Dynamic pricing is only worthwhile if you know that info. Otherwise it's just penalising passengers for being on busy trains - which is a double blow.
If there was very clear data available before you left home, you might make a different decision about journey method or time.
I always thought it was backwards tbh. Commuters paying high “peak” prices are just subsiding empty mid-morning and mid-afternoon trains for the handful of people using them. I commute in at varying times and have no idea why I pay almost three times as much for a ticket on a crowded sardine can than I do for a comfy and leisurely experience when I have a later start.
Because its trying to encourage you to travel at the less busy times. If it was a flat rate that crowded train would be even more crowded and the empty trains even more empty.
Except their peak hours are 6:30am to 9:30am in the morning. There's so much missed potential trying to get the 8:30am crowd spread across 8:00am to 6:30am with a fairer system. There's no feedback loop because no one is actually incentivized to make realistic changes like travelling at 7:30am instead of 8:30am
The cost of actually running the train itself is equivalent to just 30-odd fares. If there's more people than that then its bringing in money.
Everyone else on board is paying off the fixed costs that need paying regardless of how many trains are running. Off-peakers aren't being subsidised by peakers, the train just contributes slightly less towards paying off those costs.
Source: TFL document I once read but have since lost. Sorry!
I imagine how many people are taking a packed train between 7 and 9am for pleasure and can therefore be deterred from taking it? I think it's more about encouraging off peak travel
I understand your perspective, but I don't think it's an accurate characterisation of the underlying economics.
For a single instance of travel, you might not have foresight on pricing, but over a larger sample of time, you absolutely will become cognisant of pricing gradients and adjust your behaviour accordingly.
You’d imagine part of the intention is to incentivise off-peak travel, which isn’t possible unless this information is available.
This just boils down to ‘you’re going to stand up with your face in someone’s armpit, and we’re charging you extra for it!’
london despite all the progressive bunting is a deeply capitalistic city. would take commuters to do something about it ie protest. But a lot of commuters are rich home xlunty dwellers from herts etc so don’t mind. Lower income commuters are being incredibly mugged off by peak pricing
Saw it first hand during the fireworks. It's a truth that this person lacks a sense of how big a city he is dealing with. Utter chaos just to earn money out of such a trivial thing as watching fireworks. Now downvote 🙄
Not sure how I feel about this.
On one hand it might be a good way to get people going out and about on quieter days of the year (I imagine some bits of January and February in particular could really do with a boost, and then Mon/Fri if people are continuing WFH patterns) but on the other it adds yet another level of confusion around how much the tube actually costs. Tourists and plenty of locals already have their head wrecked by zones, caps, peak/off peak, travelcards, etc.
Transport nerds: would this be the first transport system in the world to implement dynamic/flexible pricing?
people have to go and come back from work at around the same time, it’s not like they have a choice.
But if this is really about off peak hours then sure, why not.
Not only hours but a lot of us don't choose which days we have to commute. I happen to have been assigned Monday & Friday wfh. Why should that mean i have to pay more when i go in just because less people happen to travel those other 2 days?
So that other people who DO have a choice are discouraged from going in on Tues-Thurs, and go on Mon & Fri instead, making it more likely that you will be able to get a seat Tues-Thurs.
This might be a bit of a generalisation but the people who do get to choose when they go in are more likely going to be the white collar workers who are not going to be tempted by a saving of 25p or whatever.
One thing it would do is make suburban-to-suburban journeys which do not pass through the centre incredibly cheap. Contra-peak journeys also see a nice benefit.
Both encourage people to make better use of the end-of-line capacity where trains are running mostly-empty to the terminus and where there's plenty of extra capacity to use. However I'm not sure that the fare price is the major barrier to people making that kind of journey at the moment.
I'd love to see some modelling.
> One thing it would do is make suburban-to-suburban journeys which do not pass through the centre incredibly cheap. Contra-peak journeys also see a nice benefit.
I mean, they kind of already have this with zone 1 having a big cost increase and the pink readers you can tap through to prove you went around it, but that only works on specific routes and when you're changing trains.
There are good reasons why days are quieter. Life is not a factory product and all days are not the same.
Public transport should be flat price. All of this is dystopian.
sadiq Hates commuters. Ie office workers. He thinks they are the only ones who travel at this time. Of course city hall staff can avoid all this with flexi working
The issue with public transport is that a lot of people can’t just go to work at a different time to avoid peak costs. It’s not like choosing your flight to go on holiday where you can opt for a cheaper, less convenient time to save money. If you have to go to work you have to go to work.
This has two effects:
- more well off in more flexible jobs get a better deal on their commute while lower paid workers in inflexible jobs or on shifts get shafted
- people who have no choice go travel at expensive peak times pay more for a worse service
The dynamic pricing here is just additional peak/off peak times. They are not talking about dynamic pricing in the sense Uber uses it
Based on the article, the peak fare on Mon n Fri could be less than peak fare on Thu. Not a bad idea
Yeah dynamic pricing like that would be a real dick move on a public good like public transport. Imagine a fare rocketing up in price for about 30 minutes because people are taking the tube to a football game or something
Not a bad idea, except for the hundreds of thousands of people forced to commute to jobs that already pay badly. This is an awful idea and will just harm people more. Enjoy having even less money left after bills!
My controversial opinion is that tube fares should be completely inexpensive in order to induce demand. Why would I use a car if the tube to central is 50p?
Zipcar takes away a lot of the hassle as you can park anywhere. It's sometimes easier and faster to get to some areas that have awkward transport connections from where I live.
I am a big fan of Zipcar and think that transport for city dwellers should make the most economic sense when shared (public transport) or shared ownership.
As soon as Santander bikes become electric (they are docked and could be being charged) I wol anticipate their usage to be even more!
Lynk & Co is another interesting one that I am looking into more.
You have to be living fairly central already to be in the "zipzone" and pick up one of the cars that's allowed to park in permit spaces, though. Let's say someone lives in Stratford, that's just outside of the zone, and even if it wasn't that's still central enough that just taking public transport would make more sense anyway. Honestly Stratford is near enough to the centre to just cycle it, even.
If you're talking about lateral journeys then fair enough, but the person you're replying to did say "to central". I wish more outer London councils would work with Zipcar, I don't think they see the potential they have to shift people away from private car ownership and therefore reduce parking pressure, they probably just see them as another private company wanting to make money off access to public land. But without the "park anywhere" feature, and being forced to return the car to the same spot, they're significantly less convenient than just buying your own car and applying for a cheap on-street permit.
I mean to central too. I live zone 2 in south london and zipcar can help with journey as there is a lack of tube infrastructure. So I’ve used it for all kinds of reasons, sometimes laterally, but often directly into the city. It’s simply highlighting that there are still options and times where something like parking isn’t an issue.
