86 The London Bus
Solutions considered included
the Multiride scheme trialled
in Havering (see p104) and the
Autocheck system that employed
magnetically-coded tickets
similar to those used then on the
Underground.
All proved unreliable, expensive
to run and unpopular and the
split entrance arrangements
were abandoned in May 1979.
A partial solution was to
coarsen the fares scale to values
that were easy to pay using
the minimum number of coins,thus reducing the need to give
change.
Political issues, as well as the
realisation that conversion of the
busiest crew-operated routes would
not be economically worthwhile
within existing technical and
operational constraints, meant that
the process of converting routes to
driver-only operation slowed down.Flat fares
In April 1981, London Transport
introduced a flat suburban fare
of 25p, marketed as Fare Deal,to simply the fares structure
and speed up boarding. More
dramatic change followed that
October when the Fares Fair
scheme was introduced.
This was the result of a
manifesto commitment by
the Labour Party, which had
won control of the Greater
London Council earlier in
the year and had pledged to
subsidise a big reduction in bus
and Underground fares. This
introduced fare zones across
London, with graduated fares50 Years Ago
RIGHT: FRM1,
the solitary
rear-engined
Routemaster,
in driver-only
operation at
Roundshaw in
March 1971.
GERALD MEAD
BELOW RIGHT:
Several of the
short suburban
routes created in
the reshaping plan
are still around
today, like Wood
Green-area W3,
which has double-
deckers in place
of the Merlins
of 50 years ago.
Arriva T201, an
Alexander Dennis
Enviro400, was
photographed at
Alexandra Palace.