Anyway, I’ve kinda bet the farm on making proper London coverage work, so every subscriber makes a massive difference. So please do give it a go, send any London tips you want investigating (my personal WhatsApp is on the site), and if you hate it… well please tell me why on the way out of the door.

I would pay for local news, even about places that I no longer live, but used to live and still have a passing interest in. But perhaps I would want to receive it as XML feed.

Even events (concerts, readings, exhibitions, screenings etc.) are typically scattered across many smaller lists or mailing lists, depending on location. For example, there is way more going on in London than what is listed by Time Out: https://www.timeout.com/london/things-to-do/london-events-in... Local communities may have their own sites or still rely on paper flyers.

Some facts of communal interest are published in government outlets that are still mandatated in some jurisdictions.

It would be wonderful if more of "what's going on" could be made available in curated digital form, for us to use and enjoy, and also to preserve it for future generations so that they can see what was happening in our age.

If London made transit free, they have to find an additional £7 billion a year to cover the operating costs (most of which is mundane stuff like keeping the trains working). Total London council tax (which is the only form of tax the London mayor can control), raises about £37 billion a year. So making transit in the city free would involve increasing council tax by an additional ~20%, and council tax is a notoriously regressive tax that disproportionately impacts the poor more than anyone else.

Additionally TfL is already extremely efficient, it was audited by the previous government in an attempt to find further ammunition to discredit the London Mayor, but it seems they couldn’t find any inefficiencies worth publishing. So there isn’t much wiggle room to reduce TfL operating costs.

Regardless of how you slice it, there isn’t a practical way to provide free transit in London, and certainly removing the cost of the bureaucracy for means testing isn’t going to move the needle on the simple economic facts.

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

If you don't accurately measure ridership you can't accurately serve that ridership. You'll waste money on useless services and you'll waste peoples time by not creating necessary services.

The system needs to exist.

It probably doesn't need to be outsourced. We're well past the internet revolution and it's time for these core competencies to be reabsorbed by government departments. Or it's time for private companies to be held liable for their complete and total failures to serve the public.

Ideally it should just be a system that lets you scan your identification card or drivers license. If you're of the correct age it should serve as a transportation pass. Simple. Compliant. Captures useful data.

It’s not like they’re outsourcing to some private organisation, every single organisation is either a state organisation, or a state owned company.

This is your relative tax dollars hard at work.

I think you are underestimating the gross lack of realistic investment and corresponding demoralization and qualitative decline in some public services; which latter is then used by the decision-makers who've created the situation as justification for swashbuckling "transformation" projects - advised by and given to overpriced consultants - they can put on their CVs before hopping to the next gig.

That's your tax dollars at work.

It is also difficult to hire because wages are generally low compared to similar roles in private industry, yet they need skilled staff to manage these complex environments. A lot of services don't get the attention they need, not just patching and upgrades but development, requirements capture and usability all kept to a minimum cost to keep the sinking ship afloat.

All these constraints also lean to a culture of poor security, JFDI, rip and replace, insufficent hardware etc... just so the business can operate on whatever computer on wheels in the shipping depot or relatively expensive to replace electronic gate system with intergration to their custom fleet management software.

Government outsourcing to another related body has its cost advantages but the many domain administrator users, the huge flat VmWare estate and the hardware well beyond warranty doesn't dissapear.

Designed to serve immediate needs but without long-term maintenance or holistic design in mind. Outsourcing amplifies the issue.

I recommend "repercussions" ;)

For the vast majority of people, there little to no impact day-to-day. Sure the loss of live data is annoying, but trains still turn up every 2 mins, and busses every 5-10mins during the day. Even at night, busses still turn up every 15-20mins, so checking live data doesn’t give you that much of an edge.

Looking at the TfL website, people on benefits get 50% rate discounts; students get 30% off; pensioners and children get completely free travel. It's really quite a good system actually.

Still cheaper than owning a car. The average driver in London pays £3200 a year for the privilege. Most Londoners don’t bother, cars are slowest, most expensive, and least pleasant way to move around the city.

As for the cost, that because a series of Tory governments stripped TfL of all its government funding. TfL has to cover all its cost from fares, advertising, and some other ancillary business. Hence the higher than average ticket prices.

I would also say that there’s nothing wrong with taking the bus/metro. Busses turn up every 5 mins, metros every 90s-180s. Everything is clean, comfortable (we have fabric and padding on our busses and metro seats) and reliable. Although rush hour can get very cramped and sweaty at its peak.