• Was the DLR Worth it?: Video (Network Nathan)
• Commute as Culture: Identity in Motion (Around the Tracks)
• The High Cost of Free Transit (Changing Lanes)
• Kirigami Parachute Could Transform Aid & Space Drops (The Engineer)
• Giant Airplane Goes Long on Specialization (Hackaday)
• Flying cars crash into each other at Chinese air show (BBC)
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Changing Lanes: make you wonder about the wisdom of free travel on the SL4, 108 and 129 (and BL1 for a week). At least the need to use a card anyway (and the non-participation as a Hopper) means TfL gets data rather than “unhoused people” but the SL4 doesn’t seem to be very often on time (see also the SL1 which took an hour to get along the North Circular between Arnos Grove and Silver Street last Wednesday afternoon and the SL2 that no-showed for over an hour ).
BB
Recently, both the SL1 & SL2 have been , um, “screwed” by massive road-works right by Walthamstow Central statiom ( Coming to an end some time later this month ) with all buses being diverted round the “Bell””Palmerston”Palmerston Rd-&-up-the back loop.
Plus extra “builders-traffic-lights” outside the station.
“Free Transit”
Well, Luxembourg seems to make it work, though I suspect that is a special case.
But, “paid-for” tranist is expensive in & of itself.
Even if you are only using a “validation” system, without gates, just electronic readers, they are goig to cost money to install & maintain.
As for a more traditional system — how many ticket getes are there all across London & how much do they cost to make, put in place & keep operating ?
In either of those systems you are also going to have to train & pay ticket/validation inspectors & teams.
So: Is the game worth the candle, are ticketed systems actually more “profitable” tha free ones, without the extra expensive infrastructure?
@Greg T
Fare evasion is increasingly an issue for public transport agencies due to the amounts lost. Berlin’s U-Bahn system has no gatelines but relies on random fare checks. Vancouver was a North American network that hadn’t had gatelines since opening in 1986, but they were installed in 2016 at a cost of over $100M CAD.