Talk:List of stations in London fare zone 1/Archive 1

Underground?

Is it correct to call it a London Underground Zone? The zones are also used for the DLR, they used to be used on the buses, they apply in some ways to the overground trains and the trams too (particularly in the sense of travelcards). Alexd 15:13, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

A quick glance at the TfL website doesn't offer a formal term - "zone" always seems to be used without a need for qualification. Obviously we have to qualify it. Any suggestions better than the current? TfL zone 1? LT zone 1? Pcb21| Pete 15:36, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Proposed article rename

I'm proposing that we rename this article to Travelcard Zone 1, and amend the link texts on referring pages similarly. Also to rename London Underground zone 2 and London Underground zone 6 in the same way. This proposal came out of a discussion between myself and MRSC, which I reproduce below. Any comments or objections appreciated. -- Chris j wood 22:51, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hi. I was wondering why you had changed link text 'fare zone x' to 'Zone x' (x=2 or 3) on Canning Town station and Limehouse station.

I originally wrote (or in these cases probably changed it) that way because I thought it was more informative. A reader not already familiar with the London fare system would have no clue what the sentence 'Station is in Zone 2' was telling him or her. At least 'fare zone' gives them enough context to decide whether they need to follow the link or not. I've already made this change to most DLR stations as I've been working on them.

On a related subject, I've been contemplating moving the fare zone articles. Currently they are called London Underground Zone x, which isn't strictly the whole story as they also apply to DLR stations and (for Travelcard usage only) to National Rail stations within London. I'm not sure of a better title though. At least some TfL documents call them Travelcard zones but again that doesn't tell the whole story, as they are used for basic fares on LU and DLR.

Any thoughts?. -- Chris j wood 11:12, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hi Chris. Good morning & hope you are well. I think I was trying to get an element of consistency. There are references to the zones on other tube pages and the text varies. I notice three of the zones have articles but they are inconsistently named: London Underground Zone 1, London Underground zone 2 and London Underground zone 6. There are also some redirects set up. Looking at at tube/rail map I see TfL use "Travelcard Zone" so I think changing to "Travelcard Zone x" for article names and all references to those articles would be the best thing all round. MRSC 11:29, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No objections in over 7 days, so I think we can deem consensus achieved. I've made the principal changes proposed, although some tidying up (avoid redirects, link texts) are still needed and will probably take a couple of days. -- Chris j wood 00:34, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Oh dear. Only just spotted this now.

This was a bad move - they're not travelcard zones, but more general ones, because the cost of non-travelcards is affected by them.

I really think that we should move these all back.

James F. (talk) 13:03, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As you say, a shame you did not see this before. As you will see from the discussion above, the change was made in the knowledge that the zones affect more than Travelcards, but also in the light of the fact that Travelcard Zone seems to be TfL's preferred usage now that the zones in question no longer have any impact on bus fares.

I certainly could not support a change back to London Underground Zone n, as the zones have always had a much wider application than just on the Underground; even after their removal from the single-ticket fare equation on buses and trams they are still used used to determine single-ticket usage on the DLR, and Travelcard usage on all modes including LU, DLR, buses, trams and National Rail. Indeed my motivation for starting to discuss this was the dissonance of quoting a London Underground Zone for articles I was writing/amending on DLR and National Rail stations that were not part of the London Underground network.

If you can come up with a better name, lets discuss it. I will make no further changes for a few days to enable you to do this. But be aware that I've already put in several man hours of changes to the new standard. -- Chris j wood 23:30, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Naming things on Wikipedia is normally based on most common name (AISYAA), but titles of the form "Zone 1" is not clearly disambiguated enough for our purposes (though, indeed, Zone 1 ... 6, A ... D are as-yet unused article titles, it should be noted, and so might we use them to serve as redirects at the very least).

The most obvious next step, given this dilemma, is to insert the word "London" into the proposed article title form; however, "London Zone 1" is mildly confusing as to what it refers to, though most would get some idea that it had something to do with London.

The next word to insert could be either "transport" or "fare"; "London transport Zone 1" &c. is quite clear, but might confuse people (we're not talking about London Transport here, except we are, except we aren't...); OTOH, "London fare Zone 1" et al. is very much clear and understandable, and, although perhaps a little awkward, not overly so, nor easily confusable with anything but for what they are, given that we have taken the first step in deciding to make up a name for them.

