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Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

londoncentric.media

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Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#11

Post by bdndndndbve »

cdot2 wrote: post #7
bdndndndbve wrote: post #6

It's amazing how much bureaucracy they're willing to spend money on to means-test a fundamental service. If you just made transit free at the point of service you wouldn't have free cards for all under 16, and some over 16, and all over 60, and discount fares for people in poverty. Cities spend so much money outsourcing the IT for fare collection, and the administration of budget programs, and ultimately the experien…

All of this IT infrastructure exists to ensure the exact opposite of what you said. It ensures that rich people don't get to ride the bus for free.

Ah yes all those billionaires trying to jump the turnstiles. Between that and trying to sleep under bridges they're a menace.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#12

Post by avianlyric »

bdndndndbve wrote: post #6

It's amazing how much bureaucracy they're willing to spend money on to means-test a fundamental service. If you just made transit free at the point of service you wouldn't have free cards for all under 16, and some over 16, and all over 60, and discount fares for people in poverty. Cities spend so much money outsourcing the IT for fare collection, and the administration of budget programs, and ultimately the experien…

TfL has built most of its fare collection systems in-house, indeed it licenses its fare collect technologies to other cities like New York. Also it’s not within TfLs or London Mayors gift to provide free transit, TfL is almost unique in that its costs are almost entirely covered by farebox collections, and they receive little to zero government subsidy.

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.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#13

Post by kiba »

avianlyric wrote: post #12
bdndndndbve wrote: post #6

It's amazing how much bureaucracy they're willing to spend money on to means-test a fundamental service. If you just made transit free at the point of service you wouldn't have free cards for all under 16, and some over 16, and all over 60, and discount fares for people in poverty. Cities spend so much money outsourcing the IT for fare collection, and the administration of budget programs, and ultimately the experien…

TfL has built most of its fare collection systems in-house, indeed it licenses its fare collect technologies to other cities like New York. Also it’s not within TfLs or London Mayors gift to provide free transit, TfL is almost unique in that its costs are almost entirely covered by farebox collections, and they receive little to zero government subsidy. If London made transit free, they have to find an additional £7…

Tax cars further. They take up way more space than the average pedestrian and required more infrastructure to support and maintain.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#14

Post by carapace »

bdndndndbve wrote: post #6

It's amazing how much bureaucracy they're willing to spend money on to means-test a fundamental service. If you just made transit free at the point of service you wouldn't have free cards for all under 16, and some over 16, and all over 60, and discount fares for people in poverty. Cities spend so much money outsourcing the IT for fare collection, and the administration of budget programs, and ultimately the experien…

> In Gavin Newsom’s book Citizenville he talked about how, after becoming [San Francisco] mayor, he discovered that fare collection cost as much as the revenue generated from fares. He started the process of making the bus free but was told by so many advisors that the busses would become “dumpsters on wheels,” from a combination of homeless people using them for shelter and people not respecting services that are free, that the plan was scrapped.

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

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#15

Post by avianlyric »

bastard_op wrote: post #4

As soon as you read "outsourced their IT", one can always assume the aftermath would be a shitshow, as it is always done in response to the previous team not being able to run it, which means it is a goddamn mess. Having worked enough state and city government IT contracts in the past 25 years, you just assume the worst about everything and are often not disappointed. It's not a matter of if but when they'll be owned…

Where does it say they outsourced their IT? The article mentions city hall outsourcing their IT to TfL, but city hall is sister organisation to TfL, they’re both organs of London regional government. The London Mayor is the chairman of TfL and the head of London regional government.

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

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#16

Post by avianlyric »

lol768 wrote: post #3

> Earlier this month Andy Lord, the boss of Transport for London, sat down at a scheduled board meeting and praised his organisation’s response to a “highly sophisticated” cyberattack, which began with reports of “suspicious activity” on Sunday 1st September. > “The vast majority of Londoners would not know this attack has happened,” the TfL commissioner told board members including mayor Sadiq Khan. Lord later added…

I can believe, I live in London and depend on TfL all the time. It’s last 10 or so years, I’ve probably only bothered looking up my travel data a dozen or so times. 99% of the time I’m charged the right amount, and I don’t have to think about it.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#17

Post by avianlyric »

kiba wrote: post #13
avianlyric wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TfL has built most of its fare collection systems in-house, indeed it licenses its fare collect technologies to other cities like New York. Also it’s not within TfLs or London Mayors gift to provide free transit, TfL is almost unique in that its costs are almost entirely covered by farebox collections, and they receive little to zero government subsidy. If London made transit free, they have to find an additional £7…

Tax cars further. They take up way more space than the average pedestrian and required more infrastructure to support and maintain.

Even that won’t get close. Existing London car taxes only raise around £0.2 billion annually. Not a chance in hell you can raise that by 3500% without either public unrest, or such a dramatic change in behaviour that tax collection amounts drop, instead of raise (although I would personally love a car free London).

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#18

Post by bigstrat2003 »

kiba wrote: post #13
avianlyric wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TfL has built most of its fare collection systems in-house, indeed it licenses its fare collect technologies to other cities like New York. Also it’s not within TfLs or London Mayors gift to provide free transit, TfL is almost unique in that its costs are almost entirely covered by farebox collections, and they receive little to zero government subsidy. If London made transit free, they have to find an additional £7…

Tax cars further. They take up way more space than the average pedestrian and required more infrastructure to support and maintain.

Let's say that happens, which is not at all a given. What are you going to do when car usage goes down because people are tired of being taxed excessively for them? "Just tax this thing I don't like" is not a viable strategy to fund the things you do like.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#19

Post by eesmith »

cdot2 wrote: post #7
bdndndndbve wrote: post #6

It's amazing how much bureaucracy they're willing to spend money on to means-test a fundamental service. If you just made transit free at the point of service you wouldn't have free cards for all under 16, and some over 16, and all over 60, and discount fares for people in poverty. Cities spend so much money outsourcing the IT for fare collection, and the administration of budget programs, and ultimately the experien…

All of this IT infrastructure exists to ensure the exact opposite of what you said. It ensures that rich people don't get to ride the bus for free.

Rich people get to use the library for free.

Rich people get to visit Hyde Park for free.

I've no problem letting them also ride the bus for free.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#20

Post by avianlyric »

manojlds wrote: post #5

Why is the Mayor not even talking about this?

What is there for the Mayor to say? The trains still run, the busses still turn up, the traffic lights still go red, yellow, green.

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.

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