possible congetsion charge extension

[Nigello]

Mayors are not powerful enough to make any real impact. They?re another layer of administration. Why not get rid of devolved government/larger councils and give local power to local people across the UK? Powerful city/conurbation mayors could effect better change if given the powers in the right context. Khan isn?t impressive but neither was Johnson.

[Sue]

Penguin68 Wrote:

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> Choosing as a political gesture not to put up

> fares for 4 years - when rail fares were rising by

> RPI and more - was clearly a Mayoral decision

> which left, in retrospect, the service

> comparatively underfunded

Damned if he did and damned if he didn't .......

[Abe_froeman]

I think a lot of people pointed out before he was elected that his fares freeze was unsustainable, so not really damned if he didn't.

The hopper fare he invented has also cost TFL vast sums

[alex_b]

Abe_froeman Wrote:

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> The hopper fare he invented has also cost TFL vast

> sums

I think that?s debatable as it may have attracted people onto busses. More importantly the changes of so many routes from straight through to transfers (to reduce costs) would have been politically impossible pre-hopper as it would have doubled the cost of many journeys.

[exdulwicher]

  Quote

Choosing as a political gesture not to put up fares for 4 years - when rail fares were rising by RPI and more - was clearly a Mayoral decision which left, in retrospect, the service comparatively underfunded (by I think about ?600 million - happy to stand corrected on that). Clearly the fall away of revenues as a function of Covid economic downturn could not have been forecast - but then intending to run the whole service unchanged is probably also a mistake - empty trains are fine now, when infection rates support that, but not in a post-Covid (or at least a 'living with Covid because of a vaccine program' world).

You run a fine balancing act on this.

It costs ?xx to run the train service in the timetable.

Keeping fares low encourages use of public transport so you end up with more people paying a (relatively) low fare which gets you close to the required ?xx. However if too many people try and use it, the system breaks down - it's unpleasant to be crammed into the armpits of strangers every morning and evening so (some) people will find an alternative. It sort of self balances eventually and you can actually use ticket price as a way of managing this.

Putting fares up discourages use of public transport. There are some people who'll more or less pay whatever (office workers in the City for example), there are some who won't be able to afford that (minimum wage / gig economy people potentially working anti-social hours) so you end up with fewer people paying a (relatively) higher fare which again should get you close to the required ?xx.

The trick is balancing all that while still having a PUBLIC transport system, not one for the wealthy. Which is why it needs subsidy, it's not a traditional business.

The railway costs money whether its being used or not. One of the arguments doing the rounds now is that there's a lot of air being transported around London by near-empty trains but reducing the number of trains running, because of the complex way it's all delivered, does not make it cheaper to run. Plus drivers still need their minimum hours to maintain currency, tracks and trains need maintaining at set intervals whether they're being used or not.

To within a fairly small percentage range, "the railway" still costs ?xx whether it's sitting there unused or whether it's running a full timetable.

And some of it is political too of course - put the fares up and you're "hurting hard-working Londoners", keep the fares artificially low and you're "running a bad business".

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

Nigello Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Mayors are not powerful enough to make any real

> impact. They?re another layer of administration.

> Why not get rid of devolved government/larger

> councils and give local power to local people

> across the UK? Powerful city/conurbation mayors

> could effect better change if given the powers in

> the right context. Khan isn?t impressive but

> neither was Johnson.

What have the mayors ever done for us?

[JohnL]

Nigello Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Mayors are not powerful enough to make any real

> impact. They?re another layer of administration.

> Why not get rid of devolved government/larger

> councils and give local power to local people

> across the UK? Powerful city/conurbation mayors

> could effect better change if given the powers in

> the right context. Khan isn?t impressive but

> neither was Johnson.

You'd need a vote in Scotland and Wales and independence is gaining ground in both not losing ground

[Abe_froeman]

The hopper fare has come at a very significant cost to TFL and to Londoners...

"But the mayor is also planning big cuts to London's buses.

He says the bus fleet needs reorganising as Crossrail means many services will not be needed in central London so they will be moved to outer London.

But it will mean for some passengers there will be longer waits between buses. The "hopper" will also cost ?35m a year and TfL's budget is already under strain.

