TfL proposes to withdraw Day Travelcards

[ThameslinkUser]

Take a an EL from before Paddington to Farringdon, that arrives just after a TL to Sutton thats gone.
make your way to London Bridge
wait 30 minutes at London Bridge for a Sutton train.
collect your penalty fare at Sutton on arrival.

Sutton trains leave Farringdon every 15 mins.

Even if we were to follow your extremely illogical strawman argument:
tap in to on train: 3 mins
PAD - ZFD: 8 mins
interchange: 8 mins (longer than it is)
wait for a LBG service: 2 mins on average according to timetable
interchange: 10 mins
wait for next Epsom: up to 20 mins
LBG - SUO: 33 mins
Total: 84 mins

Max journey time for travelling across 5 zones:

Across 5 zones

M - F: 0430-1900 1 hour 50 minutes

M-F: after 1900 and all day Sat 2 hours 5 minutes

Sunday and Public Holidays 2 hours 15 minutes

No maximum journey charge (that would've been refunded by TfL) in the first instance.

 

[miklcct]

Aside from trainspotters, which are an incredibly tiny market in the grand scheme of London, who will actually be hitting the max journey times?

I actually hit the max journey time once in the past:

1. Tap in at Brondesbury, boarded a train at 14:04 and travelled to Gunnersbury, alighted at 14:22, and tapped a pink reader.
2. Boarded a District at Gunnersbury, alighted at Turnham Green at 14:32 wanting to change to a Piccadilly but misled by the map as the Piccadilly doesn't stop at Turnham Green
3. Spent a lot of time in the station finding my way, and eventually boarded another District at 14:49 to Acton Town, alighting 14:53
4. A lineside fire happened which stopped all trains. Firemen went to the scene. Piccadilly train service resumed at 15:38
5. Alighted at the airport at 16:03.
6. Collected the penalty as the journey went over 1 hour 50 minutes.

 

[miklcct]

Also, the 2-3 max journey time is 1h30, which is extremely easy to hit for a normal orbital journey:

0: tap in at Wimbledon, walk 1 minute to the platform, and wait 5 minutes for a District
6: board a District and travel for 15 minutes to West Brompton, touching the pink reader there
21: walk 2 minutes across the footbridge and wait 10 minutes for the next Overground train
33: travel 57 minutes to Stratford
90: walk 3 minutes to the gateline to get out the station
93: bravo - collect penalty fare

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Sutton trains leave Farringdon every 15 mins.

...but there's no point getting the via Wimbledon unless you can see the following via Mitcham is cancelled as both arrive at Sutton at virtually the same time. That makes it effectively a 15 minute service only as far as Streatham; for Sutton it is effectively only a 30 minute interval service.

 

[bakerstreet]

Also, the 2-3 max journey time is 1h30, which is extremely easy to hit for a normal orbital journey:

0: tap in at Wimbledon, walk 1 minute to the platform, and wait 5 minutes for a District
6: board a District and travel for 15 minutes to West Brompton, touching the pink reader there
21: walk 2 minutes across the footbridge and wait 10 minutes for the next Overground train
33: travel 57 minutes to Stratford
90: walk 3 minutes to the gateline to get out the station
93: bravo - collect penalty fare

I may be wrong here.

But I was under the impression that if when making (for example) a zone 2-3 journey where there is also a fare via zones 1-3

then whilst you are charged a journey via only zones 2-3, you are allowed a maximum journey time of a zone 1-3 journey.

Similarly, I thought if you travelled Stratford (zone 2/3) to Oxford Circus (Zone 1), although you are charged a zone 1-2 journey, your maximum allowed journey time is that of a zone 1-3 journey.

Perhaps @MikeWh could confirm.

 

[SussexSeagull]

If this happens I'd advocate London independence as the Central Government policies don't take Londoner's benefit into consideration. Southeastern metro is already an example.

If we can keep all the taxes in London we can definitely fund a world-class transport system.

Also in many other aspects the interest of Londoners and the country are completely opposite as well like EU for example.

I live in the South East, which is the only other region of the UK to pay its way. So where is my London level transport links? Also I don't remember London winning the Second World War or fighting COVID on its own.

London has accumulated national institutions since the Roman's arrived and formed what became the City of London. The UK is completely different to most developed countries and more or less has everything based in one mega city as opposed to Germany which has finance in Frankfurt, the civil service in Bonn and government in Berlin. That's fine but they need to remain accessible to the rest of the country.

