TfL promise list for Mayor's first 100 days

I'm interested to see the result of the customer focused review of the ticket office closures!

also bus hopper - i wonder what this?

This has been all over the news this week. See this Standard story

It will be a new facility for Oyster and contactless card users whereby you second a bus journey free if you touch in within 60 mins of starting your bus ride. In reality is a variant of an existing facility in the system that allows tram to tram, bus to tram and tram to bus interchange on Tramlink and in the New Addington area where a small number of bus services are designated as "feeder" buses.

The Hopper ticket will be made more flexible in 2018 when Oyster is switched to a being what I term "dumb" rather than "clever". At present value is held on Oyster cards as is a number of transactions. These are mirrored in the central system when it receives data from readers, ticket machines and Oyster Ticket Stops. In future Oyster Cards will act as a "token" and won't hold value. Instead they will work like bank cards do - they trigger transactions which are all collated in a central system. AIUI the central system will in future hold the cash balance and products the customer has paid for and will then collate all the transactions that come in and work out the balance of PAYG and update any Travelcards renewals that have been made. TfL's "back room system" that they created for bank card processing is more flexible than the structure of Oyster and the card data so it can do clever calculations like 7 day capping. It will also be able to cope with more flexible pricing to more destinations hence why it is essential for the extension of Crossrail beyond West Drayton to the west. At present Oyster is "capped" as to how many pseudo additonal fare zones it can reflect hence the rather strange pricing and stretching of the zone concept to cover places like Dartford, Gatwick and to Hertford East. Once the new system is in place then it is possible that Oyster can be stretched up the Thameslink / Great Northern route as hinted at in the franchise award. Also expect to see things Monthly capping and "account based payment" being introduced.

Coming back to the "hopper" ticket it will allow unlimited changes within 1 hour from 2018 when new Oyster and the CPC back room system will be able to combine "X" bus journeys into one charge rather than just 2 in the short term.

There are loads of questions about how Hopper will work that remain unanswered. There will also, no doubt, be a load of moans when it does launch as inevitably people will fall the wrong side of the 60 min limit if the bus is "delayed" or people just miss a connecting bus. In some parts of London frequencies are wider than every 60 mins anyway so if you were unfortunate to just miss a bus and there was no alternative then you might have a 70 min wait. Similarly many night bus journeys are quite long and if people need to change to another bus in the suburbs they may easily exceed the 60 min parameter just on the first journey never mind any waiting time for their connection (likely to be only running every 30 mins anyway).

I can completely understand why people are enthused about the potential saving in fares if they have to use more than one bus to get somewhere. However no one should think it's a panacea and not every journey will be eligible for a discount simply because journey times and connecting times vary across London, by time of day and day of the week.

At Colindale I saw someone who was not let out of the barriers due to a code I didn't recognise (I can't remember what it was this time). There were no staff visible overseeing the gateline and I saw none in the ticket hall (not all of which is visible from the gateline) so I had to advise him to go back down to the platforms and use a help point to try and get some assistance.

At Debden, after the ticket office hours were slashed but before the office was closed completely, in a similar situation one early evening a young man also not being let out decided to vault the barriers (which he did in a manner suggesting a background in gymnastics) rather than use a help point.

These are far from the only occasions though that I've traversed stations without seeing a single member of staff.

My use of the tube has declined sharply but I recently passed through Canning Town station mid afternoon on a weekday. There were no staff present at all at the gateline, in the ticket hall or at the ticket machines. There were people having problems at the gates but no one to assist. That is surely completely unacceptable?

It is also illegal under H& S regs because it prevents passengers from being able to escape in cases of emergencies like a fire.

The rules are quite clear, if gates are left unattended at any time they must be left in the open position. That includes nipping off for a fag break, a toilet break, emptying the bins, etc

(Note the gates are not considered unattended if they are monitored by CCTV, have a help point near by and the staff member at the other end of the help point can open the gates remotely - however if theses remote monitoring / activation systems fail, then the gates must be considered unattended and opened ASAP).

These are my wishlist items for 100 days and beyond too:

- Key ticket offices should reopen.
- Improve the balance between security and privacy in wake of a certain spying scandal by improving and assuring the confidentiality of customer and CCTV data.
- Replace the annoying holograms with simpler digital signs.
- Maybe scale down the Cable Car promotions so that Emirates will have less reason to keep the sponsorship.
- A single but more unique jingle, and a single automated announcer for all station announcements like what the SNCF does: Ding dongs are getting boring after I visited France many times.
- Multilingual announcements for certain topics (public safety, etc) to make tourism a lot easier.
- A mascot for the tube, preferably a mole or a Japanese animé character.
- Make the interior of the NTfL more exciting like the 1990s.
- Bid to operate other metro systems like what RATP does.
- Railfan windows that allows customers to see ahead like a normal window but not annoy operators. Although I know something like this exists, I don't remember the exact type of window that does that.
- Update the Liveries to fit both the GLA and TFL brands.
- Return the TfL logo to mixed case and remove the motto, as UPPERCASE text is basically shouting like that Drill Sargent in Apocalypse Now.
- Line numbers and letters (Undergound Line 1=Bakerloo, Undergound Line 2=Central and so on; Overground A1=North London to CLJ, Overground A2 North London to RMD and so on).
- Replace IE on all TFL computers with Firefox and Chrome because modern trend.
- Rename a station Nelson Mandela since Paris names stations after famous people.
- Have me look after the Tube Map like Paul Garbutt.

No - neither the initial system nor the planned future one will reset the clock every time you touch in. For technical reasons, only one change will initially be possible (this is simply an extension of the through bus/tram fares between New Addington and Croydon). The future scheme will not make a further charge if you have already paid within the previous hour, regardless of how many times you touch in during that hour.

I see nothing iniquitous about charging again if your first bus took nearly an hour. That is already far longer than an average journey. Basically the measure will aim to make fares more closely aligned with distance rather than number of changes. A blunt instrument, maybe, but less so than what we have at present.

...and people are scratching their heads over as to how fare evasion is on the increase.

I can guarantee you that one station has barriers left open somewhere on the Hainault Loop everyday (Roding Valley exempt). On many occasions its Barkingside or Grange Hill but I've also previously witnessed barriers left open at Wanstead and Woodford at Weekends.

doesn't the daily cap cut in at three trips?

Being pedantic then yes it currently kicks in after three separate journeys charged at £1.50 each. In future it may the case that it kicks in after 3, 4, 5 or 6 journeys depending on how many times people manage to activate a free transfer within an hour. It will all boil down to journey times, connecting times and time spent at any intermediate destinations between bus journeys. Goodness knows what combinations will be feasible come 2018 when unlimited changes in an hour become feasible. I also wonder if we will have a daily cap by then - the Mayor has said he'll freeze fares but he didn't say he'd freeze the product range or all the commercial rules governing tickets and travel products. Note that he's asked TfL for a "fares structure" review for 2017.

I like the 'station naming' point. If you name a station after one criminal, you can hardly refuse the other two!