So you could argue to pay for the "hopper", bus services are being cut and becoming less frequent."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-42887323

[exdulwicher]

Hopper in itself was a result of already cutting or shortening some bus routes and a recognition that people might now have to get 2 buses where previously it was only one.

The reason behind cutting the buses or having some terminate earlier than before was to free up capacity in central London. Strand, Oxford Road and Trafalgar Square where a lot of buses terminated was rammed solid so the answer was to remove some of the buses going there which would also increase reliability. But equally, it would mean ?3 fare where previously it was ?1.50 so that wasn't an acceptable result.

You're right with CrossRail - that was supposed to be operational now but it was always going to result in a second bus reshuffle and probably some train timetabling re-work as well. The delayed opening of that has cost a lot in lost revenue as well.

[sally buying]

And I believe a vast overspend with no one keeping their eye on on the escalating costs.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

Incidentally, the Crossrail disaster is half the fault of TfL and half the fault of Dept of Transport, as they are the joint sponsors. The project was launched under Blair/Livingstone, passed under Brown/Livingstone, structured and begun under Cameron/Brown, woefully mismanaged under May/Johnson, before exploding under May/Khan. No-one comes out of this looking great. The worst mismanagement and reality distortion was at the latest stage - but the seeds of failure were seen much earlier.

[malumbu]

Virtually every massive project goes over spend, is late, this even happens in Germany (Berlin airport). Not that it is an excuse. Go back ten years and what was seen to be an unnecessary London 2012 Games. But how brilliant it was (ignore the subsequent controversy about the stadium). And that White elephant of a Millennium Dome? And that channel tunnel which was an economic disaster for the first 15 years.

[Spartacus]

Not sure this is the right place, but the BBC are showing an article today about TfL's finances

BBC News - Why Transport for London's finances are far from healthy

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-54652907

One thing that struck me is that bus use was at a peak in 2014 but declined since. TfL blame this on people not using buses "It seems the big reason is the decline in bus travel for leisure and non-work reasons. Less people are getting on a bus to go shopping."

As a thought, I seem to remember that in 2014 buses went fully cashless so the ability to just hop on and pay was lost, and people were asked to use Oyster or contactless which a lot of people didn't like doing.

As a regular bus user, it seemed that before March, buses were packed most of the day which put people off getting one if they could go by other methods (walking, cycling or car) and yet TfL say numbers were down which leads to two questions in my head

1. Are they only counting paying passengers in their numbers which implies more people are fare dodging

2. Has the prevalence of internet shopping actually cut the number of people going out shopping ?

Guess it's not easy to juggle demand and capacity but I for one would choose other methods over using overcrowded buses to get to work if I could.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

Apparently at the time cash payments were abolished, only 1% of people were paying with cash anyway.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jul/06/london-buses-cashless

[h3+]

Who carries cash anymore. I took out 200 quid at lock down in case. I think i have virtually all of it 9 months on.

[malumbu]

On bus patronage London bucked the national trend for many years, in the rest of the country buses are often seen as 'poor people's transport'. Generally a different attitude in the capital, helped by huge injections of cash, a relatively modern fleet, regular service, cashless payments, etc etc. Decline in part due to changes to road management lengthening journeys - doesn't take much for people to use cars again. So (whilst not jumping on anti-LTN bandwagon) changes have to be managed carefully. But of course we are in a strange new world. Link to bus strategy https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-better-deal-for-bus-users/a-better-deal-for-bus-users

[exdulwicher]

  Quote

On bus patronage London bucked the national trend for many years, in the rest of the country buses are often seen as 'poor people's transport'. Generally a different attitude in the capital, helped by huge injections of cash, a relatively modern fleet, regular service, cashless payments, etc etc

Yes and no - London had the massive advantage that it escaped Thatcher's deregulation of the buses in 1986.

Outside London, not only are the buses are run by private companies, but local authorities can't regulate those private companies so fares are high and the bus companies can pick their routes so they all aim for the profitable / busy routes which ironically adds to congestion.

As bus funding gets cut, it is more and more difficult for local authorities to pay for private bus companies to run extra 'socially necessary' routes - which is why so many vital bus services have been lost. In the last 10 years, local authorities in England and Wales have cut ?78 million in funding and over 2,400 routes have been reduced or withdrawn altogether.