It's not the rest of the country's fault that there was never a central London train terminal built or that until relatively recently cross city train links were minimal. In fact as Thameslink was funded centrally, presumably you won't mind if those services can't be used on an Oyster card anymore? Also if we have to pay separately for it, do the UK government get the £825 million grant it gave Crossrail in 2020 to help complete the project? Also living in the south east my access to HS2 - when it does eventually open - will be via London and if this happens I won't be able to buy a single ticket from Worthing to Birmingham as I will somehow need to get to Euston.

If TFL want a larger slice of the pie or need to put prices up then it is regrettable but understandable. Trying to make the TFL transport network a separate entity from the rest of the country frankly isn't.

 

[ThameslinkUser]

I won't be able to buy a single ticket from Worthing to Birmingham as I will somehow need to get to Euston.

Easy solution: change the STP - EUS transfer from tube to walk and then just get Thameslink to St Pancras. Additionally, once HS2 is open, just get National Rail Elizabeth line to OOC and travel from there

 

[Sm5]

Sutton trains leave Farringdon every 15 mins.

Even if we were to follow your extremely illogical strawman argument:
tap in to on train: 3 mins
PAD - ZFD: 8 mins
interchange: 8 mins (longer than it is)
wait for a LBG service: 2 mins on average according to timetable
interchange: 10 mins
wait for next Epsom: up to 20 mins
LBG - SUO: 33 mins
Total: 84 mins

Max journey time for travelling across 5 zones:



No maximum journey charge (that would've been refunded by TfL) in the first instance.

Anytime you want to join me on the Sutton Thaneslink lottery your welcome to join me.

This route is notorious for cancelations, delays, short journeys… weekends sometimes services simply dissapear all day, without notice.

You only need one, to throw you off and watch the timer going faster.

Lets deal in facts…

suppose yesterday, 19th April, you tapped in at 0530 at West Drayton, for the 0536 to Farringdon 0612.

You’d arrive to find your 5 minute connection pointless, as the 0617 to Sutton was canceled. Whats more the 0632 was too. So now you are on the 0647, which arrived at 0659, and drops you in Sutton at 0747.. lets say 1 minute to go up stairs and tap out…0748..

Yes thats 2 hours 18minutes.

And Thats actually one of the better scenarios too… say you need to use lifts, not run up and down stairs, that would very easily add a further 30 minutes in connection planning.

But facts of life is that EL/TL does not equal the effiacy of the tube running every few minutes When it comes to journey time limits, due to restricted frequency, coupled with service unreliability… points like Paddington to East Croydon Works well, but move off the hubs and down the spokes, it gets harder.. South Greenford to Belmont via EL/TL for example could be a challenge on a moderate day.

If you have a travelcard, youve nothing to worry about, as you can alternate route without fear… thats what makes the travelcard so great.. you can be spontaneous without fear. Oystercard requires system knowledge, sign reading, comprehension of ticketing, routing and timings… most people dont have that domain knowledge… Tourists especially do not.

one thing for certain, delay repay means nothing on a travelcard, force me to oyster.. they certainly will be held to account.

 

[tomuk]

Also living in the south east my access to HS2 - when it does eventually open - will be via London and if this happens I won't be able to buy a single ticket from Worthing to Birmingham as I will somehow need to get to Euston.

You can just scan your barcode at Victoria or London Bridge when transferring to the tube.

 

[ThameslinkUser]

Anytime you want to join me on the Sutton Thaneslink lottery your welcome to join me.

This route is notorious for cancelations, delays, short journeys… weekends sometimes services simply dissapear all day, without notice.

I commute from the West Coastway to London (a journey often requiring a connection at Brighton that is seemingly never held for late running trains) for extreme shifts. There is sympathy, but no pity.

So now you are on the 0647, which arrived at 0659, and drops you in Sutton at 0747

What happened to going via London Bridge?

Either way, this is still within the maximum journey time for a journey involving travelling across 11 zones at 2hrs 50mins. (6-5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5-6)

Should there be further catastrophic cirumstances, such journeys are typically automatically refunded and eligble for delay repay.

TfL:

Maximum journey times are set generously and will only be exceeded under exceptional circumstances.


If this has happened to you for reasons outside your control, such as a severe delay on the network, you may receive an automatic refund. This is normally done up to three times a month.

Before you claim​

Please wait at least 48 hours as you might receive an automatic refund:

• Oyster - we'll automatically add it to your card the next time you touch in or out of a rail journey
• Contactless - the refund will show on your next card statement, or we will adjust the fares charged when you next travel

If you do not get an automatic refund, you have up to 8 weeks from your journey to claim.