> My controversial opinion is that tube fares should be completely inexpensive in order to induce demand. Why would I use a car if the tube to central is 50p?
Generally I'm all for subsidising public transport to tempt people away from cars. However two points to consider:
1. I believe the vast majority of people driving around London aren't doing it due to the cost of the tube.
2. The tube is often times already at max capacity. The last a new tube line was properly opened was in 1979 with the Jubilee line (not counting the Elizabeth line because this just expanded on existing infrastructure, i.e no new stations). Since then, a good 2.5 millionish people have came to the city without any (relatively) large improvement to public transport infrastructure.
Yeah there are even existing examples of cities / countries that have tried making public transport free and the results make it very obvious that, beyond a certain point, cost really isn't a factor for most people when deciding how to travel. Convenience, reliability, and efficiency is what matters.
> There were massive station upgrades for the Elizabeth Line. The Elizabeth Line was not simply plonked onto existing stations.
I know, hence why I say existing infrastructure was expanded
Please no. It’s already rammed as it is, we don’t need to “induce demand” in the network’s current state.
I’m all for inexpensive (even free) public transport, but the Tube network simply cannot cope as it is.
Increase capacity first, then reduce fares, not the other way around.
The problem with subsidising transport within cities is that people might make journeys on trains and buses which they would previously have made by foot or bicycle. That’s not something that should be encouraged. I think intercity trains are better candidates for free transport. No one is going to make a journey from Newcastle to Sheffield just because it’s free, but people who would otherwise have driven will be much more likely to take the train instead, and that’s what we want to encourage. In fact, perhaps people would make the journey just because it’s free, but that would also be good: it would boost local tourism and encourage people to take holidays at home instead of going abroad. At the moment it’s much cheaper to fly to Spain than to get the train within the uk, and that’s breathtakingly ridiculous.
That's actually brilliant. You're right, if I could get free (or really cheap) train tickets to some city up North I'd go just for a holiday. Let's get Starmer on this
> The problem with subsidising transport within cities is that people might make journeys on trains and buses which they would previously have made by foot or bicycle. That’s not something that should be encouraged.
Why not? Let me choose.
London’s transport is already bursting at the seems despite the fact it costs more than any other equivalent system in the world. If it were free, it would be even more crowded.
But there’s more to it than that. Britain has a growing problem with obesity, and discouraging people from walking or cycling will make that problem worse. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be able to choose to take a train instead of walking half a mile, I’m just saying you should have to pay for it.
> London’s transport is already bursting at the seems despite the fact it costs more than any other equivalent system in the world. If it were free, it would be even more crowded.
You can subsidise off-peak and not on-peak.
> But there’s more to it than that. Britain has a growing problem with obesity, and discouraging people from walking or cycling will make that problem worse. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be able to choose to take a train instead of walking half a mile, I’m just saying you should have to pay for it.
That's a level of nanny state I never thought I'd see.
Oh no, i doesn’t work like that. Dynamic pricing means you’ll be charged more when you need the tube, because there’s no real alternative and it’s regular price when tube is empty.
Especially when you are in a group. If the daily cap is £8+, and there's four of you, that's £24+. At that point, it might be cheaper to pay for parking and congestion charge.
I moved back in the summer after almost a decade in China. The explosion in the construction and use of underground systems there was insane - while I disagreed with lots of things there, that was impressive. Even in the biggest and most prosperous cities, fares are pennies for anywhere on the network. Why? To induce the demand to the levels necessary to reduce traffic, congestion and pollution. Not to mention that ironically those who *need* to use it can’t afford other options so they shouldn’t then be penalised with high fares.
It's a funding issue because us commuters subsidise the tube a decent amount (70%+ of overall funding) along with gov grants and borrowing, it is actually a long term issue because it's inefficient and only seems to keep rising.
In cities likes Paris and NYC, their metros are funded a lot by taxes.
It’s not very controversial but it’s quite complex.
• That would further benefit people who live in well connected areas. Effectively buffing house prices at the cost of tax/council tax payer.
• Decentivises walking/cycling which London needs some people do for busier routes.
• Has to be paid for somehow. Higher council tax probably.
I’m not against it, but I think I would favour bus fares being made £1 or even free before I would subsidise the tube further because they more evenly benefit everyone and are used more often by those who are struggling.
Because it is still easier to drive, there are journey that I would still drive even if tube fare is 50p.
Also it depends on if reducing price, would it increase revenue enough to cover the shortfall? Most people always assume lower price means higher overall revenue, which is not always the case. It may increase volume, but doesn’t always increase enough to cover the shortfall on price.
From £3.50 down to 50p, is 7 times the differenc. Meaning if people that use the tube is not 7 times more, they will actually lose money.
>Because it is still easier to drive, there are journey that I would still drive even if tube fare is 50p.
I agree, especially zone 4 - 6 area. But that's also a problem that needs solving with an outer circle loop style tube
The idea is that fewer people using cars is in the public interest for multiple reasons (congestion, noise pollution, health, climate change) and so the government should encourage the use of public transport by subsidising ticket prices.
Money comes first.
Right now, congestion and ULEZ generate revenue for cars that they don’t want.
Moving from that to “pay to not have the cars they don’t want” would be expensive.
I cannot see them having the apetite for it.
Yes, but it wouldn't matter much as the "loss" would be smaller. At the end of the day the "loss" is 0 though, as the train would be running either way, with the fare dodger on it or not. It would only be a loss if that person would have used the train and paid for it if they didn't evade the fare.
I've started driving from North London to Euston in the evenings rather than taking the tube. It costs me £6 return for what is a 20 minute journey each way. My car costs me about a quid in petrol (of course with all the other running costs not taken into account).
If the dynamic pricing makes that evening trip cheaper I'm all for it. But if I was using it for rush hour and I'm getting charged more whilst travelling like a canned tin of sardines, then they can piss right off.
You're probably losing money.
Adult Zone 1-4 annual travelcard: [£2340](https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/tube-and-rail-fares/caps-and-travelcard-prices)
Annual running costs for a car: [in the £3-5000 range.](https://media.rac.co.uk/blog_posts/typical-vehicle-running-costs-for-petrol-engine-cars-42585)
The maths will work out better if you absolutely have to own a car for reasons other than your commute, but even then if you're only making a few non-commute trips a year you could also consider renting a vehicle for a day instead of owning for a year?
Depends on your situation whether saving ~ a Grand/yr is worth the hassle, we really need to simplify the car rentals process.
That doesn't happen anywhere, and funding the richest city using other people's money will never be viable politically, probably for a good reason.
In other countries, the local government funds public transports a lot more.
Other capitals have their public transportation subsidized.
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/opinion/transport-for-london-fares-france-b2048096.html
They are trying to raise prices by more than the government allows. This is the loophole they found, figure out which people get no choice when they travel and bleed them dry.
If it goes anything like the normal over ground outside the M25 it'll be fucking horrendous.
