Good news, particularly for us West Londoners, is that PAYG Oystercards are going to be valid on First Great Western suburban services out to West Drayton and Greenford from September 2008. However, it’s a bit early to be praising the new Mayor for this, since back in March this year London Travelwatch (whose chairman, Brian Cooke, announced he was supporting Boris during the campaign) reported in its minutes [via London Connections]:
27 February
Meeting with First Great Western (FGW) and Passenger Focus to discuss
implementation of Oyster pay as you go on FGW. This was on schedule
for May 2008 – nine months ahead of most other train operating
companies (TOCs).
Or, given that May to September is four months, five months ahead of most TOCs. But hang on a minute, quite a lot of TOCs already accept PAYG Oyster. Mr. Thant has a helpful list:
Of the 10 London operators:
- c2c: All services
- Chiltern: All services
- London Overground: All services
- London Midland: All services
- National Express East Anglia: All trains south of the Victoria Line interchanges, no word on future expansion
- First Great Western: All services from September, possibly as penance for being rubbish
- First Capital Connect: Central area services only, no word on future expansion
- Southern: Watford to Clapham Junction only, no word beyond that
- Southeastern: None, though they do mention the January 2009 date on their website
- South West Trains: Franchise agreement alleged to require a full rollout in January 2009, though we’ll see. Currently nothing.
So we might rephrase the press release as ‘four months ahead of two train operating companies and behind all the rest, First Great Western will do what they’ve been saying they’ll do for months and extend PAYG to another nine stations’ (Paddington, Ealing Broadway and Greenford already accept it since the beginning of May). Well blow me down with a feather. As an illustration as to why I’m slightly underwhelmed, the four north of river TOCs already accepting PAYG (c2c, NXEA, FCC, Chiltern) with between 9 and 16 accepting stations on their routes, plus London Overground which has, er, 56, gives a total of over 100, up from 60 two years ago out of 310 total stations in London.
Naturally, this hasn’t stopped the Standard going a bit overboard on it:
Sweeping plans to get all overground railway stations in London to accept pre-pay Oyster cards were unveiled by Boris Johnson today.
The Mayor announced he was meeting private train operators for a crucial summit in the next few weeks in a bid to achieve a transport breakthrough Ken Livingstone had failed to deliver.
Nice to see they’re keeping well up to the same standards of balance as before the election. Boris announces 9 new stations that had been in the pipeline for months and he’s lauded for ’sweeping plans’. Ken delivers 100+ stations in four years including four entire lines in one go last November and he’s a failure. The Standard’s article describes routes serving 1/3 of London’s stations as a ‘handful’, which is rather a stretch, particularly considering it then goes on to list them all.
Let’s go to another source for some accuracy:
Rail passengers in London will be able to pay for their journeys with Oyster cards by 2009 at the latest, it was announced today.
The train operating companies serving the capital will sign a deal within weeks with Transport for London to implement the scheme.
Some will introduce it next year with the remainder the following year.
Steve Howes, London director of the Association of Train Operating Companies, said: “Oyster pay-as-you-go will operate across London by 2009.”
Yes, it was the Evening Standard again, back in October 2007, since which the number of mainline stations accepting Oyster PAYG has nearly doubled. Evening Standard? Double Standard, more like.
Tags: 9 Comments
9 responses so far ↓
So the Standard is sympathetic to Boris Johnson? I wonder why that is? Is it because he’s not a drunken, frothing anti Semite who likes to abuse their staff?
What an odious little tw*t that man was. Any idea what he’s up to now, btw? If anyone needs to be watched, its him, preferably by a prison warden. I’m eagerly awaiting the findings of the Forensic Audit. Despite allegations of the shredders working overtime at City Hall before he fled, electronic data is often recoverable. I want to see him in Wormwood Scrubs.
Tom, could you do me a favour – could you provide a few bullet points outlining what you see as the major issues that you have a problem with regards to the incumbent mayor? So far this site has yet to provide a single substantive criticism of Boris, further than a general winge about him about him being a tory and being quite posh. It would be useful to clarify exactly what your problem is rather than having to wade through this sort of wearisome trivia There’s the faint whiff of desperation about this site.
Seen this:
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2008/05/boris-four-jobs.html
WillH. Well done. Could not have put it better myself.
any more info on the story that Johnson is giving Crossrail project to Norris?
This is a shocking decision. A man responsible for the Potters Bar even the shareholders of Jarvis turned on him.
More cronyism - the list goes on
Pastyface,
Here’s a slightly embarrassing timeline for you:
10th May 2002 – Potters Bar rail crash.……25 November 2003 – Steven Norris becomes chairman of Jarvis.
Your ‘Steven Norris is the man responsible for Potters Bar’ theory looks a bit like, well…libel, doesn’t it?
Its incredible the convoluted and circuitous lengths people will go to casually smear Boris Johnson. To suggest that by association Boris Johnson is somehow complicit, or at least tainted, by the Potters Bar rail crash is highly creative to say the least. First prize for effort! Pity the facts didn’t stack up. As I say, its starting to get a bit desperate isn’t it? What are you going to do once the barrel has been well-and-truly scraped?
(Hi Chunters. I’ve been admiring your work!)
Oh, and another thing Pastyface. Here’s a brief outline of Steven Norris’s credentials:
“…has a degree in Law and spent most of his early life in the motor and engineering business. He entered Parliament in 1983 and was Minister of Transport in London from 1992 to 1996. He retired from Parliament in 1997 and became Director General of the Road Haulage Association. He is now Senior Partner at Park Place Communications, a consultancy specialising in transport and the built environment and is a leading authority on transport policy and planning. He is a member of the Audit, Nomination and Remuneration Committees…”
He seems to be eminently qualified to lead the Crossrail Project, should it be offered to him. Could you explain why you consider his (potential) appointment to be ‘cronyism’? Is it because they both belong to the same party? Is that it?
I hope you are as affronted by real cronyism, as shamelessly displayed by Ken Livingstone, as you clearly are by this entirely spurious example.
my apologies WillH, he wasn’t Chairman, just Independent Senior Director (from 2001)
Will H,
“It would be useful to clarify exactly what your problem is rather than having to wade through this sort of wearisome trivia”
No, Will, that wouldn’t be useful at all. If you believe that analysis of the Mayor’s decisions, and press reactions to them, is ‘wearisome trivia’ then I see little point in your reading this site. We quite agree that it is futile to merely caricature politicians, which is why their actions should be scrutinised. This is not a hate campaign, it is a critical weblog that is, as far as I know, open to contributors.
“Any idea what he’s up to now, btw?”
I believe that Mr Livingstone has gone immediately onto the public speaking circuit, amusingly. In fact, I believe somebody - although it may have been Guido - claimed that he was likely to gain £10,000 a speech. Lunacy.
“This is a shocking decision. A man responsible for the Potters Bar even the shareholders of Jarvis turned on him.”
The shareholders of Jarvis did indeed turn on him, but this was due to his administrative performance following the tragedy, not his actions previous to it. The Courts decided that Jarvis officials will not face manslaughter charges, and therefore claiming their responsibility is indeed potentially libellous.
“He seems to be eminently qualified to lead the Crossrail Project, should it be offered to him.”
Well, shareholders at Jarvis accused him of ‘presiding over a multifaceted disaster,’ so we should reserve scepticism with regards to his business capabilities. As an ex-transport minister for London, however, one could hardly argue that Mr Norris is not experienced.
[...] done it. Take the extension of Oyster PAYG to National Rail, previously covered on BorisWatch here, when, just to remind you, the PR guff in the Standard [...]