Thameslink:

Can I claim Delay Repay if I travelled with an Oyster card or contactless?


Yes, you can claim Delay Repay in the same way but you must accompany your claim with a printout showing where you touched in and out and the cost of your journey.

It baffles me that there is so much focus on maximum journey times given the volume of PAYG transactions and its age compared with how few people have promiment enough issues to seek advice on, such as the penalty fares everyone here thinks you'll be getting on a daily basis.

 

[Horizon22]

People come to London and spend money, which puts money into its economy and results in the payment of more corporation tax among other things.

Also, TfL receives a fair whack of money from national Government.

Not for much longer.

 

[Sm5]

Around 55,000 customers use Day Travelcards daily and 15m Day Travelcards have been sold to date this financial year, of these tickets

how much revenue does this sale generate ?

• Around 7.8m Day Travelcards were issued by Rail Operators outside zones 1-6, while around a 1.7m Day Travelcards were issued by Rail Operators inside zones 1-6.
• Over 2.4m Day Travelcards were issued by TfL
• Over 2.2m Group Day Travelcards were issued by Rail Operators outside zones 1-6
• Around 166,000 were adult or child Day Travelcards bought using a Railcard discount
• Around 70% of these were purchased outside the London area at National Rail stations.

these numbers dont add up, or round up to 15mn.

We anticipate that, if these proposals are introduced, this would generate £40m per year.

A straight 1-2-1 conversion based on those figures…
£40mn/ £15mn suggest tfl is getting av £2.66 for a travelcard sale.
I cant see that being correct.

What i’d like to understand, is what revenue tfl recieves from travelcards currently.. that leads them to believe they gain £40mn by abolishing them and putting up fares on the discriminated outlier use cases of those fares ?

if an average fare was £10..for 15mn sold, thats £150mn dropping to £40mn…

I fail to see a win for tfl, I also dont believe the average travelcard fare is just £2.66.

 

[SussexSeagull]

Easy solution: change the STP - EUS transfer from tube to walk and then just get Thameslink to St Pancras. Additionally, once HS2 is open, just get National Rail Elizabeth line to OOC and travel from there

I actually do tend to get the Thameslink into St Pancras and walk along the Euston Road to Euston when go to the north west (or at least I used to before the service went downhill, but that is for another thread) but I am fairly healthy and tend not to have luggage.

Your solution assumes Crossrail remains available to people transferring across London without buying another ticket.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Apr 2023 ==

You can just scan your barcode at Victoria or London Bridge when transferring to the tube.

I tend to have paper tickets so just use the automated turnstiles but either solution assumes TFL don't announce full independence.

 

[Gaelan]

I actually do tend to get the Thameslink into St Pancras and walk along the Euston Road to Euston when go to the north west (or at least I used to before the service went downhill, but that is for another thread) but I am fairly healthy and tend not to have luggage.

Your solution assumes Crossrail remains available to people transferring across London without buying another ticket.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Apr 2023 ==


I tend to have paper tickets so just use the automated turnstiles but either solution assumes TFL don't announce full independence.

Could they? For the tube I assume yes, but Crossrail is a mainline rail service (and, outside the core, runs on NR track) so I would think it’s obligated to participate in National Rail ticketing.

 

[Sm5]

I commute from the West Coastway to London (a journey often requiring a connection at Brighton that is seemingly never held for late running trains) for extreme shifts. There is sympathy, but no pity.

brighton is not in any london tfl zone.
Brighton has a much better service than West Sutton.

What happened to going via London Bridge?

yes correct, if you know that option, you could route to lbg, wait 30 minutes for the next Sutton (Epsom) service, and ride on it 30 mins.. you could save 10 minutes, but still be 20 minutes outside your time limit… its moot, if its late…its even more moot (i tried this tonight… changing at nwd jn, but the 2140 Caterham was 20 mins late, so even trying to jump start failed).

its not reasonable to expect every passenger to know realtime trains and traksy to navigate london.

Either way, this is still within the maximum journey time for a journey involving travelling across 11 zones at 2hrs 50mins. (6-5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5-6)

Should there be further catastrophic cirumstances, such journeys are typically automatically refunded and eligble for delay repay.

I think most people dont care About delay repay.
They just want to go from A to B.
What they dont want is penalty fares and criminal records and having to go through legal processes of defence and evidence collecting because of a faulty system….

