please empty your brain below
Someone I know reckons you save money by timing your travel card renewal to be just before the fare rises, while another disputes this. I suppose it depends on when you stop.

Adam | Homepage | 04.12.13 - 12:41 a.m. | #

You aren't really saving huge amounts by delaying your Travelcard purchase to a later point in the year - merely delaying the inevitable! If you put the difference in a bank account, the interest would buy you a newspaper or two.

Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 04.12.13 - 7:16 a.m. | #

For my money,the Evening Standard's insistence on claiming this is a freeze is one of their most blatant pieces of Boris spin ever. It was remarkable in its brazen disregard to reality

Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 04.12.13 - 7:19 a.m. | #

Try running the numbers on the increase in cost of petrol/diesel, VED, car insurance - we don't all have the choice of the subsidised luxury of public transport, or the ability to walk miles instead.

Life goes up in price... but it's not those who live in urban areas who are being hit hardest.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 04.12.13 - 7:52 a.m. | #

BW, only rather large engined cars are having VED increase for 2014, car insurance shouldn't go up this year if you shop around, and to quote the AA:
"Average UK petrol prices have fallen to their lowest in more than two and a half years."

Probably even longer, if you adjust for inflation.

Chz | 04.12.13 - 8:05 a.m. | #

Chz - the figures over the same 10 year term as quoted here, not just one year. Poorer people have older cars, and often do fewer miles. VED is a standard rate on pre-2001 cars (£225 pa I think, irrespective of the actual C02 emission) - and hits them hard.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 04.12.13 - 8:31 a.m. | #

... and I think that VED is linked to RPI now?

Blue Witch | Homepage | 04.12.13 - 8:32 a.m. | #

Just curious, has the "Tube Month" theme finished? Or there's still one line to go?

Patrickov | 04.12.13 - 10:02 a.m. | #

@Patrickov
Well, we haven't had the no-longer-a-Circle Line yet, but you could always read the relevant parts of the H&C (April) Met (June) and District (August) if you can't wait!

timbo | 04.12.13 - 10:14 a.m. | #

The IQ comment at the beginning of the post made me laugh, as did the bit about the cablecar at the end. The middle was a bit depressing though.

Stilted Banter | 04.12.13 - 10:27 a.m. | #

Oh look, a bedwetting motorist on a thread about something that doesn't concern them at all. What a surprise.

Capstan | 04.12.13 - 11:13 a.m. | #

Capstan - certainly does concern 'motorists' and anyone else who pays any tax, since every single bus journey in London is subsidised. Grant support is falling so fares will rise. Meantime no-one is subsidising rural transport (private or public) to anything like the extent that TfL is funded in London. We should recognise how well off we are.

While I'm here - South and South-East London bear a higher share of the increases, yet again, due to historical accidents of railway geography.

Chris Cook | 04.12.13 - 12:47 p.m. | #

Aha, the motorist feeling aggrieved at seemingly having to pay more than most. Motoring, like public transport, is subsidised. The VED/fuel duty etc. collected nowhere near covers the required roads/motoring budget (not to mention costs such as policing, NHS due to accidents/air pollution, congestion) and so funnily enough all tax payers make up the difference.

Londoners contribute to every new road built in the country. When did we last get a new road? ;) All these village bypasses I have to contribute to...moan, grumble, moan.

Here's the other side of the debate http://www.ippr.org/publication/55/9542/the-war-on-motorists-myth-or-reality

O | 04.12.13 - 1:20 p.m. | #

Thanks to DG for a well-researched and detailed presentation on fares and their history.
I just nit-picked one typo: 'Increasing bus cash fares...', though it was pointed out that only tube and rail cash fares are increasing.

Bob Lindsay-Smith | 04.12.13 - 4:42 p.m. | #

"Motoring is subsidised"

Really O?

The government's own document's figures (2009) state:

"Estimates show that motoring taxation amounts to around £46 billion—this includes fuel duty, VED, VAT and business motoring taxes. The amount spent on the roads is less than a quarter of this—just over 30 years ago there was much greater equity with £11.4 billion of £12.8 billion motoring tax revenues being spent on the roads."

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmtran/103/10305.htm

And - buses, cyclists, pedestrians also use the roads ('road' refers to 'pavement' too).

As Chris Cook points out, the issue of the rising price of (all) 'transport' is a very real one. And, as comments here have shown, one that is poorly understood.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 04.12.13 - 6:27 p.m. | #

Low IQ? Got in to Eton without paying a penny because he won a scholarship, and later went up to Oxford on another scholarship. I don't know, but I'm guessing those are achievements that would have been out of your reach DG (as they were mine)?

Playing the man, not the argument.

Chris | 04.12.13 - 7:44 p.m. | #

You're just guessing, Chris :)

I hope you've clicked the link and listened to Boris's performance yesterday.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 04.12.13 - 7:49 p.m. | #

what I've read about Boris's attempts at the "IQ test" suggest to me that it was mainly a test of general knowledge, eg cost of certain items, rather than IQ, which is problem solving and reasoning. both can be measures of likely success in life, but they shouldn't be confused. some IQ tests are now "culture fair" so a limited knowledge of the native language won't restrict candidates.
I'm a psychologist and have supervised IQ tests regularly for about 30 years now.

amber | 04.12.13 - 8:55 p.m. | #

Just to clarify, I'm a different Chris from the one above, although evidently also a bit of a Boris apologist:

While it is clear from the figures you reproduce that Boris did in general put up single fares more than Ken in absolute terms, the comparison is not a completely fair one.

This is because the figures from 2004-2008 include only 4 annual increases made by Ken, whereas they include 6 increases made by Boris. When you account for this, the difference in their records (with the exception of single Oyster tube fares, which Ken lowered) isn't as large as it might first appear.

Chris | 04.12.13 - 10:06 p.m. | #

My fare rise post last year featured five rises by each Mayor.

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2012/11/fare-rises-2013.html

Over those five rises...
  • Ken cut both the Zone 1 Oyster tube fare and the Oyster bus fare by 10p.
  • Boris raised the former by 60p and the latter by 50p.

    For what it's worth.

    diamond geezer | Homepage | 04.12.13 - 10:15 p.m. | #

    • I love that last link. Well done to LBC for tracking down 3 of the 4 cable car regulars!

    Jon Combe | 04.12.13 - 10:37 p.m. | #

    So Travelcards are to go up by 4.1% (RPI+1%) in line with NR fares - but now the Chancellor of the Exchequer has just announced NR fares will go up by 3.1%.
    Aren't Gideon and Boris talking to each other these days?

    timbo | 05.12.13 - 2:11 p.m. | #

    Off peak one day travelcards for zones 1-3 or 1-5 have never existed AFAIK, and the peak versions were only added relatively recently when Ken replaced the pre-0930 "LT card" with the peak Travelcard.

    Paul | 06.12.13 - 1:08 a.m. | #

    @Blue Witch and others -
    In London, where population and employment density is the most concentrated in the country, tax revenues are disproportionately high and the provided road space per user (resident/employee/tourist) is very low. So it's really only sensible that tax revenues help fund the other, more logistically workable transport solutions that help keep London operating and the roads from being completely gridlocked.

    The taxation funds transport provision as a whole, not just roads.

    Paul | 06.12.13 - 1:23 a.m. | #











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