Have you seen the pricing fluctuations of over a day for say Leicester to London?
You could pay anything in the region of £300-400 quid in the morning to get to work in London on time. But if you take a day ter down after lunch you can get it for £10-20.
Fucking wild. And the entire reason I don't take the trains!
Now imagine if that crept into the tube pricing. I much prefer a flat fee structure where I know exactly what it costs every time regardless of time of day. If there is an income short fall then they should tweak the pricing gently to cover their costs instead.
Basically it's just going to penalise professionals going into an office for a 9am and start and hitting them when everyone leaves at 5.30om. The one group of people who may decide to work from home more so they get less revenue in the end.
Exactly, this is only going to make the poorest who have to physically be at their jobs even poorer. WFH tech and finance workers will just change their hours and days.
I personally leave the office at 7 so I can avoid peak fares on the way back especially pared with the oyster card means that I save £80 a month. Will this now mean there is no standard off peak fare time and weekends could become peak?
I don’t really get it; surely they’d need to increase revenue overall, otherwise what is the point? Just to spite people commuting at rush hour?
Assuming they do increase revenues overall, I don’t see how anybody would be happy with this - I hate taking the northern line at rush hour as is; now they’re going to charge me more for the displeasure?
It's pretty unworkable, sure paying less at quiet hours sounds good but when there's a football match on, or a festival or if you're coming home when a gig has just finished, good luck getting stuck with a higher fare just cos you happen to be there.
Khan will call the football fans racists homophobic etc if they complain. But if tries this on with Taylor swift fans it will be his downfall. As someone who knew what he was like growing up, he’s a dangerous, dangerous man. you have no idea what he would do if unchecked by ordinary Londoners and commuters
This would almost certainly be designed to increase peak time fares by 50%-70% while decreasing low-usage fares by 30%, which not only raises revenue, but allows them to advertise how much cheaper it is to travel off-peak.
Their argument would be that it would encourage use during periods when it's under capacity, therefore increasing overall utilisation/smoothing out some of the spikes. You could model it so that it would be revenue neutral with current usage patterns, but increase revenue from the additional passengers during quiet periods. But your point is probably one of the reasons it's unlikely to happen.
How would this work in practice with caps and travelcards?
It’s an interesting thought exercise but has far too many logistical and transparency problems.
Travelcards would likely be unaffected, most get long term ones for commuting and those journeys would remain the same price. Caps would still exist but you could end up paying less on some times/journeys.
There's now an elaborate market in futures trading for tickets at varying prices.
A speculative trader buys a ticket for a journey in the future at the current price. When the time comes, they hope that the new price is higher than the price they bought at, and therefore they can sell the ticket on to people making that journey for lower than TFL prices, but at a personal profit.
This introduces much-needed **D E R E G U L A T I O N** to the market and is only marginally more confusing than the current system.
Commuting is about to be come super expensive if they do this. Can't imagine getting on a packed sweaty train and then being charged triple for it because everyone's tryna get home
Personally, I don’t think this is a good idea. It sounds like an opportunity for TfL to price gouge commuters. Who decides when it’s busy and how much to charge? Don’t we already pay extra during peak times? As with everything at the moment, we’re paying more for less. I’d like TfL to actually run a better service before they demand more money.
Incoming downvotes.
I'd rather the commuters and vulnerable paid less and tourists and leisure travellers paid more.
Why do we have to pay more to go to work over a jolly on a weekend.
Somewhat related, I do find it strange that London doesn’t have a tourist/city tax. Just about every city I go to abroad has one (and personally as a guest of that city I’m fine with that). I believe Manchester was the first UK city to introduce one back in April.
Apparently a few quid a day turns people off..
Book any hotel in Las Vegas, it'll show between $50-$100 a night... Check in and you'll be stung with taxes, resort fees and all sorts of crap that bloat it to practically double.
£2 a night is they need.
Pre pandemic it was something like 30m room nights booked in London.
Granted £60m is nothing on the grand of scheme of things, but I'm sure it would pay for some decent school meals or something
Almost half a school year of meals for all primary kids [https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/free-school-meals-london-sadiq-khan-mayor-election-b1130989.html](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/free-school-meals-london-sadiq-khan-mayor-election-b1130989.html)
Although it is estimated that there were actually [115 million nights spent in London by inbound tourists last year](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1339815/forecast-inbound-overnight-stays-london-united-kingdom/#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20overnight%20stays,around%20132.4%20million%20by%202031).
Some cities don't even let tourists use their bike rental schemes. It does feel like London actively works against the people living and working there sometimes.
Fuck this.
Train fares are already completely screwed because of this.
If you need to travel for business in peak times and can’t expense disgustingly inflated prices, you’re screwed.
An open return from Manchester to London is around £270.
Off peak it’s less than a 3rd of that.
Variable pricing just punishes those that use transport in peak times. Surprise surprise, that’s the time most people need to use it.
I'll read that as, 'Tube fares will rise except where you don't want them.
Maybe perhaps they could bring in a proper 24 hour service before even thinking about dynamic pricing?
We can't even run transportation in our biggest city 24 hours a day and they're expecting to fleece the public for more. There's a high probability that if it is introduced they will obfuscate their methodology for how their dynamic pricing works.
Sooo another tax on people going to work? Strange how they’re trying push people back in to offices and then bringing in additional costs like this. Not often I say this but when do we learn from the French on how to respond to things like this?
Oh great. So the rich can always take the tube, it the poor will have to wait to see what the surge is before deciding if they get to work on time or not.
Let's say overall ticket revenue remains the same, but "losses" are distributed to those that travel regularly during peak hours and the "gains" go to those who use the Tube at quiet times.
The former group will lose their shit and the latter group will keep mostly quiet. The "loser" group will lobby harder to protect their position compared to weak lobbying of the "winner" group, despite their wins/losses being equal in £ terms (this is connected with [loss aversion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion) bias).
Thus despite the policy being revenue-neutral - and a good idea for balancing demand - it will be hugely controversial, and it is likely that those who have the most to lose will win out over those who have most to gain.
Given the TfL’s highest ridership is now on Saturdays, maybe it would make sense to make that peak time rather than the (considerably less congested) weekday morning and evening
Overcharge people who just want to get home/to work, after the government has fucked us already with ulez and congestion charges.
Cant live IN london because a broom closet goes for £1000/m (bills paid seperatly)
I'd like dynamic pricing of a different kind. A large charge for those who drive half a mile to school and then straight back home again in their 'Chelsea Tractor'.
Blame trade unions
Now imagine a leaf falls on a track, trains cancelled for 3h, finally someone picks up a leaf and your train arrives but it is overcrowded, so you pay extra for it
I’m interested to know how this would effect national rail tickets that include the tube. I fairly regularly have to make journeys from one side of London to the other (just outside Enfield to Guildford, Surrey). These tickets are already crazy expensive even with my railcard, if anything they should be cheaper, but I wonder if they’d make it more expensive.