A travelcard negates all that risk.
it also gives them painless options to try anything, without punitive charging.

It baffles me that there is so much focus on maximum journey times given the volume of PAYG transactions and its age compared with how few people have promiment enough issues to seek advice on, such as the penalty fares everyone here thinks you'll be getting on a daily basis.

5million journeys in 2022 were incomplete, generating £21m in revenue.
3million were disputed / resolved involing £11mn of revenue.

Londons population is 8.9mn.

so annually 60% of londons population gets dinged with an oyster dispute annually, but only 30% get their money back.

take this over 10 years thats 80mn… or 110% of the entire UK population has had an oyster dispute.

https://content.tfl.gov.uk/analysis-of-oyster-pay-as-you-go-journeys.xlsx

foi request here..

FOI request detail

FOI request detail

tfl.gov.uk

the problem..
it exists.

But Oyster disputes is clearly a large revenue generating department for tfl.

Removing 15 million of more vulnerable passengers from travelcards to oyster will increase that revenue stream.

Lets face it.. Travelcards are for the vulnerable.. young, elderly, groups, disabled,verterans, tourists, the clue is in the very railcard names… Railcard discounts were created to normalise and encourage otherwise marginalised groups to travel.

Removing it is discriminatory to those groups.

 

[tomuk]

Lets face it.. Travelcards are for the vulnerable.. young, elderly, groups, disabled,verterans, tourists, the clue is in the very railcard names… Railcard discounts were created to normalise and encourage otherwise marginalised groups to travel.

Removing it is discriminatory to those groups.

Travelcards aren't just for the vulnerable the large proportion are bought by the opposite. Anyhow Oyster products are available for those inside London. And shortly national rail discounts will be able to added to contact less.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

A straight 1-2-1 conversion based on those figures…
£40mn/ £15mn suggest tfl is getting av £2.66 for a travelcard sale.
I cant see that being correct.

What i’d like to understand, is what revenue tfl recieves from travelcards currently.. that leads them to believe they gain £40mn by abolishing them and putting up fares on the discriminated outlier use cases of those fares ?

if an average fare was £10..for 15mn sold, thats £150mn dropping to £40mn…

The additional £40 million a year revenue that they are estimating is from the extra cost of travelling after the abolition assuming everyone still makes the same journeys.

 

[jon81uk]

5million journeys in 2022 were incomplete, generating £21m in revenue.
3million were disputed / resolved involing £11mn of revenue.

Londons population is 8.9mn.

so annually 60% of londons population gets dinged with an oyster dispute annually, but only 30% get their money back.

take this over 10 years thats 80mn… or 110% of the entire UK population has had an oyster dispute.

https://content.tfl.gov.uk/analysis-of-oyster-pay-as-you-go-journeys.xlsx
foi request here..

But those statistics are just incomplete journeys, not specific to maximum journey times. As said above I think very very few people get caught out by maximum journey times, and if they do it usually involves a refund/compensation due to delays anyway. Most incomplete journeys are just missing taps due to not realising your tap didn’t open the barrier, or people forgot on unharmed stations like the DLR, or broken readers.

 

[ThameslinkUser]

What they dont want is penalty fares and criminal records and having to go through legal processes of defence and evidence collecting because of a faulty system….

This is scaremongering on an unbelievable level.

 

[Sm5]

This is scaremongering on an unbelievable level.

Is trivialising it to a minimal level any better ?

When the individual is facing the situation in person, and 100% believes they did everything right, faces a person challenged to find those doing it wrong.. thats neither trivial or maximal… its usually terrifying.

Any action that could unwittingly trap more because of it should be minimalised. It should not be the case that the size of incomplete fare revenue is greater than a small business threshold of HMRC reporting limits… incomplete fares is a medium sized business in itself… something is wrong with this picture ?

Travelcards are a minority product, that acts as a catch all for minority groups and encouraging promotional travel.

By all means replace it, but to eradicate it, without further consideration into an existing system, which by reason that Travelcards still exists demonstrates that the system doesnt have the ability to support is imo delibrately targetting minorities for entrapment to generate illicit revenue.

If they want to replace it, they need to consider impact.. journey times is one reason, machine reader is another, flexible journeys is another.

All the scenarios I described last night relate to an able bodied person.. what if the stations dont all have lifts and a passenger needs to travel ahead, swap platforms and double back… a travelcard makes this possible… Oyster may not, time scales may not.

