because you still do not physically pay for your journey on the bus with cash.... really, like many phrases in English "off-bus ticketing" is misleading.. it should really {especially in London} be referred to "off-bus payment"
I was referring to classic fare stages every mile or so rather than zone boundaries.
I suspect this kind of thing hasn't happened since about 1980, certainly since deregulation. Previous to then fares were controlled by the traffic commissioners and revising them was a laborious task. Therefore for the operators that had fare stages and put them on the bus stops (Bristol Omnibus being an example) they were unlikely to change very often. As soon as operators had the flexibility to change fares quickly such things as physical fare stages became more of an issue and certainly wouldn't be the kind of thing that county councils wanted to get involved with as they got more involved with roadside publicity.
I would favour a zonal system. For Tyne & Wear, I would revert back to using the original fare zones- rather than the current mess.*
When I was a lad (1960s) our local bus stop near Llandudno was called Ffon Tom (Welsh for Tom's Stick !). It's only recently I discovered that the stop was named after the owner of a local shop (his name was Tom and he used a stick). The shop was demolished in the 1920s. Good luck asking the Bangor-based Polish driver of the Arriva bus for a ticket to "Ffon Tom" ...
The automatic stop announcements on the 5 and X5 have decided that it's now called Fon Tom (and pronounced "Von Tom"), which makes even less sense. Thanks for helping me understand where the name comes from.
Nexus dosent need any extra power to allow it to change fares and introduce zonal systems. It can enter into an agreement with operators and even subsidise fares if it wants with current legislation. All it needs is the willingness to do it and, to reduce fares, loads of money.