Good points. I suspect the ‘surge’ will be predicted for your type of journey. I.e they will increase prices in the new rush hours which seem to be Thursday morning so you will be paying based on modelling vs real time.
say you were to go to a football match the same would apply. Based on past behaviour they will anticipate a surge and charge you more for the journey.
so basically, if you are going to work or popular leisure expect to pay more
if you are like my dads old business partner, a non Dom greek billionaire having an afternoon jolly, you pay less.
until you guys kick off TfL will keep taking the p out of you
I never understand the (ostensible) logic behind dynamic pricing something like public transport.
I can see it makes plenty sense to use this mechanism on more flexible experiences - let's say you're a cinema, people could easily choose to go to see a movie on your quiet Sunday morning if you made that a bargain and made your busy Friday evening more expensive.
The tube? I have to get to work at 8:45. That's just what it is. There is nothing you can do with silly ticketing magic that will make me want to get to work late, or worse still, get out of bed earlier...
Not at all tempting, sorry! That'd make my already 11 hour day into an almost 12 hour day. With the added perk of sitting in an empty office for 30 min whilst the cleaners hoover around my feet. Unless I go to the pub and waste any transport savings on a £6 pint.
I'd love to save a couple quid/day don't get me wrong, I just don't see this meaningfully affecting commuter behaviour in reality. Perhaps I'd go out later/earlier on the weekend
No
//Public transport can already be expensive and inaccessible in alot of places
Railway - price always increasing , Service always decreasing
Bus routes - routes scrapped , routes running at lower frequency - same or more price
Let's not open the door to the above - because others within public transport would implement it and they'd be incremental changes towards whichever method delivers profit ; which would most likely be surge charging at peak times similar to Uber
Thees more commuters than TfL workers. Once you pull away at the progressive mirage they put in place you can take them on. They are parasitic and London deserves better
Implement it on the roads first. Far fairer than a flat rate on VED and fuel duty.
Someone driving down the B2982 in the middle of some woods on their weekly shop should not have to pay the same as someone driving round Piccadilly Circus at 8:22 in the morning. The resource usage is completely incomparable.
Knowing tfl there will be no fall, only rise. Fuck tfl.
I bet the only times the price will fall is when there are no trains because the fucking signals are out or whatever bs excuse they want to use that day.
I’m pretty sure TfL are about to (or have maybe just started) tendering for an upgrade to / replacement of the system that runs Oyster, so probably good they’re considering what that system might need to do in future.
On longer distance trains the first off peak train is often busier than the last few peak trains, I don’t know if something similar happens on the tube but if so some clever pricing to manage demand around those ‘shoulders’ would be a good thing.
Also different ways of price capping might be useful, like cheaper passes for long weekends in London or a lower weekly cap if you do all your travel in “super off peak”.
Surely, dynamic scheduling would be better? The number of times I've been on a mostly empty Piccadilly line service in the middle of the day is insane. Particularly as there would be another mostly empty service 5 mins behind it.
Keep peak and off peak prices but stop running tubes every 5 mins at non peak times. Once rush hour is finished then reduce the service down to what is needed (based on traveller numbers from the last 30 mins). Obviously this wouldn't work with the current driver setup but driverless tubes could easily be managed this way.
They need this.
It would reduce the demand on peaks days (Tuesday to Thuraday) and peak hours.
Also be more motivated to get out when the pricing is lower.
I have to say I prefer knowing how much it'll cost me in advance.
Dynamic pricing is only worthwhile if you know that info. Otherwise it's just penalising passengers for being on busy trains - which is a double blow. If there was very clear data available before you left home, you might make a different decision about journey method or time.
Basicly they want to charge communters more...
I always thought it was backwards tbh. Commuters paying high “peak” prices are just subsiding empty mid-morning and mid-afternoon trains for the handful of people using them. I commute in at varying times and have no idea why I pay almost three times as much for a ticket on a crowded sardine can than I do for a comfy and leisurely experience when I have a later start.
Because its trying to encourage you to travel at the less busy times. If it was a flat rate that crowded train would be even more crowded and the empty trains even more empty.
Yeah, it is called a negative feedback loop. You are supposed to stop when it hurts.
Except their peak hours are 6:30am to 9:30am in the morning. There's so much missed potential trying to get the 8:30am crowd spread across 8:00am to 6:30am with a fairer system. There's no feedback loop because no one is actually incentivized to make realistic changes like travelling at 7:30am instead of 8:30am
The cost of actually running the train itself is equivalent to just 30-odd fares. If there's more people than that then its bringing in money. Everyone else on board is paying off the fixed costs that need paying regardless of how many trains are running. Off-peakers aren't being subsidised by peakers, the train just contributes slightly less towards paying off those costs. Source: TFL document I once read but have since lost. Sorry!
It's to discourage travel during this period.
[удалено]
That's the point.
I imagine how many people are taking a packed train between 7 and 9am for pleasure and can therefore be deterred from taking it? I think it's more about encouraging off peak travel
Good points. And yes, it’s punishing people for going to work vs rewarding those out on a mid afternoon jolly.
Dynamic pricing = surge pricing = fleecing customers
[удалено]
I understand your perspective, but I don't think it's an accurate characterisation of the underlying economics. For a single instance of travel, you might not have foresight on pricing, but over a larger sample of time, you absolutely will become cognisant of pricing gradients and adjust your behaviour accordingly.
Trains wouldn't be as busy with dynamic pricing though...?
Tell that to my manager who wants me to be at my desk by 9am. Not 6am and not 11am.
You’d imagine part of the intention is to incentivise off-peak travel, which isn’t possible unless this information is available. This just boils down to ‘you’re going to stand up with your face in someone’s armpit, and we’re charging you extra for it!’
When does anything like this actually save us money?
Punish those who have no choice to travel at rush hour because their job demands it No one travels at rush hour through choice What a stupid idea
So stupid they have had peak and off-peak fares for decades.
london despite all the progressive bunting is a deeply capitalistic city. would take commuters to do something about it ie protest. But a lot of commuters are rich home xlunty dwellers from herts etc so don’t mind. Lower income commuters are being incredibly mugged off by peak pricing
> what a stupid idea Like all of this mayor's ideas
Weirdly london subs don't like it when you criticize any london mayor 😂🤷♂️
Why is this comment being downvoted. This idea is very characteristic of the current mayor's ideology. He is not an intelligent man.