The idea behind bus deregulation was that competition would lead to the best results. Sometimes there have been 'bus wars' where companies fight for passengers, sometimes, there is no competition, fares are high and people have little control or choice over the bus service the company chooses to provide.

In London, it's a franchise and as a result bus use has risen while falling elsewhere. TfL gets to decide on what services are needed for its network and has some control over fares and routes. Running the buses as a network is more efficient because profitable routes can subsidise the routes that don't make money.

Manchester at one point had about 25 different bus companies and over 100 different types of ticket / fare, none of which were cross compatible. Utterly bewildering for the travelling public.

[malumbu]

Sorry goes without saying that the model is London was better than the rest of the country - noting that those doing well like Reading and Bristol maintained some level of local authority control. And better funding. This allowed a more connected/integrated approach to local transport. Ken got to keep control of the buses under a deal that privatised the tube network. Other metropolitan areas are now following TfL's franchise model (not sure how far this has got).

Not sure how much demand was driven by better services or whether Londoners are just more prepared to use the buses.

[exdulwicher]

  Quote

Other metropolitan areas are now following TfL's franchise model (not sure how far this has got).

Not very! ;-)

Bus companies don't like it cos their profits go down - in the big cities on deregulated bus services the average profit is over 8%; in non-metropolitan areas the figure is over 6%; whereas in London (where services are regulated) it is less than 4%.

Gets a bit more complicated when you factor in public subsidy and also how much of that profit ends up going out to shareholders rather than being reinvested but you can see why bus companies are opposed to franchising.

[malumbu]

Greater Manchester authorities consulting on the franchising model but a decision was put back due to Covid. Maybe just let the private bus companies go bust? Oh, no, they are being propped up by the State (what an ideal opportunity to nationalise the buses and trains)

https://tfgm.com/future-travel/bus

https://www.local.gov.uk/lga-concessionary-fare-funding-being-used-prop-private-bus-companies

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/02/bus-firms-get-400m-bailout-to-maintain-services

[Nigello]

Could you imagine a seamless and efficient UK-wide bus/train/metro/coach/ferry system with a nationwide Oyster/touch payment system? If any party said it would do that (and their pledge looked workable) it?d get my vote...

[malumbu]

Oh you commie, that would get rid of personal responsibility,

[exdulwicher]

  Quote

Could you imagine a seamless and efficient UK-wide bus/train/metro/coach/ferry system with a nationwide Oyster/touch payment system? If any party said it would do that (and their pledge looked workable) it?d get my vote...

The cost and effort that's been put into trying to make that work in Manchester (and surrounds) is unbelievable and it's so far achieved...not very much. Quite a few cities have tried similar and to integrate trams and buses in particular but none of them have the devolved powers to actually make it stick, they're all ultimately taking orders from Department for Transport.

TfL, for all its detractors on here, is very very good indeed. You only need to head outside London and board a bus that costs ?3.60 to go 5 miles and then you can only get one out of the 4 buses going back (even though they're running on exactly the same route, you can only use that return ticket on Company A, not B, C or D, even if it means waiting 40 minutes for the next Company A bus to run) to see how good London has it. Same with trains (albeit the franchise model on trains does work nationwide). Imagine if you got the 185 from ED up to Camberwell Green. You can then only return on the 185, even if there's a 40 and a 176 sitting there at the bus stop. Well it's like that.

It's not perfect - of course it isn't - and it's been badly run in the past, notably by one Mr B Johnson, but as a general rule, TfL is doing very well in spite of Government rather than because of it. Kind of feel sorry for them really - they're effectively not much more than a utility company. Like your broadband or water - when it works, no-one really notices; when it goes wrong or they're caught in the middle of a political bunfight, they cop all the flak.

[exdulwicher]

https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/mayor-reaches-deal-on-tfl-funding

No extension to Congestion Charge Zone. However it looks like there will have to be a consultation on keeping the new extended hours and price of the current CCZ if TfL is to make up the shortfall as requested in that link above.

[KidKruger]

"No extension to Congestion Charge Zone."

Thank heavens, what an insane proposal that was !!

Amongst all this BS with road closures and war on cars (you can pay the road tax but not use the roads, unless you're posh).