please empty your brain below
(I like to think that bus use has gone down due to the Boris bus, one ride in that and you try to avoid Boris bus routes in future.)
I have a friend who lives in Notting Hill Gate and if he visits me it is a two bus journey, he telephoned at the weekend to say he was coming over today, so he will benefit with the new fare.
And the anomaly will always remain on bus-bus trips that where one bus ride is long and one short, only the short-long direction will be cheaper - the return journey will cost you.
The whole thing's a bit of a gimmick, if you ask me (which you didn't).
" where one bus ride is long and one short, only the short-long direction will be cheaper "
Still a saving over the current situation of course, and there are often ways of gaming the system by changing bus at different places on the two journeys. And with flat fares, any bus journey of more than an hour is quite a bargain anyway - even in London there can't be that many.
I don't see it as a gimmick, but a very practical way of fixing an anomaly - it has always been possible to change trains or tubes without paying again. The current limitation to only one change is a limitation of the capabilities of existing technology - credit to whoever realised that it could do this, allowing a very rapid system launch.
The Hopper fare will also make it much easier for TfL to sell changes to the bus network, as passengers who will have to change buses as a result of re-routing will no longer be financially disadvantaged. It will, for example, make it much easier to reduce the number of buses clogging up Oxford Street.
In putting up the fares every year London is of course way ahead way ahead of Biarritz where the one euro fare has stayed the same for the last 5 years.
How many rows will there be when a prospective passenger is waiting a long time for the second bus, and the wait takes them over an hour?
Can you get a second bus next month the night the clocks go forward if you board the first one between 0100-0200hrs?
Will this new facility encourage route controllers to turn buses short more often, now?
Rail-bus-rail. ("Rail" being Tube or National Rail, and "bus" could be tram). This always incurs two separate Tube fares, even if an OSI interchange is otherwise available between the two tube legs. So using a bus to change between East Putney and Putney, or a tram between East and West Croydon, for example, can cost you a lot more than £1.50
You can still do this if you have a Travelcard loaded on your Oyster (or have already reached the daily cap)
However, London right now is boxed in to the existing set-up, or what it can economically be changed into. Any major change to the fares system is bound to create winners and losers (and the losers shout louder), or require a lot more subsidy. Or quite possibly both. Therefore it will not happen any time soon.
Oh and some of us were prescient enough when we wrote the original Oyster specification to include for through journey charging. ;-)
If the Hopper does allow more bus routes to be split, diverted, curtailed, cut short or whatever, then the resulting two-stage journeys will take longer, even if they don't cost any extra.
But it was a great system and I've long wondered why we didn't have it here. And it's great that it's basically been implemented thanks to the oddities of the Tramlink fare system (where you're supposed to touch in again if you change trams)
"Can you still buy a daily Travelcard? "
Yes
https://visitorshop.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/london-travelcard/
They are the usual form in which an add-on Travelcard is issued from stations outside London, and are preferred by enthusiasts whose wanderings tend to confuse the Oyster system (especially those doing the Tube Challenge)
"Can you get a second bus next month the night the clocks go forward if you board the first one between 0100-0200hrs?-scrumpy"
No, because the clocks go back next month!
I wish we could have nation wide bus ticketing where you simply pay per distance (rather than number of changes) as is done on the railway.
bus bus bus bus bus bus bus"
Bloody well would. The drinking games pretty much write themselves.
I agree with DG that the extra time (and inconvenience) will be the main drawback for many people, and as bus fares cap at 3 journeys anyway or are included in a rail cap the cost saving will often be non-existence.
(and sadly developments including bus-tram free transfers after you wrote the spec meant that the Bus Hopper's introduction wasn't quite as simple as you might have expected)
So will you have two elapsed hours to get the second bus ?
Does it mean you have to make 4 or more bus journeys to reach the cap now, instead of 3?
Eg, bus +free ... bus ... bus = £4.50
So am I right in thinking that if you get 2 buses to work (bus +free) and 2 buses home (bus +free) - you don't reach the cap at all because you've only paid for 2 journeys that day?
The ticketing system in Copenhagen is quite smart nowadays. First of all, buses, urban trains, national trains (including trips on the express trains when travelling between the two stations in Copenhagen that they serve) - metro and even river boats is all equal when it comes to fares. And only the distance and the journey times matter, not how many changes you make during your journey or which means you use.
If you buy a two zone ticket, which would normally be sufficient when travelling in the inner parts of Copenhagen, you are allowed to travel by as many of these transport means as you would want to, for as long as you want within the zone validity of your ticket - as long as you boarded the last train/bus/metro/riverboat on your journey within one hour (one hour and fifteen minutes for three zone tickets, one and a half hour for four zone tickets, and so on) from the time when you bought the ticket.
The same thing used to apply when travelling on ten trip cards, being calculated from the time you stamped the card, but these cards have now been replaced by the smart card "rejsekort". When travelling on rejsekort, the same thing still applies, with the difference being that you have to have gotten off your last mean of transport before one hour. If it takes you one hour and twenty minutes, for example, to complete a two zone rejsekort journey, you would be charged for a four zone journey because four zones is what would be needed if the time limit should exceed one hour and twenty minutes.
I'm sure if this multiple buses for one fare in an hour came in If anyone did it DG would.
Also rather than just riding a bus for one stop crossing over the road and riding back to the other stop over and over he would make some significant journey using multiple route number buses.
"Bus–tube–bus–tram–bus–train–bus"
I can't see anywhere it would be sensible to do this particular sequence. The only place where you might need a bus to connect tube to tram is between the Northern Line and the trams in the South Wimbledon/Morden area, and the only place where a tram-to-rail connection is likely to need a bus is between Wimbledon and Putney. But both South Wimbledon and Morden have direct buses to Wimbledon (and Putney) without mucking about with the trams at all.
Sensible, no. Would I do it? Heck yes. Here is one example I reckon could be done if you timed it right...
57 Colliers Wood Sainsbury's to Colliers Wood
Tube to South Wimbledon
93 to Morden Road
Tram to Merton Park
152 to Wimbledon Chase
Rail to South Merton
413 to The Beverley
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