Amateur hour Wrote:
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> He sometimes has good points. But he's just a
> blogger. Or now a journalist? An enthusiast
> without real world experience. Which is fine, but
> just another opinionated viewpoint. I've seen him
> be very wrong.

Let me see? Hum? And, you're possibly just a troll with another real clever handle, who tells us not to listen to this guy because he's just a "bogger"...?

I've debated some of his points, as well. And, he is fairly sane and relatively well respected for his journalism on this subject. And, of course, if you bother to read this bit, he is actually only describing how this fare collection model is used in many European metropolitan and regional systems. And, what exactly would your "real world experience" with these sort of "one ticket/pass" fare collection models be? And, your substantive "real world" contribution to a discussion of this article on the merits of how best to integrate fares is what exactly?

While mouse's meme is his usual bs, "integrated" fares are a can of worms, operationally, financially, and, of course, politically. That is because of the "real world" disparate cost structures, which are reflected in different fare structures, which reflect differing travel demands (like say, long commute rail trips versus short trips on local shuttles or circulator buses), and the inherent difficulty of finding the "magic" formula to assure "equitable" farebox returns to the participants in these schemes, based on an agreeable cost distribution for providing the trip. And, that is a "real world" constraint, which must be addressed to assure that those who have to actually budget and pay for those pesky "real world" drivers, fuel, security, capital costs, and the like, can pay for costs of their part of that trip.