Most “young professional normal able bodied” people don't see the problems, thats why they use PAYG, thats why that is a success, and some comments here suggest they just dont care…

My mate is full disabled, my local station only has a ramp on one platform, but no lift. He has to go to the next station, change and come back. Whats more the path out has no reader, so he needs someone to take his card into the ticket office to tap out, when theres no staff… thats an extra 30 minutes on top of an able bodied passengers journey right there. He does it, because he wants his independence, just like you and I enjoy.

Scratch the surface, look around you…the issues are there… take out your elderly parents, go for a ride with someone in a wheel chair, try moving half your possessions in a suitcase, volunteer to take a school trip by train, travel with some none english speaking visitors, you’ll soon see a different world and why a piece of paper makes a bit of sense, digitise it yes, eliminate it.. no.

 

[PeterC]

Lets face it.. Travelcards are for the vulnerable.. young, elderly, groups, disabled,verterans, tourists, the clue is in the very railcard names… Railcard discounts were created to normalise and encourage otherwise marginalised groups to travel.

I think you are getting your terminology confused. Travelcards and railcards are totally different products aimed at different markets

 

[SouthEastBuses]

One thing I forgot to mention is that scrapping Z1-6 Travelcards only makes sense if you make the London Terminals ticket cheaper (I don't understand why both the Travelcard and the London Terminals ticket are about the same price despite one giving more benefits than the other!), but of course it will never happen because revenue and profit are the only thing that matters to TOCs and TfL it seems

 

[Bletchleyite]

One thing I forgot to mention is that scrapping Z1-6 Travelcards only makes sense if you make the London Terminals ticket cheaper (I don't understand why both the Travelcard and the London Terminals ticket are about the same price despite one giving more benefits than the other!), but of course it will never happen because revenue and profit are the only thing that matters to TOCs and TfL it seems

It seems there are a few such cases of this around the South Coast, but it isn't universally true, in most places (e.g. the south WCML and Chiltern) it appears to me that the cost of the outboundary Travelcard is very close indeed to the cost of the Travelcard plus a return from BZ6 to the outboundary origin, which is roughly where it logically should sit.

Because most people who go to central London will only travel within the 1-2 cap area, and many won't even hit the cap if only going to one place, it's likely a return plus contactless will cost a similar price to or less than the outboundary card, other than where the anomalies you call out exist.

It's Railcard holders, enthusiasts who will spend a day ragging round the whole network, and groups who will find it a faff to organise tickets, that will suffer most. Plus business travellers who won't care about the price but will find it much more of a faff to claim their expenses than before, particularly if the Travelcard was typically issued from a centrally settled corporate system.

 

[Sm5]

I think you are getting your terminology confused. Travelcards and railcards are totally different products aimed at different markets

No they are intertwined.

railcards get discounts off travelcards.
railcard users hold those cards, not solely for discount but for needs.
a disabled person buying a travelcard doesnt buy a travelcard for trivialities.

i described a use case above.. where using payg not only costs them more, but could entrap them into penalty fares.

There could be dozens of such use cases.
if a travelcard was a dead product, and alternatives exist… people would not still be buying it.

I suspect the correlation between railcard holders, and travelcard buyers is not coincidental.

I do not see any research by tfl as to “why” people stIll buy a travelcard.
i do not see any research into how much they generate, only how much they expect to raise additional revenue.

if an average travelcard price was £10, and 15m are sold, then £150mn is being generated.
I fail to see how that equates to an increase of £40mn, therefore £190mn in revenue.

my suspicion is this motivation isnt about 15mn tickets, but what proportion of that 15mn tfl recieves.
15mn / £40mn is just £2.66 additional revenue.
yet removing a travelcard and insert payg without railcard discounts seems to be upwards of an 80% fare increase.
That would playout at nearly £300mn in revenues.
Are tfl assuming they are going to lose 60% of their travelcard customers (bringing It down to £40mn) doing this ? - thats crazy… unless that revenue is currently going to the toc.. in which case that increase goes to tfl but is hugely greater revenue loss to the tocs… thats selfishly crazy and the dft should step on that.

so i’m missing something in tfl maths… it feels more like politics, using minorities as a pawn against the tocs for greater revenue share, especially when its a Red decision that impacts blue voting areas.

 

[Haywain]

yet removing a travelcard and insert payg without railcard discounts seems to be upwards of an 80% fare increase.

