steveintoronto
Superstar
Some very good posts, and considered discussion. I'm going to jump discussing the *pragmatic fix* to making a compromise work, because no matter how you cut it, it will take compromise.
What I will address is this:
This then allows rendering *all trips* to be based on incremental distance...and *all at the same rate* (including buses...at least eventually) such that no matter what means you utilize to get you to your destination, the fare will be the same as 'the crow flies'. If Joe's Jumping Jalopy meets an operating criteria set by provincial and federal regulators, they can add vehicles to any given route to compete on the same lines as provided by the government agencies.
Euphoria included this in his quote, and it's a model that has gone both terribly wrong and right at the same time: "(think London, England)". Having spent considerable time there on several work sojourns after leaving as a child at 8, having close family still there, and being very familiar with politics as well as machinations of making their very integrated system work (but still with oddities, rail v. bus, albeit *many* but not all local and national rail services integrated at the same fare and on the same payment system) (Oyster) there are aspects that have worked very well. That being said, London (via TfL) is *taking back* many routes that were privatized prior, and folding them into London Overground. The model is far from linear, but aspects are still very useful to study.
But much of this 'studying' is useful only for *compromised* payment systems. With electronic payment and tracking, everything can be rendered down to a system like taxis. If the route goes all over the place, it matters not, that is the customer's choice to make, and thus the better ways of travelling *at the same rate per distance* will get the greatest farebox recovery, and thus re-investment to further improve it.
I never thought I'd be advocating for such an absolute distance based fare, but when faced with a patchwork of competing systems that must somehow function together, and still reward good design, I see no other way.
Other than those really necessary, we have to get buses off the road. If there's a rail line that does it faster, smoother, just as frequent and more comfortable, then that means of delivery should 'win' in terms of farebox take. Let *people* vote with how they want to travel by reflecting the true costs of getting them to their destinations. And on that count, trains affect a much lower cost on the environment, in stress, and in comfort of travel.
The sooner an incrementally based (down to the cent) system can be established that is totally transferable across an entire region is established, the sooner we can eliminate many inefficient ways of delivering services, and promote better ones.
Very bold vision, I realize, but anything short of this is a fudge. I'll try and provide references later.
What I will address is this:
Think of a taxi fare. They compute the cost completely by incremental distance and time. Fixed fares are something of the past with a few exceptions. We can get past the whole 'zone' debate *eventually* by virtue of Presto or like: electronic tracking.
This then allows rendering *all trips* to be based on incremental distance...and *all at the same rate* (including buses...at least eventually) such that no matter what means you utilize to get you to your destination, the fare will be the same as 'the crow flies'. If Joe's Jumping Jalopy meets an operating criteria set by provincial and federal regulators, they can add vehicles to any given route to compete on the same lines as provided by the government agencies.
Euphoria included this in his quote, and it's a model that has gone both terribly wrong and right at the same time: "(think London, England)". Having spent considerable time there on several work sojourns after leaving as a child at 8, having close family still there, and being very familiar with politics as well as machinations of making their very integrated system work (but still with oddities, rail v. bus, albeit *many* but not all local and national rail services integrated at the same fare and on the same payment system) (Oyster) there are aspects that have worked very well. That being said, London (via TfL) is *taking back* many routes that were privatized prior, and folding them into London Overground. The model is far from linear, but aspects are still very useful to study.
But much of this 'studying' is useful only for *compromised* payment systems. With electronic payment and tracking, everything can be rendered down to a system like taxis. If the route goes all over the place, it matters not, that is the customer's choice to make, and thus the better ways of travelling *at the same rate per distance* will get the greatest farebox recovery, and thus re-investment to further improve it.
I never thought I'd be advocating for such an absolute distance based fare, but when faced with a patchwork of competing systems that must somehow function together, and still reward good design, I see no other way.
Other than those really necessary, we have to get buses off the road. If there's a rail line that does it faster, smoother, just as frequent and more comfortable, then that means of delivery should 'win' in terms of farebox take. Let *people* vote with how they want to travel by reflecting the true costs of getting them to their destinations. And on that count, trains affect a much lower cost on the environment, in stress, and in comfort of travel.
The sooner an incrementally based (down to the cent) system can be established that is totally transferable across an entire region is established, the sooner we can eliminate many inefficient ways of delivering services, and promote better ones.
Very bold vision, I realize, but anything short of this is a fudge. I'll try and provide references later.
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