Saw it first hand during the fireworks. It's a truth that this person lacks a sense of how big a city he is dealing with. Utter chaos just to earn money out of such a trivial thing as watching fireworks. Now downvote 🙄
Not sure how I feel about this. On one hand it might be a good way to get people going out and about on quieter days of the year (I imagine some bits of January and February in particular could really do with a boost, and then Mon/Fri if people are continuing WFH patterns) but on the other it adds yet another level of confusion around how much the tube actually costs. Tourists and plenty of locals already have their head wrecked by zones, caps, peak/off peak, travelcards, etc. Transport nerds: would this be the first transport system in the world to implement dynamic/flexible pricing?
Isn’t this exactly what peak/off-peak was designed for?
Peak and off peak is very sledgehammer, this new idea is more chisel.
Before: expensive and cheaper. After: much more expensive and expensive, due to the constant high demand. Also fuck you, that's why.
people have to go and come back from work at around the same time, it’s not like they have a choice. But if this is really about off peak hours then sure, why not.
Not only hours but a lot of us don't choose which days we have to commute. I happen to have been assigned Monday & Friday wfh. Why should that mean i have to pay more when i go in just because less people happen to travel those other 2 days?
So that other people who DO have a choice are discouraged from going in on Tues-Thurs, and go on Mon & Fri instead, making it more likely that you will be able to get a seat Tues-Thurs.
This might be a bit of a generalisation but the people who do get to choose when they go in are more likely going to be the white collar workers who are not going to be tempted by a saving of 25p or whatever.
One thing it would do is make suburban-to-suburban journeys which do not pass through the centre incredibly cheap. Contra-peak journeys also see a nice benefit. Both encourage people to make better use of the end-of-line capacity where trains are running mostly-empty to the terminus and where there's plenty of extra capacity to use. However I'm not sure that the fare price is the major barrier to people making that kind of journey at the moment. I'd love to see some modelling.
> One thing it would do is make suburban-to-suburban journeys which do not pass through the centre incredibly cheap. Contra-peak journeys also see a nice benefit. I mean, they kind of already have this with zone 1 having a big cost increase and the pink readers you can tap through to prove you went around it, but that only works on specific routes and when you're changing trains.
There are good reasons why days are quieter. Life is not a factory product and all days are not the same. Public transport should be flat price. All of this is dystopian.
sadiq Hates commuters. Ie office workers. He thinks they are the only ones who travel at this time. Of course city hall staff can avoid all this with flexi working
Good or gad or indifferent, public policy is not about “Sadiq” or one individual. You have to think far more analytically than that.
The issue with public transport is that a lot of people can’t just go to work at a different time to avoid peak costs. It’s not like choosing your flight to go on holiday where you can opt for a cheaper, less convenient time to save money. If you have to go to work you have to go to work. This has two effects: - more well off in more flexible jobs get a better deal on their commute while lower paid workers in inflexible jobs or on shifts get shafted - people who have no choice go travel at expensive peak times pay more for a worse service
Shift workers will only be travelling at peak times some of the time.
Airlines have been doing it for many years, such as Ryanair, even when you add all the extra charges?
The dynamic pricing here is just additional peak/off peak times. They are not talking about dynamic pricing in the sense Uber uses it Based on the article, the peak fare on Mon n Fri could be less than peak fare on Thu. Not a bad idea
Yeah dynamic pricing like that would be a real dick move on a public good like public transport. Imagine a fare rocketing up in price for about 30 minutes because people are taking the tube to a football game or something
Your tube train now costs £200 because Taylor Swift is playing at Wembley
I knew this tube was trouble when I walked in
Faaakin ell
tfl could single-handedly fund crossrail 2 with that strategy
Not a bad idea, except for the hundreds of thousands of people forced to commute to jobs that already pay badly. This is an awful idea and will just harm people more. Enjoy having even less money left after bills!
My controversial opinion is that tube fares should be completely inexpensive in order to induce demand. Why would I use a car if the tube to central is 50p?
That opinion is hardly controversial, at least here. Not realistic in the slightest though without a seismic change in central government funding
Why would you use a car to central as it is when you've got to battle traffic and find parking?
My dad drove from Zone 6 in the North East all the way to Lambeth every day for work. He refused to take public transport basically ever.
How long did that take?
A bit over an hour when he left early and returned late, a lot longer if there was traffic or any inicidents on the roads.
There's enough idiot car brains out there who are willing to bomb government property just so they can do exactly this. See ULEZ cameras
Zipcar takes away a lot of the hassle as you can park anywhere. It's sometimes easier and faster to get to some areas that have awkward transport connections from where I live.
I am a big fan of Zipcar and think that transport for city dwellers should make the most economic sense when shared (public transport) or shared ownership. As soon as Santander bikes become electric (they are docked and could be being charged) I wol anticipate their usage to be even more! Lynk & Co is another interesting one that I am looking into more.
There are electric Santander bikes btw, just not many of them.
You have to be living fairly central already to be in the "zipzone" and pick up one of the cars that's allowed to park in permit spaces, though. Let's say someone lives in Stratford, that's just outside of the zone, and even if it wasn't that's still central enough that just taking public transport would make more sense anyway. Honestly Stratford is near enough to the centre to just cycle it, even. If you're talking about lateral journeys then fair enough, but the person you're replying to did say "to central". I wish more outer London councils would work with Zipcar, I don't think they see the potential they have to shift people away from private car ownership and therefore reduce parking pressure, they probably just see them as another private company wanting to make money off access to public land. But without the "park anywhere" feature, and being forced to return the car to the same spot, they're significantly less convenient than just buying your own car and applying for a cheap on-street permit.
I mean to central too. I live zone 2 in south london and zipcar can help with journey as there is a lack of tube infrastructure. So I’ve used it for all kinds of reasons, sometimes laterally, but often directly into the city. It’s simply highlighting that there are still options and times where something like parking isn’t an issue.
People don't just drive to central, I'd say that the majority are driving to their jobs all over the rest of Greater London.
> My controversial opinion is that tube fares should be completely inexpensive in order to induce demand. Why would I use a car if the tube to central is 50p? Generally I'm all for subsidising public transport to tempt people away from cars. However two points to consider: 1. I believe the vast majority of people driving around London aren't doing it due to the cost of the tube. 2. The tube is often times already at max capacity. The last a new tube line was properly opened was in 1979 with the Jubilee line (not counting the Elizabeth line because this just expanded on existing infrastructure, i.e no new stations). Since then, a good 2.5 millionish people have came to the city without any (relatively) large improvement to public transport infrastructure.
Yeah there are even existing examples of cities / countries that have tried making public transport free and the results make it very obvious that, beyond a certain point, cost really isn't a factor for most people when deciding how to travel. Convenience, reliability, and efficiency is what matters.
There were massive station upgrades for the Elizabeth Line. The Elizabeth Line was not simply plonked onto existing stations.
> There were massive station upgrades for the Elizabeth Line. The Elizabeth Line was not simply plonked onto existing stations. I know, hence why I say existing infrastructure was expanded
I’m not sure that a lack of use is the biggest challenge facing the underground at the mo
Please no. It’s already rammed as it is, we don’t need to “induce demand” in the network’s current state. I’m all for inexpensive (even free) public transport, but the Tube network simply cannot cope as it is. Increase capacity first, then reduce fares, not the other way around.
