London Tube Stations Finally Get Wi-Fi 140
judgecorp writes "After trials, Wi-Fi in the London Underground has gone live in two stations (Warren Street and King's Cross), with plans to fit 80 stations out before the Olympics, which are now only a few weeks away. From the article: '“Our new Wi-Fi service is a fantastic deal for Londoners, with live travel updates, entertainment and news freely available to everyone while they are on the move across the capital,” said Gareth Powell, London Underground’s director of strategy and service development. “Wi-Fi at Tube stations will help us improve the journeys of the millions of people that use the Underground everyday at no cost to fare or tax payers.”'"
Speaking as a Brit... (Score:3, Interesting)
...the London Underground, on a per-mile basis, is one of the most expensive transit systems in the world, so to say that the wi-fi is free is totally misleading as the cost is covered within the extortionate ticket prices.
Just to give people outside the UK some idea, two weeks ago the missus and I went to a concert in London. I drove the car to Hammersmith in West London and parked there, we got on the Underground to travel two stops to Shepherd's Bush, no more than two miles up the road.
The total cost for 2 return tickets was just under £14 or around $20.
I think that speaks for itself...
Limited usefulness? (Score:3, Interesting)
Oystercard: transfer of costs to the passenger (Score:5, Interesting)
Trouble with the Oyster card, it's the forcing of costs onto the passenger. Previously, I only had to give London Transport my money when I actually travelled. Until that point, the money was in my pocket, for me to use as I want.
Now with Oyster cards, I either get charged an extortionate rate for maintaining that privilege (buying higher priced paper tickets), or I have to get credit on my Oyster card that I might not use for a while. My money, given to London Transport, to use as an interest free loan.
As a non-Londoner, I've got maybe ten pounds on a card that's tied up til next time I visit London. Add up the couple of million people who use the tube regularly and consider each of them has a few pounds spare credit on their Oyster cards and pretty soon you'll see that LondonTransport has done something pretty canny: getting 20 million or more GBP interest free loans from the public... and that's not to count the classic big bank win of another big chunk of money that they've effectively got for free from all those unused and lost Oyster cards owned and never to be used again by occasional users / tourists. How may tourists visit London and leave with a pound or two left on their Oyster card and just write it off?
Very canny way of getting additional funding in micropayments from millions of people.
Re:Sounds virtually useless ... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it's to try and stop too many riots during the Olympics.
Some stations are expected to have waits of 30 minutes plus to get onto a train due to the sheer number of people trying to use the station.
Warren Street is probably at risk from people thinking "ah ha - I'll avoid Euston underground" but then being unable to get onto trains due to them being already packed.
I'm an avid BBC proms goer and season ticket holder but I'm somewhat resigned to the fact that I might not actually go to very many concerts this year as getting to the Albert Hall from work could be interesting and getting from the Albert Hall to Euston could be almost impossible as I'm not sure it's even going to be possible to walk through hyde park along West Carriage Drive, let alone cycle, and the "zil" lanes on the other roads around that area are going to make the area all but impassable.
While there are lots of exhortations to cycle during the olympics, I'm not sure that the inevitable frustrations and raised tempers of the motorists are going to make cycling either fun or safe. I hope I'm wrong but I'm not looking forward to this summer.
Tim.