Which is why I think that some of the same principles should apply to the other areas. As demonstrated by Glossop and Hadfield, services don't align neatly on local government boundaries, and the best* should not be the enemy of good enough.
London's zonal PAYG system literally has two fare scales: a cheaper one set by a public sector operator who's Chief Exec is an elected politician, and a significantly more expensive one which the private sector operators had to be bribed with public money to accept. And nationalising the TOCs won't address this because there still won't be democratic accountability - the rail minister isn't going to be kicked out because public transport users in an area feel ripped off and traffic is awful. An elected mayor might well be.
Nor will Khan, or Burnham, or whomever else. Their accountability should be general, not specific, and we should move away from the Nye Bevan approach of expecting the "dropped warming pan in Tredegar to resound through the corridors of Whitehall" - as it has been proven not to work.
Forgetting the nature of PAYG / traditional ticket structure, has this ever applied for travel in the home counties in a realistic way?
No, and while we're setting up new PAYG schemes during this transitional phase towards a largely nationalised passenger railway, I would have liked to see that begin to change. Which is one reason I was a bit disappointed to read in the tender document that this is an RDG thing, rather than a regional PTE-led thing to be delivered on DfTO-owned services.
Nobody as far as I'm aware. Hopefully it will nevertheless deliver benefits for passengers.
The thing is, local and regional government has so little power in this country, transport is a major factor in these elections. Their major powers are basically planning and transport.
It is interesting to compare what's happening now with the setting up of the LPTB, and defining its area within which sevices would be co-ordinated, and revenue pooled - the late Mike Horne wrote an essay on this (the London Passenger Transport Area) - see https://machorne.wordpress.com/2019/12/22/the-london-passenger-transport-area-an-explanation/ , while the OS 1934 maps showing it, and other relevant areas, are on line at https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps...13134&zoom=9&layer=london-passenger-transport and https://maps.nls.uk/os/one-inch-popular-england-wales/ #londontransport (individual maps, with key to the various boundaries, etc.). Something which will be apparent on studying it closely is that it was drawn up by busmen (based where they could, or wanted to, operate), and relating it to the main line railways and their stations was not simple or obvious.
That's really interesting, thanks for posting.
There doesn't appear to be an online application form on the Northern site yet, maybe because Northern's trials aren't starting until between September and November whereas the EMR trial starts in early September.
Your chance to try simpler train tickets in Yorkshire and the East Midlands this September
Up to 4,000 rail passengers can take part in each route of the pay-as-you-go ticketing trials.www.gov.uk
Those interested in participating can access the links below:
Digital Pay As You Go Trial | EMR
Experience the Future of Rail Travel Sign up to our Digital Pay As You Go Trial by completing the form below. We're looking for volunteers to be among the first to try our new digital pay as you go ticketing system.www.eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk
Digital pay as you go trials
Northern | Buy Cheap Train Tickets and Check Train Timeswww.northernrailway.co.uk
[Mods, feel free to move this post into https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/gps-based-fare-calculation-and-split-ticketing.282328/ ]
The Swiss version is called EasyRide, and has already been discussed in various other threads. Not sure whether you need to have a Swiss bank account to use it: the SBB website says you can use it with a credit card but doesn't say if it has to be a Swiss credit card.
Just on this, it says:
I am confident that the fares applied will be through fares for the journeys undertaken and not those that would apply from split ticketing. As with other PAYG schemes, if you don't like the through fare it may be better not to use PAYG to pay for the journey (as applied to a trip I made today).
Yes but if the through fare is not the cheapest fare for the journey then it is a lie to say that such a scheme will always deliver you the cheapest fare for the journey.
Where does it say it will deliver the cheapest fare?
If best doesn't mean cheapest then it doesn't mean anything.
As quoted earlier:
It's already an accepted practice, using PAYG, that if it's unclear which route was taken (where it even matters; it often doesn't), the passenger is charged the lower fare.
It doesn't need to work in London because London has an established PAYG system that will not be going away any time soon.
Waterloo and Finsbury Park are not in the area where this PAYG system is going to be used.
I don't suppose that London's PAYG system is going to be expanded to cover Melton Mowbray, though.
For journeys such as Melton Mowbray to the London area, many people would probably consider an e-ticket to be the best option.
Not if you are going on to Martins Heron where you have to have a paper ticket for the cross London bit to be included. Splitting at London and using contactless for cross London makes it a lot more expensive.
I honestly do not see a reason why those two PAYG systems cannot co-exist, with a possible National Rail/GBR one being rolled out nationwide (incl. on TfL)... that is, if TfL were rolling barcode scanners.
I question the accuracy of this statement. When I tried to buy my most recent phone, I had to rule out the majority of the offering because they lacked certain features, one of them was NFC. There are a lot of Chinese phones which don't have NFC at all, which contributes to why barcode payment is so popular in China.
The "Ethnicity" dropdown on the EMR form is a bit odd. It's mandatory, and has options of "Asian or Asian British", "Black, Black British, Caribbean or African", "Mixed or multiple ethnic groups" and "White". I suppose the third option will have to double up as "Other".
Northern's page doesn't go into that much detail. Scotrail's does, and they do exclude other operators. I can understand them doing this, as involving other operators means more equipment & training and makes communication about the trial a bit more awkward.
It's in the gov.uk press release mentioned in post #1. An EMR director is quoted as saying "No more fare confusion – just check in and out with your phone and travel knowing you’ll automatically pay the best-value fare for your journey."
London isn't the only place with tunnels, so I expect every provider has a solution for when GPS (and similar networks) are unavailable. Starmill said in post #9 that one company uses Bluetooth.
This Swiss system is a way of doing Account Based Ticketing without doing it 1 TOC at a time, three stations at a time, £1m at a time. The barcode it generates when you check in, doesn't need to replace anything, they just don't happen to have any station controls. You can have station controls or not, it doesn't matter, the main thing it replaces are the Smartcards.
You tap to start and end your journey with the Northern App which I may or may not have a copy of .