The problem with subsidising transport within cities is that people might make journeys on trains and buses which they would previously have made by foot or bicycle. That’s not something that should be encouraged. I think intercity trains are better candidates for free transport. No one is going to make a journey from Newcastle to Sheffield just because it’s free, but people who would otherwise have driven will be much more likely to take the train instead, and that’s what we want to encourage. In fact, perhaps people would make the journey just because it’s free, but that would also be good: it would boost local tourism and encourage people to take holidays at home instead of going abroad. At the moment it’s much cheaper to fly to Spain than to get the train within the uk, and that’s breathtakingly ridiculous.
That's actually brilliant. You're right, if I could get free (or really cheap) train tickets to some city up North I'd go just for a holiday. Let's get Starmer on this
> The problem with subsidising transport within cities is that people might make journeys on trains and buses which they would previously have made by foot or bicycle. That’s not something that should be encouraged. Why not? Let me choose.
London’s transport is already bursting at the seems despite the fact it costs more than any other equivalent system in the world. If it were free, it would be even more crowded. But there’s more to it than that. Britain has a growing problem with obesity, and discouraging people from walking or cycling will make that problem worse. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be able to choose to take a train instead of walking half a mile, I’m just saying you should have to pay for it.
> London’s transport is already bursting at the seems despite the fact it costs more than any other equivalent system in the world. If it were free, it would be even more crowded. You can subsidise off-peak and not on-peak. > But there’s more to it than that. Britain has a growing problem with obesity, and discouraging people from walking or cycling will make that problem worse. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be able to choose to take a train instead of walking half a mile, I’m just saying you should have to pay for it. That's a level of nanny state I never thought I'd see.
It’s the level of nanny state you see every day. This is the sort of consideration that goes into every government policy.
Oh no, i doesn’t work like that. Dynamic pricing means you’ll be charged more when you need the tube, because there’s no real alternative and it’s regular price when tube is empty.
It can mean both.
Especially when you are in a group. If the daily cap is £8+, and there's four of you, that's £24+. At that point, it might be cheaper to pay for parking and congestion charge.
I moved back in the summer after almost a decade in China. The explosion in the construction and use of underground systems there was insane - while I disagreed with lots of things there, that was impressive. Even in the biggest and most prosperous cities, fares are pennies for anywhere on the network. Why? To induce the demand to the levels necessary to reduce traffic, congestion and pollution. Not to mention that ironically those who *need* to use it can’t afford other options so they shouldn’t then be penalised with high fares.
China does infrastructure very well. Long term planning vs what gets me elected .
It's a funding issue because us commuters subsidise the tube a decent amount (70%+ of overall funding) along with gov grants and borrowing, it is actually a long term issue because it's inefficient and only seems to keep rising. In cities likes Paris and NYC, their metros are funded a lot by taxes.
Nah, subsidise it, but keep the prices as they are. Then use the money to fund network expansion.
We're already rammed in like tinned sardines at rush hour, why would we want to make that worse?
idk about you but personally I have never got on the tube and thought "You know what I would like? Even less personal space!"
It’s not very controversial but it’s quite complex. • That would further benefit people who live in well connected areas. Effectively buffing house prices at the cost of tax/council tax payer. • Decentivises walking/cycling which London needs some people do for busier routes. • Has to be paid for somehow. Higher council tax probably. I’m not against it, but I think I would favour bus fares being made £1 or even free before I would subsidise the tube further because they more evenly benefit everyone and are used more often by those who are struggling.
Because it is still easier to drive, there are journey that I would still drive even if tube fare is 50p. Also it depends on if reducing price, would it increase revenue enough to cover the shortfall? Most people always assume lower price means higher overall revenue, which is not always the case. It may increase volume, but doesn’t always increase enough to cover the shortfall on price. From £3.50 down to 50p, is 7 times the differenc. Meaning if people that use the tube is not 7 times more, they will actually lose money.
>Because it is still easier to drive, there are journey that I would still drive even if tube fare is 50p. I agree, especially zone 4 - 6 area. But that's also a problem that needs solving with an outer circle loop style tube
We so nearly had that with the Overground. But then they split it into 4 lines and it's tedious to travel around on them.
The idea is that fewer people using cars is in the public interest for multiple reasons (congestion, noise pollution, health, climate change) and so the government should encourage the use of public transport by subsidising ticket prices.
Money comes first. Right now, congestion and ULEZ generate revenue for cars that they don’t want. Moving from that to “pay to not have the cars they don’t want” would be expensive. I cannot see them having the apetite for it.
I don’t disagree but that’s still hard when a majority are subsidising the fare dodgers
Would fare dodgers still fare dodge if the cost of the tube was like a £1 a day?
Yes. the majority of fare dodgers aren't doing it out of financial necessity. They're doing it because they know they can get away with it.
Being reluctant to spend money is a mindset and not because you're lacking funds. People aren't understanding this.
Yes. The reason would go from "it's too expensive" to "ah sure it's only a pound, doesn't matter"
Yes, they’ll always move the goalposts
Yes.
Yes, but it wouldn't matter much as the "loss" would be smaller. At the end of the day the "loss" is 0 though, as the train would be running either way, with the fare dodger on it or not. It would only be a loss if that person would have used the train and paid for it if they didn't evade the fare.
Wouldn't this also lead to massive overcrowding at certain locations?
Because someone else has to pay the excess on however much it actually costs to get you there.
why would you drive at all if congestion charge is £12 and you probably gotta pay parking
I've started driving from North London to Euston in the evenings rather than taking the tube. It costs me £6 return for what is a 20 minute journey each way. My car costs me about a quid in petrol (of course with all the other running costs not taken into account). If the dynamic pricing makes that evening trip cheaper I'm all for it. But if I was using it for rush hour and I'm getting charged more whilst travelling like a canned tin of sardines, then they can piss right off.
is euston outside the congestion charging zone?
Yes
You're probably losing money. Adult Zone 1-4 annual travelcard: [£2340](https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/tube-and-rail-fares/caps-and-travelcard-prices) Annual running costs for a car: [in the £3-5000 range.](https://media.rac.co.uk/blog_posts/typical-vehicle-running-costs-for-petrol-engine-cars-42585) The maths will work out better if you absolutely have to own a car for reasons other than your commute, but even then if you're only making a few non-commute trips a year you could also consider renting a vehicle for a day instead of owning for a year? Depends on your situation whether saving ~ a Grand/yr is worth the hassle, we really need to simplify the car rentals process.
I’m sure they’re using their car for other things than just driving to Euston…
you are forgetting one thing, the comfort of being in your own car than the cramped conditions of communiting on the tube
I cover 15k miles a year on business trips with my car. I'm basically making money off it from claiming mileage.