However, your basis for saying that you disapprove of "London Underground Zone n" does seem a little... odd. Do you similarly disapprove of our naming of "Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom", for she is Queen of 15 other countries? Of "President of the United States" to "President of the Free World" (ahem ;-))? Of a great many other articles? London Underground (AIUI, with input from TfL) set the Zones, decide what stations are in them, and set the most significant transport fares in London on that basis. The fact that some other part-players also pay attention is neither here nor there.

Thoughts?

James F. (talk) 11:14, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think you are mis-remembering history here. My recollection is that the zones in question came into being in the early 1980s, as part of Ken Livingstone's Fares Fare policy, introduced fairly soon after he became leader of the GLC. So perhaps we should rename them Ken Livingstone's Fare Zone n :-).

I don't know exactly who drew up the boundaries, but they were certainly a London Transport matter, not a London Underground matter and used on both buses and tube. In fact, I don't think London Underground was a much used term back then, except historically when referring to the old pre-nationalisation UndergrounD group or in a general conceptual uncapitalised underground sense. If my memory serves me right, everything (buses or rail) was branded London Transport and the term London Underground was only really re-invented in the later 1980s(?) at the time London Transport's buses were being privatised. The normal name for the bit of LT operating the underground was London Transport Railways. I'm obviously not the only person who finds London Underground Zone n wrong. In fact there are comments on this page going back several months to that effect by several different editors.

Realistically now that buses (and trams) have gone flat fare, the only externally visable usage of the zones is Travelcards. Single underground (and DLR) fares are actually sold on a station to station basis; you and I know that the quoted fares are based on the zones but that isn't (I don't think) apparant to the average traveller.

I have had another look at the TfL documentation, and TfL are somewhat inconsistent. In some contexts they simply use Zone (eg. the tube map at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/pdfdocs/colormap.pdf), in some cases they use fare zones (eg. the maps home page at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/maps-home.shtml), and in others they use the term Travelcard Zone (eg. the printed London Rail map I have in my hand). But nowhere can I find a reference to London Underground Zone n.

Zone n is probably the most common, but we cannot really rely on it for reasons on ambiguity; the same really for Fare zone n. I really don't think Travelcard Zone n is an issue, especially if the article text clearly explains what they are used for (it doesn't at the moment). If you really think it is confusing, I would not object to a change to Transport for London Fare Zone n.

-- Chris j wood 23:34, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Err, whut? When you purchase, say, a ticket from Highbury & Islington (Zone 2) to King's Cross St. Pancras (Zone 1), the ticket notes this with "12" printed upon the ticket. And using what people who don't realise such things think isn't really the best policy. That a number of people are seemingly wilfully ignorant of the world around them doesn't mean that we should encourage this.

I agree with you that we can't really use "Zone n", but disagree that we necessarily have to find specific justification in official publications as to what to use after we have decided to ignore the most common one anyway.

Given that I suggested "London fare Zone n", and you didn't respond at all, I'm... confused as to whether this is a discussion or a pair of monologues. :-)

James F. (talk) 11:08, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Fare point. :-) . I think I can live with your suggestion of London fare Zone n. Although the capitalisation is a bit ugly; could we not go for London Fare Zone n or London fare zone n. -- Chris j wood 11:22, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The problem, of course, is that the official term is "Zone n" (as best as we can make out), with a capitalised 'Z'. But capitalising the 'F' in "fare" would suggest that it's and official term, which it isn't.

In short, I'm not sure.

James F. (talk) 11:33, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The buses always used a separate zone system AFAICR. Both "Travelcard Zone" and "fare zone" are very far from common usage. Currently the only thing that uses the zones is the London Underground (and the DLR as well, but most people consider that part of the tube anyway as it appears on their maps). I really can't see anything wrong with "London Underground Zone n". ed g2s • talk 14:00, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The most common local usage is just zone, but that fails the ambiguity test, and is not desperately helpful to the vast majority of Wikipedia readers who don't live in London. Contrary to your assertion, the zones are actually used for everything you can use a Travelcard on, and that includes LU, DLR, National Rail within Greater London, buses, trams and (conceivably) boats. It is true that (now) it is only used for single fare valuations on LUL and DLR, but irrespective of what people consider the DLR is not part of LUL. So that is several things wrong with "London Underground Zone n". -- Chris j wood 14:27, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

How about Zone 1 (London) ? Morwen - Talk 15:25, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Travelcard Zone x seems fine to me - at least it is a phrase that is used in some TfL publicity - although the most often used is Zone x but I agree that this is unclear and there are other zonal systems in cities around the world that would conflict with it. -- MRSC

