If you travel by bus, subway or train in Akershus and Oslo, you have probably seen the colorful map with the zones. When you travel, you pay extra for each zone you cross. It doesn’t help that the trip is very short. The price for a few kilometers over a zone boundary is more expensive than if you were to drive many miles inside a zone. It has very unfortunate consequences for those who live at a zone boundary that they constantly have to cross, says Høyre. – It will always be perceived as unfair to live on the wrong side of a zone boundary because you get a price jump from that boundary, says Høyre’s Anette Solli. Høyre’s Anette Solli believes that the current tariff zones around Oslo should be removed. Photo: Rolf Petter Olaisen / news Now the Right wants to get rid of the entire map. – We want to move into a future where we have prices based on how far you travel and not how many zone boundaries you cross, says the right’s top candidate in Akershus. People nod in recognition At the bus terminal in Oslo, one green bus stops after another. Out of the doors flow the passengers from Akershus on their way to work and school in zone 1 (Oslo). Tove Elisabeth Moen is going the opposite way, towards the zone which is abbreviated 2S. Tove Elisabeth Moen thinks that the current price system in public transport in Akershus and Oslo works well. Photo: Bård Nafstad / news – I think it works very well. I live in Drøbak and use the Ruter app and pay for zones one and two. Very simple, says Tove and scouts for bus 500. But the sidekick recognizes the problem that the Right now wants to solve. – I have had colleagues who have lived on the border between two zones and who have had problems with it, and where it makes a big financial difference, says Hans Patrick Bakken. Willing to use new technology It has been 12 years since Akershus introduced a common tariff and zone system with Oslo. At the time it was seen as a great improvement and simplification. Before this, travelers in Akershus had to deal with a total of 77 zones and a system that did not communicate well with Oslo’s ticket system. Now the new system is also ripe for replacement, says Høyre. – New technology provides opportunities for other solutions that are even better, says Solli. That the Conservative Party wants to scrap the now incorporated zone system comes as a great surprise to other parties. – No, it’s a bad idea, protests SV’s top candidate, Balder Alvær Olafsen. The subway goes to Bærum in the west and the Lørenskog border in the east. The area within is zone 1 where there is a tariff. Photo: Anders Fehn / news Routes are negative Kilometer-based prices were assessed by Oslo and Akershus’ joint public transport company, Ruter, last year. Their conclusion was that the current tariff and zoning system is better in several areas. Among other things, it is more user-friendly. SV’s Balder Alvær Olafsen believes that the current zone map can be improved, but not replaced as the Conservative Party wants. Photo: Bård Nafstad / news – It is more difficult for passengers to understand Høyre’s system. It’s the wrong direction to go. We think it must be cheaper to take the bus, and easier. The right’s proposal will go in the opposite direction, claims Olafsen. But Ruter’s advice does not scare the Conservative group leader in Viken County Council. – We will of course listen to the professional expertise, but it is not the case that Ruter has all his wits, answers the Høyre top. Municipality divided into three Asker is one of the Akershus municipalities where there is dissatisfaction with the current zone map. The municipality is divided into three zones, which makes it expensive to travel from one end of the municipality to the other. Ståle Botn, who is rushing to catch the train, thinks the new proposal sounds promising. Askerbøringen Ståle Botn thinks the current zoning system is unfair. Photo: Bård Nafstad / news – Intuitively, it simply sounds good, even though I don’t often identify as a Right-winger. The way the system is now, it is unfair, says Botn. Right now there is a discount on monthly cards in the Oslo zone. The price for a monthly card outside Oslo is NOK 853 (one zone). It costs NOK 1,512 for two zones and NOK 2,174 for three. Several parties want to make changes to the zone map itself so that it will not be so expensive to travel within a municipality. Positive traffic researcher The Conservatives who want to scrap the entire map cannot point to other cities or counties that have adopted the technology the party is talking about. But Stavanger’s collective company Kolumbus tested distance-based fares last year. There, test subjects were provided with a separate app on their mobile phone. This had to be activated in order to register the journey and calculate the price for it. – The experiences are good, says the Transport Economics Institute (TØI), which took part in the experiment. – The big advantage, perhaps, is that it can be perceived as somewhat fairer, says senior researcher Frank Gregersen and points out that this solves the problem of the large price jumps at the zone boundaries. – Is it in the name that long journeys become more expensive in a kilometer-based system? A price system where passengers pay according to how far they have to travel is possible to introduce in the capital area, traffic researcher Frank Gregersen believes. Photo: Sigmund Rønsen Aarhaug / Sigmund Rønsen Aarhaug – No, it depends entirely on how the system is set up, says the researcher. – You can imagine that you pay a lot for the first kilometre, a kind of boarding fee, and then you pay very little for the next ones, and then it is not certain that those who travel far will come off so badly, he says. The TØI researcher sees no obstacles for the politicians to introduce this, but believes the system requires some more testing first. This is the rate and zone system A common rate and zone system for Oslo and Akershus was introduced in autumn 2011. In addition to the Oslo zone (zone 1), Akershus was divided into seven zones. Originally three in Romerike, three in Follo and one in Asker and Bærum. Before this, Akershus was divided into 77 zones, so the new system was a simplification. The price for each zone was the same regardless of whether it was located in Oslo or Akershus. There was also the same rate jump when crossing two or three zones. The zones were adjusted in 2014. Since then, new zones have been added. Hello! Did you think of anything when you read this article? Or do you have a tip? Feel free to send me an e-mail! Do you have any tips for other things I should look into? Get in touch with me!
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Politicians want to scrap the current zone system in public transport in Akershus and Oslo – news Oslo and Viken – Local news, TV and radio