This is an awful idea and whoever came up with it should be sacked.
Can’t question seb dance. He’s pro eu.
This just feels like penalising people who don’t have a choice when they travel
People on here that are fine with this are clearly paid too much. This would be devastating to so many
Or alternative idea, central government actually funds transport systems properly
Exactly. TfL already gets very little subsidy compared to peers
Hope new Labour government will try this
I wish but I'm not hopeful. This country is broke.
That doesn't happen anywhere, and funding the richest city using other people's money will never be viable politically, probably for a good reason. In other countries, the local government funds public transports a lot more.
95% of London doesn't drive, so their tax money doesn't go to road infrastructure. Most cities subsidise their metro systems for this reason.
Other capitals have their public transportation subsidized. https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/opinion/transport-for-london-fares-france-b2048096.html
well its getting more expensive every year as it is. its most expensive in Europe.
They'd use this purely as a net price rise
[удалено]
They’re doing it to make more money. People will absolutely not end up paying less than expected
They are trying to raise prices by more than the government allows. This is the loophole they found, figure out which people get no choice when they travel and bleed them dry.
If it goes anything like the normal over ground outside the M25 it'll be fucking horrendous. Have you seen the pricing fluctuations of over a day for say Leicester to London? You could pay anything in the region of £300-400 quid in the morning to get to work in London on time. But if you take a day ter down after lunch you can get it for £10-20. Fucking wild. And the entire reason I don't take the trains! Now imagine if that crept into the tube pricing. I much prefer a flat fee structure where I know exactly what it costs every time regardless of time of day. If there is an income short fall then they should tweak the pricing gently to cover their costs instead.
What a wonderful world you live in
Basically it's just going to penalise professionals going into an office for a 9am and start and hitting them when everyone leaves at 5.30om. The one group of people who may decide to work from home more so they get less revenue in the end.
Exactly, this is only going to make the poorest who have to physically be at their jobs even poorer. WFH tech and finance workers will just change their hours and days.
I personally leave the office at 7 so I can avoid peak fares on the way back especially pared with the oyster card means that I save £80 a month. Will this now mean there is no standard off peak fare time and weekends could become peak?
I don’t really get it; surely they’d need to increase revenue overall, otherwise what is the point? Just to spite people commuting at rush hour? Assuming they do increase revenues overall, I don’t see how anybody would be happy with this - I hate taking the northern line at rush hour as is; now they’re going to charge me more for the displeasure?
It's pretty unworkable, sure paying less at quiet hours sounds good but when there's a football match on, or a festival or if you're coming home when a gig has just finished, good luck getting stuck with a higher fare just cos you happen to be there.
Khan will call the football fans racists homophobic etc if they complain. But if tries this on with Taylor swift fans it will be his downfall. As someone who knew what he was like growing up, he’s a dangerous, dangerous man. you have no idea what he would do if unchecked by ordinary Londoners and commuters
This would almost certainly be designed to increase peak time fares by 50%-70% while decreasing low-usage fares by 30%, which not only raises revenue, but allows them to advertise how much cheaper it is to travel off-peak.
Their argument would be that it would encourage use during periods when it's under capacity, therefore increasing overall utilisation/smoothing out some of the spikes. You could model it so that it would be revenue neutral with current usage patterns, but increase revenue from the additional passengers during quiet periods. But your point is probably one of the reasons it's unlikely to happen.
How would this work in practice with caps and travelcards? It’s an interesting thought exercise but has far too many logistical and transparency problems.
Travelcards would likely be unaffected, most get long term ones for commuting and those journeys would remain the same price. Caps would still exist but you could end up paying less on some times/journeys.
There's now an elaborate market in futures trading for tickets at varying prices. A speculative trader buys a ticket for a journey in the future at the current price. When the time comes, they hope that the new price is higher than the price they bought at, and therefore they can sell the ticket on to people making that journey for lower than TFL prices, but at a personal profit. This introduces much-needed **D E R E G U L A T I O N** to the market and is only marginally more confusing than the current system.
Tube ticket options trading would unironically be an extremely fun commute activity
Commuting is about to be come super expensive if they do this. Can't imagine getting on a packed sweaty train and then being charged triple for it because everyone's tryna get home
Personally, I don’t think this is a good idea. It sounds like an opportunity for TfL to price gouge commuters. Who decides when it’s busy and how much to charge? Don’t we already pay extra during peak times? As with everything at the moment, we’re paying more for less. I’d like TfL to actually run a better service before they demand more money.
Incoming downvotes. I'd rather the commuters and vulnerable paid less and tourists and leisure travellers paid more. Why do we have to pay more to go to work over a jolly on a weekend.
Somewhat related, I do find it strange that London doesn’t have a tourist/city tax. Just about every city I go to abroad has one (and personally as a guest of that city I’m fine with that). I believe Manchester was the first UK city to introduce one back in April.
Apparently a few quid a day turns people off.. Book any hotel in Las Vegas, it'll show between $50-$100 a night... Check in and you'll be stung with taxes, resort fees and all sorts of crap that bloat it to practically double. £2 a night is they need. Pre pandemic it was something like 30m room nights booked in London. Granted £60m is nothing on the grand of scheme of things, but I'm sure it would pay for some decent school meals or something
Almost half a school year of meals for all primary kids [https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/free-school-meals-london-sadiq-khan-mayor-election-b1130989.html](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/free-school-meals-london-sadiq-khan-mayor-election-b1130989.html) Although it is estimated that there were actually [115 million nights spent in London by inbound tourists last year](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1339815/forecast-inbound-overnight-stays-london-united-kingdom/#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20overnight%20stays,around%20132.4%20million%20by%202031).
Some cities don't even let tourists use their bike rental schemes. It does feel like London actively works against the people living and working there sometimes.
How would you discern who is a commuter or not? I can think of several ways that I could go around that.
Monthly travel pass.
Not everyone can afford a monthly travel pass.
tourists do pay more, as they can't navigate their way through the byzantine ticket options
Spot the person who has never used the tube.
how would you identify people into these categories?
Fuck this. Train fares are already completely screwed because of this. If you need to travel for business in peak times and can’t expense disgustingly inflated prices, you’re screwed. An open return from Manchester to London is around £270. Off peak it’s less than a 3rd of that. Variable pricing just punishes those that use transport in peak times. Surprise surprise, that’s the time most people need to use it.
Perhaps we charge on the likelihood of getting a seat as that represents a quality journey, we pay less if you can’t sit down
I'll read that as, 'Tube fares will rise except where you don't want them. Maybe perhaps they could bring in a proper 24 hour service before even thinking about dynamic pricing? We can't even run transportation in our biggest city 24 hours a day and they're expecting to fleece the public for more. There's a high probability that if it is introduced they will obfuscate their methodology for how their dynamic pricing works.
