It became a running theme of Labour’s London mayoral hustings for Christian Wolmar to say that fellow candidates had been so impressed by his policy ideas that they’d pinched them. An example was the one-hour bus ticket, which would enable passengers to use two or more different buses within a 60-minute time frame without having to pay a separate fare each time.

Congratulations to Wolmar, a distinguished transport commentator, for being the first among his fellow Labour hopefuls to propose this policy, and fair play to those of his rivals who’ve also supported it (or a weekend-only version), whether or not they’d have come up with the idea all by themselves anyway. It’s an attractive plan that would certainly help some Londoners on low incomes. But none of the Labour hopefuls is the first to suggest it as mayoral policy.



The one-hour London bus ticket has, in fact, been a prominent proposal of the capital’s Liberal Democrats for at least six years. It was included in Brian Paddick’s mayoral manifesto in 2012 and has been conspicuously campaigned for since 2009 by Caroline Pidgeon, who is currently the leader of the Lib Dem London Assembly group and almost certain to be selected as her party’s mayoral candidate for 2016. Her only rival for the role, former Lewisham councillor Duwayne Brooks has withdrawn from the race, which hardly complicates Pidgeon’s task.

Lib Dems haven’t been alone in long liking the one-hour bus ticket idea - Pidgeon’s October 2009 motion asking Boris Johnson to consider introducing it for Oyster pay-as-you-go (PAYG) users received unanimous support from fellow Assembly members. However, it has become a bit of a signature suggestion, raised with the mayor by Pidgeon and recommended as a possible targeted fare cut in a 2013 report by the Assembly’s cross-party transport committee, which Pidgeon is a senior member of.

Given this breadth of backing, it may seem odd that the Lib Dems have had no luck getting the one-hour bus ticket adopted by Johnson and Transport for London (TfL). The objection given has always been financial. Last November, Johnson told Pidgeon that allowing free PAYG bus transfers within an hour would result in an estimated revenue loss of “up to £50m” a year. TfL’s overall fares income, including from the Underground, Overground and so on, is about £4.6bn a year or 40% of its total income. This makes “up to £50m” look fairly modest, but the excellent London Reconnections - now also available as a magazine - has reported TfL saying that introducing “temporal ticketing” would also “require a significant and costly upgrade of the Oyster system.”

Where this leaves the prospects of the one-hour bus ticket finally coming into existence is something for the next mayor to sort out, should he or she wish to. If it brought in by a Labour mayor, no doubt credit will be given where it’s due.