Another reason for not using London Underground Zone n; it clearly confuses other contributors. In looking at various station articles, I've found several instances of joint London Underground/National Rail stations where the author has put the Zone information in the section/paragraph pertaining to Underground part of the station. Obviously they were under the misapprehension that the Zoning did not apply to whole station. -- Chris j wood 12:02, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Evidence that Travelcard Zone n is the correct name can be found in the TfL 2005 fares and tickets guide. This 58 page guide covers in full detail all TfL fares, including Bus, LUL and Travelcard. In the mode-independent introduction, it twice (on pages 3 and 5) refers to a map showing Travelcard zones. In the LUL section, it simply uses the term zone when referring to pricing single tickets. -- Chris j wood 12:56, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Travelcard Zone n is by no means the most common usage, no one in London would ever use the term. I think the article should be at Zone 1 then moved to Zone 1 (London) should the need arise. Are there any "Zone 1"s in other cities significant enough to deserve a whole article? I imagine most of them are only mentioned in their system's article. Just because Zone 1 sounds like such a generic term, doesn't mean we need to disambiguate it. ed g2s • talk 15:47, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think to a resident of Washington, D.C., Zone 1 would mean the area around the Capitol Mall, based on that city's unique way of charging cab fares. To a botanist, it would mean a very cold place, based on the zones used in assessing plant hardiness. Boston has commuter rail zones 1 to 8. I'm sure there are many, many more that I don't know about. -- Chris j wood 19:05, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I didn't say that they didn't exists, merely questioned whether Zone 1 of each of those mentioned systems is worthy of a whole article to itself. People going to Zone 1 would not expect to find a disamiguation to every single zonal system ever used, but Zone 1's that are article worthy, which at the moment is limited to the LU. If one day someone decides Zone 1 of the Boston transit system is so fascinating that it deserves its own article, then Zone 1 would disambiguate to Zone 1 (London) and Zone 1 (Boston) etc. ed g2s • talk 00:25, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

And I was trying to point out the liklyhood that if we did rename to (e.g.) Zone 1, then inevitably sooner or later that would need disambiguating. Given that there are likely to be hundreds of links to these pages (how many LUL/DLR/NR stations are there in Greater London) this would IMHO be a triumph of adherence to policy over common sense. You can see how close such a dab has come by looking at List of Melbourne railway stations and Metcard articles; all it would take are a few well placed [[ and ]]. It looks to me as if there is every bit as much justification there for zonal articles as there is in London. -- Chris j wood 11:05, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Merging Travelcard Zone articles

These articles are all or mostly marked stub, but there really isn't a lot of potential for expansion, and a lot of text repeats between them. I suggest they all be merged into a single article - David Gerard 15:55, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Disagree. The principal information in each article (the general description and the list of stations) is different, and the articles are widely linked from station articles. Merging them would make it difficult to target these links. -- Chris j wood 20:45, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Article name revisisted

Previous discussions seemed to come to halt with Travelcard Zone n in place, which I am still unhappy with.

As it stands we have:

Travelcard Zone X

Pros

• Used in some official literature.
• Implies transport system.

Cons

• "Travelcard" doesn't distinguish it as London's system. I imagine other systems with zones also have travelcards.
• Not in common usage.

Zone X (London)

Pros

• Common usage followed by parenthesised disambiguation term. Widely used Wikipedia naming convention.

Cons

• Has parentheses, not as neat.
• Transport system not implied.

London fare Zone X

Pros

• Descriptive, no parentheses.
• Implies transport system (sort of).

Cons

• Debate over capitalisation.
• Not in common usage.

My preference is the Zone X (London), as it best fits the Wikipedia naming policy (assuming common usage to be common usage by Londoners, as they represent most usage). Anything more than Zone X just sounds wrong, and the addition of London in parentheses is enough to disambiguate from any other zonal systems. ed g2s • talk 02:21, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure if anybody still cares but I have to agree with Zone X (London). "Zone X" is the only thing I've heard anybody actually call them in speech and I think the parentheses not being neat is a bit of a non-issue. GalaxiaGuy 17:11, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I prefer the status quo on the basis that change will yield no benefit. MRSC 17:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Changes in layout

Changes in layout made to this article should be reflected in Travelcard Zone 5 and Travelcard Zone 5 which share the same style. 2, 3 & 4 have lists yet to be turned into tables. It would be good to get these last three done soon so the articles are of similar quality. MRSC 08:23, 18 January 2006 (UTC)