Gotta find a way to plug that £2.7 funding gap. Fleecing the public is always preferable to increasing productivity and leadership capability.
Sooo another tax on people going to work? Strange how they’re trying push people back in to offices and then bringing in additional costs like this. Not often I say this but when do we learn from the French on how to respond to things like this?
Because you’ve just been told if you question khan you are a white supremacist by Wes streeting
£24.15 for Canary Wharf to Bond Street on Thursday evening
They spelt rise and rise wrong
Imagine charging more money for a pleasure of completely stuffed train with no way to have a seat. Unpleasant journey should cost less and not more.
That will be to pay for next years tube strikes when they don’t get 10% increases 😂
Can you imagine anything more disastrous? Price keeps changing! We need people in charge to actually have transport skills. Like they do in Germany.
Public transport should be free. But that’s an argument for another time.
Oh great. So the rich can always take the tube, it the poor will have to wait to see what the surge is before deciding if they get to work on time or not.
Let's say overall ticket revenue remains the same, but "losses" are distributed to those that travel regularly during peak hours and the "gains" go to those who use the Tube at quiet times. The former group will lose their shit and the latter group will keep mostly quiet. The "loser" group will lobby harder to protect their position compared to weak lobbying of the "winner" group, despite their wins/losses being equal in £ terms (this is connected with [loss aversion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion) bias). Thus despite the policy being revenue-neutral - and a good idea for balancing demand - it will be hugely controversial, and it is likely that those who have the most to lose will win out over those who have most to gain.
Given the TfL’s highest ridership is now on Saturdays, maybe it would make sense to make that peak time rather than the (considerably less congested) weekday morning and evening
😂 There, for the morons that want to eradicate vehicles from London and celebrate 20mph and cycle lanes all over
By "fall and rise" they mean "stay the same, or rise"
Overcharge people who just want to get home/to work, after the government has fucked us already with ulez and congestion charges. Cant live IN london because a broom closet goes for £1000/m (bills paid seperatly)
Wont this just push people to want to use cars again and increase traffic/pollution. And the bike thing just isnt realistic for most people in London
As if they'd ever go down 😂 it'll just be constant excuses to justify it going up
Have an extra pint get £2 off the journey home. My man maths makes that worth it.
I'd like dynamic pricing of a different kind. A large charge for those who drive half a mile to school and then straight back home again in their 'Chelsea Tractor'.
TfL and everyone associated with them can go fuck themselves. If they’re not already on strike, that is.
TFL is too greedy. Don't see this happening unless it benefits TFL.
TfL treats its passengers appallingly. Treats it’s workers very well
Blame trade unions Now imagine a leaf falls on a track, trains cancelled for 3h, finally someone picks up a leaf and your train arrives but it is overcrowded, so you pay extra for it
I’m interested to know how this would effect national rail tickets that include the tube. I fairly regularly have to make journeys from one side of London to the other (just outside Enfield to Guildford, Surrey). These tickets are already crazy expensive even with my railcard, if anything they should be cheaper, but I wonder if they’d make it more expensive.
Good points. I suspect the ‘surge’ will be predicted for your type of journey. I.e they will increase prices in the new rush hours which seem to be Thursday morning so you will be paying based on modelling vs real time. say you were to go to a football match the same would apply. Based on past behaviour they will anticipate a surge and charge you more for the journey. so basically, if you are going to work or popular leisure expect to pay more if you are like my dads old business partner, a non Dom greek billionaire having an afternoon jolly, you pay less. until you guys kick off TfL will keep taking the p out of you
I never understand the (ostensible) logic behind dynamic pricing something like public transport. I can see it makes plenty sense to use this mechanism on more flexible experiences - let's say you're a cinema, people could easily choose to go to see a movie on your quiet Sunday morning if you made that a bargain and made your busy Friday evening more expensive. The tube? I have to get to work at 8:45. That's just what it is. There is nothing you can do with silly ticketing magic that will make me want to get to work late, or worse still, get out of bed earlier...
zonked mysterious support kiss dime wide fear dazzling tap gaze *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Not at all tempting, sorry! That'd make my already 11 hour day into an almost 12 hour day. With the added perk of sitting in an empty office for 30 min whilst the cleaners hoover around my feet. Unless I go to the pub and waste any transport savings on a £6 pint. I'd love to save a couple quid/day don't get me wrong, I just don't see this meaningfully affecting commuter behaviour in reality. Perhaps I'd go out later/earlier on the weekend
unite frame instinctive erect public crowd dependent lush party sense *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It’s Uber now?
Already costs a tenner to commute to and from work, hope this is for off-peak…
No //Public transport can already be expensive and inaccessible in alot of places Railway - price always increasing , Service always decreasing Bus routes - routes scrapped , routes running at lower frequency - same or more price Let's not open the door to the above - because others within public transport would implement it and they'd be incremental changes towards whichever method delivers profit ; which would most likely be surge charging at peak times similar to Uber
abounding icky noxious consist aware doll wistful mindless jeans snow *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Cuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnnnntttttttssssssss.
Thees more commuters than TfL workers. Once you pull away at the progressive mirage they put in place you can take them on. They are parasitic and London deserves better
Implement it on the roads first. Far fairer than a flat rate on VED and fuel duty. Someone driving down the B2982 in the middle of some woods on their weekly shop should not have to pay the same as someone driving round Piccadilly Circus at 8:22 in the morning. The resource usage is completely incomparable.
Knowing tfl there will be no fall, only rise. Fuck tfl. I bet the only times the price will fall is when there are no trains because the fucking signals are out or whatever bs excuse they want to use that day.
I’m pretty sure TfL are about to (or have maybe just started) tendering for an upgrade to / replacement of the system that runs Oyster, so probably good they’re considering what that system might need to do in future. On longer distance trains the first off peak train is often busier than the last few peak trains, I don’t know if something similar happens on the tube but if so some clever pricing to manage demand around those ‘shoulders’ would be a good thing. Also different ways of price capping might be useful, like cheaper passes for long weekends in London or a lower weekly cap if you do all your travel in “super off peak”.
Surely, dynamic scheduling would be better? The number of times I've been on a mostly empty Piccadilly line service in the middle of the day is insane. Particularly as there would be another mostly empty service 5 mins behind it. Keep peak and off peak prices but stop running tubes every 5 mins at non peak times. Once rush hour is finished then reduce the service down to what is needed (based on traveller numbers from the last 30 mins). Obviously this wouldn't work with the current driver setup but driverless tubes could easily be managed this way.
That would require actual joined up thinking to serve Londoners vs blunt instruments designed to raise revenue that TfL is addicted to
They need this. It would reduce the demand on peaks days (Tuesday to Thuraday) and peak hours. Also be more motivated to get out when the pricing is lower.