Railcard discounts for many railcard holders are available on Oyster, so this argument is complete nonsense, especially as discounted daily caps are almost always cheaper than the equivalent Travelcard prices. I'm afraid to say your arguments are poorly thought out and some of your statements are really rather patronising. I have been a railcard holder, on and off, for most of the last 50 years and have never classed myself as "vulnerable" and a great many other disabled and senior railcard holders would not view themselves in that way either.

I am not in favour of the abolition of One Day Travelcards, even though I rarely use them, for the simple reason that they are a great convenience for those who do but the reality is that many people will not find themselves spending more as a result because they only make a couple of journeys with the Travelcard.

 

[Fleetmaster]

Am I right in presuming that the incredibly long standing situation where rail + travelcard was always cheaper than paying G/BR and Tf/LT separately was to promote public transport use in those who might otherwise just drive into London or take a train and then taxi?

The convenience factor was just an added bonus. That said, have TfL simulated the impact on queues for ticket machines in major tube Interchanges like Victoria or CX in an era when ticket offices are closed and even the simplest of contactless payments involves multiple menu options and significant static minutes?

Definitely seems like a backwards step when all signs seemed to point to a desire on TfLs behalf for even more seamless ticketing and flow of people through congested tube halls.

I csn even see it causing problems on the buses, given this TfL induced demand for extra time consuming and potentially complex contactless ticket purchases on buses will be happening mostly in a few short windows on a handful of central routes outside already busy terminals, and most likely at times when the affected routes are already running fewer buses to save costs.

Presumably the bus operators will want to stick it to TFL hard if they see any impact on reliability due to TfL imposed changes in the workload of their drivers in having to take contactless multimode purchases they never had to before.

 

[jon81uk]

One thing I forgot to mention is that scrapping Z1-6 Travelcards only makes sense if you make the London Terminals ticket cheaper (I don't understand why both the Travelcard and the London Terminals ticket are about the same price despite one giving more benefits than the other!), but of course it will never happen because revenue and profit are the only thing that matters to TOCs and TfL it seems

This is probably one of the reasons TfL want to do it, the TOC is probably getting a bigger share of the Travelcard fare in those cases compared to paying TfL direct with contactless/Oyster caps.

 

[miklcct]

Are tfl assuming they are going to lose 60% of their travelcard customers (bringing It down to £40mn) doing this ? - thats crazy… unless that revenue is currently going to the toc.. in which case that increase goes to tfl but is hugely greater revenue loss to the tocs… thats selfishly crazy and the dft should step on that.

so i’m missing something in tfl maths… it feels more like politics, using minorities as a pawn against the tocs for greater revenue share, especially when its a Red decision that impacts blue voting areas.

Railcard discounts for many railcard holders are available on Oyster, so this argument is complete nonsense, especially as discounted daily caps are almost always cheaper than the equivalent Travelcard prices. I'm afraid to say your arguments are poorly thought out and some of your statements are really rather patronising. I have been a railcard holder, on and off, for most of the last 50 years and have never classed myself as "vulnerable" and a great many other disabled and senior railcard holders would not view themselves in that way either.

I am not in favour of the abolition of One Day Travelcards, even though I rarely use them, for the simple reason that they are a great convenience for those who do but the reality is that many people will not find themselves spending more as a result because they only make a couple of journeys with the Travelcard.

This is probably one of the reasons TfL want to do it, the TOC is probably getting a bigger share of the Travelcard fare in those cases compared to paying TfL direct with contactless/Oyster caps.

Although personally I don't support the abolishment of the Travelcard because I will pay more (as I only buy a Travelcard when I know that I will travel a lot in the outer zones), but if it turns out that the customers as a whole will end up paying less while TfL will receive more, causing TOC making a loss, I will support the proposal.

 

[Haywain]

One thing I forgot to mention is that scrapping Z1-6 Travelcards only makes sense if you make the London Terminals ticket cheaper (I don't understand why both the Travelcard and the London Terminals ticket are about the same price despite one giving more benefits than the other!), but of course it will never happen because revenue and profit are the only thing that matters to TOCs and TfL it seems

As mentioned above, this isn't alway the case. Where I live the Travelcard price is higher than the London Thameslink price by an amount greater than the Off-Peak daily cap for zones 1 & 2, other than on weekends when the cap is 40p more than the difference. As most people buying outboundary* Travelcards don't venture further from a London Terminal than zone 2, most would notice very little difference. There will, of course, be occasions when they do venture further and the cost will increase but these will be fairly rare.


*Edited for clarification.

 

[ThameslinkUser]

Is trivialising it to a minimal level any better ?

Yes considering how unlikely and how low severity it is.