[carapace]

> In Gavin Newsom’s book Citizenville he talked about how, after becoming [San Francisco] mayor, he discovered that fare collection cost as much as the revenue generated from fares. He started the process of making the bus free but was told by so many advisors that the busses would become “dumpsters on wheels,” from a combination of homeless people using them for shelter and people not respecting services that are free, that the plan was scrapped.

~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21808851

[avianlyric]

Don’t compare TfL to buses or the BART in San Fransisco. The transit system the TfL operates makes US transit look like a toy.

London busses arrive every 5 mins not every 30 mins. At high throughput bus stops busses arrive pretty back-to-back continuously. Trains arrive every 90secs not every 15mins, often the next train is waiting just outside the station for the previous train to depart.

There are over 500 different bus services in London managed by TfL. 11 Tube lines covering over 200 miles of track and 272 stations. 6 suburban rail lines covering over 100 miles of track and a 113 station.

TfL is a major operation, and its fare collection system is one of the most efficient and technically capable systems in the world. So good they sell it to other cities like New York. I can absolutely guarantee that the cost of TfL fare collection system will be an insignificant fraction of the £2.2 billion that TfL collects annually.

[carapace]

(SF is 150 years old and 7x7 miles in size, we do not compare to London on any dimension. My whole city could be a borough of London!)

(This one time I was at a party (it was a long time ago) and these Italian dudes were there, and when I mentioned that I was from SF one of them said, "Nice town." ... I was a little miffed, but they were from Rome, so... *shrug* )

[LexGray]

I would guess that technology has already caught up with that. Tie it all to a phone app to track abuse and give a city services only data plan to anyone who asks. Give it a basic three strikes where the driver logs complaints or you need a remedial how to properly use city services class.

Given the license tracking already going on for bridge tolls the infrastructure may already be there.

[KaiserPro]

YEs, but in london a large part of it's budget come from ticket sales.