day, and they were well used for those sort of journeys. Waiting another 20 years for the Bakerloo to reach Lewisham is not an answer!

 

[Busaholic]

Good for London. Still costs £3.50 here for a two mile return trip, CASH ONLY.

CASH is a dirty word in London.

 

[transmanche]

Perhaps I didn't make myself entirely clear. By 'long bus journeys' I didn't just mean by one bus, I meant the entirety of a passenger's journey from A to B by bus.

I guess you mean journeys such as Turnpike Lane to East Finchley which you can do by LU & LO for £1.50 off-peak,* but if you travel by bus it costs £3.00 because you need to take two buses.

* If you change at Finsbury Park, Highbury & Islington, Camden Road-walk-Camden Town

 

[Greenback]

It's regularly said that London gets a pretty good deal when it comes to bus services. After all, there's a huge network of routes and services that can be travelled on as much as you like for £4.50 per day. A Llanelli day ticket with First, covering a much smaller area and far fewer services, is only 30p less.

Despite this, I'm pleased to see the introduction of these new tickets. It brings London in line with many other cities around the world, where you can get a transfer ticket to change to a different route at no additional cost.

 

[glbotu]

IIRC there is an oyster reader at the bottom of platform 17 in the subway, also one around the LO platform area itself [maybe a Pink one as a route validator]

There's only a pink one near the LO platform area. I don't remember there being Oyster validators anywhere else (I haven't been to platform 17 though). It's still a pain if you're going from platform 7.

 

[Bletchleyite]

CASH is a dirty word in London.

Cash is a massively inconvenient and costly method of payment for public transport use; London has got it right in my view and it doesn't seem to be causing any significant problems.

As for taxis and cash, we all know why they like cash. Our local companies now all do card payments via the app, and allegedly some drivers are refusing those bookings. The cynic in me knows why they are doing so; this should be breach of contract and lead to termination of their contract with the dispatch company.

With prepay cards and the likes there is no reason anyone of any age should be unable to hold a payment card; the old "might run up an overdraft" argument disappears if you could do an authorisation in a fraction of a second via a mobile connection.

 

[MikeWh]

I'm not surprised by it but SWT strike again!! Not saying it's their fault but having the tram inside a rail / tube paid area really does cause complications. I assume people using Contactless will never see a charge if they catch a bus at Wimbledon having exited the tram system as the "black box" charge calculator will automatically waive the fare if the journey time parameter is met.

It has absolutely nothing to do with SWT. Having the tramstop inside the station was the only logical thing to do given the existing infrastructure being used for the tramlink. Crossrail 2 will see the issue resolved eventually, but then that's a much bigger project which can justify significant changes around the station.

It is possible that contactless users won't see the charge, but not a given. I'll test it out next time I'm over that way.

 

[plcd1]

the new ‘hopper’ ticket means 30 million bus journeys every year will now become free – journeys that currently cost people £1.50.

So that is £45 million pounds of lost revenue then. Where is that going to come from? -

watch the price of travelcards go up by a little more than necessary in order to compensate.

I see lots of complaints when the second bus turns up a minute after expiry of the transfer window, having been delayed in traffic. Or when the first bus turns up in time but is too full, and the second bus then arrives after expiry of the transfer window

The official revenue impact was, I think, £30m net when the ticket was first announced. TfL said they would fund it from "efficiencies" which I am sure they can do. The Mayor has said TfL fares will be frozen which I take to mean he will not allow TfL to apply any increase within the calculation of revised Travelcard prices. Therefore it will be the TOCs who will cause the upward revision of prices. If, as you suggest, the opposite happens and TfL do apply an increase of their own the Mayor's policy will be in tatters. I honestly can't see that happening this year. We will find out in the next few weeks anyway. On a wider point I think the Mayor will struggle to maintain a freeze for the full years so some compromise or backtracking will eventually be forced on him. If operating costs rise substantially then he'll have no choice. Inflation is expected to rise and that will impact TfL directly and via demands for higher pay deals.

I think we have to wait and see what happens with the operation of the Hopper ticket. Let's not condemn it to failure before it's started. Although the interchange window is advertised as 1 hour I suspect it will really be 70 minutes as it already is for bus to tram transfers at New Addington. I don't think the system can cope with more than one transfer time parameter.

There will always be circumstances where people fall the "wrong" side of any time limit that is set. Some of that will be their own issue and some will be outside of their control if there are traffic jams, accidents etc. You can't design a system like this without some level of control in it and someone will always gripe. Given the wide variation in journey times by area and time of day and the great variaton in frequencies you will always have situations where sometimes people obtain a free transfer and at other times they do not even if making the same trip. I don't see how you avoid that unless you charge everyone £4.50 and make every ticket a day rover or you just allow endless transfers without any time limit and thereby destroy the revenue flow for TfL buses.

As there are going to be complaints about just missing the 60 min limit let's see how TfL and the Mayor respond to them. Let's also see if more people use buses as a result and if journey patterns also change. Interesting times ahead.

 

[PermitToTravel]

If it's a reasonable connection that's missed then I'm sure the helpline will refund extra charges anyway

 

[plcd1]

The issue isn't long bus journeys, really. The issue is bus journeys that cannot be completed as a direct journey - many are quite short.

Example: the Northern Line[1] is horrible, so Euston to the city by bus is more pleasant if you've got time. All such journeys require two buses; there is nothing direct. Why should such passengers be charged two fares when someone can make a very long journey across London for one?

[1] These days I'm more likely to take a Met, Circle or H&C to Moorgate and walk, but that was utterly grim too prior to the excellent S-stock's arrival.

Bus route 205? Goes from Euston to Bishopsgate and Aldgate direct. A lot of the City is within a short stroll of Bishopsgate or Aldgate.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The flat fare system on London's buses allied to how Oyster has been developed means that you cannot have a multi-fare approach any longer without tearing up all the precepts: not only getting people to touch out as well as in, but providing Oyster machines at all bus exits and allow the extra time that would take passengers, such that hundreds of extra buses would be needed to maintain headways. In other words, it won't happen.

That depends on the model you use for the multi-fare. For bus journeys a second touch in within an hour of the first is easy enough, so is extending that to each touch in resetting the clock. For multimodal journeys the simplest way is to basically make the bus journey free with the other journey(s) which are in any case substantially more expensive than just a bus journey.

I feared this. As someone who grew up near Lewisham, went to school there and lived in the vicinity for decades, scrapping a direct bus service between there, Victoria and points north for the first time in over 100 years is an extremely retrograde step, when even during the cutbacks of the 1970s and 1980s there'd be a bus every 3-5 minutes for most of the day, and they were well used for those sort of journeys. Waiting another 20 years for the Bakerloo to reach Lewisham is not an answer!

The central London bus network is highly complex and somewhat underused. I therefore support this kind of approach - concentrating on a small number of routes through central London, aiming at the idea that any given road will have no more than a couple of routes, and facilitating interchange like with the Tube, we end up with an overall much more useful network.