TfL photocard and Oyster card increase

[Dstock7080]

I note that today TfL has increased the cost of photocards for Zip cards, Student Oyster, Apprentice Oyster and Care Leaver Oyster have all increased by £1.

60+ Oyster applications have increased to £35 from £20, the annual address check fee is now £18, up from £10.

Also announced is the rise for a new Oyster card, up from £7 to £10 in September.

@MikeWh has an excellent review on his website:

Oyster and Photocard Price Increases – Oyster Fares Central

oysterfares.com

 

[Watershed]

£10 is simply unjustifiable for new Oyster cards, given that their actual cost will probably be below £1 each and that they remain the only real way of getting Railcard discounts for journeys around London.

 

[redreni]

£10 is simply unjustifiable for new Oyster cards, given that their actual cost will probably be below £1 each and that they remain the only real way of getting Railcard discounts for journeys around London.

If they would just uprate these fees by inflation (no reason why the fee needs to be a round number, given hardly anyone pays these fees in cash), it might be easier to understand.

£10 for an Oyster card is daylight robbery, plain and simple.

The 60+ Oyster thing is just cowardly - if you don't want that concession to exist, have the argument about scrapping it!

Putting excessive fees on a concessionary scheme seems perverse: if people need the concession, is it really reasonable to expect them to pay £53 up front in order to access it? Maybe a lot of people who get this concession don't need it, but that's when you need to propose scrapping it or better targeting it, rather than introducing a cost barrier that will only impede the people who need it most.

 

[CyrusWuff]

The 60+ Oyster thing is just cowardly - if you don't want that concession to exist, have the argument about scrapping it!

The justification is likely to be that a Railcard costs £35 and arguably a year of unlimited free off-peak travel in London Travelcard Zones 1 to 9 is worth more than that.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The 60+ Oyster thing is just cowardly - if you don't want that concession to exist, have the argument about scrapping it!

TfL don't want the concession to not exist, they just want to charge more for that concession. I don't think aligning the cost with that of the equivalent Railcard(s) is unreasonable.

Note that the 60+ Oyster is different to the Freedom Pass.

£10 is simply unjustifiable for new Oyster cards, given that their actual cost will probably be below £1 each and that they remain the only real way of getting Railcard discounts for journeys around London.

£10 for an Oyster card is daylight robbery, plain and simple.

Oyster is an old legacy system that TfL don't really want people to use. The price won't just include the actual cost of the card, but will include the cost of all the back-office administration too.

I don't have an issue with charging a tenner for an Oyster card, for adults they are now a niche product and the value of the Railcard discount will far exceed the £10 fee.

I have much more of an issue charging £16 for 11-15 Zip cards, and charging £21 for the 18-25 Care Leavers' Oyster. Given that children and care leavers must have these in order to be able to be charged child fares, and given that its children from poorer families who will benefit the most from these cards, it seems unfair to increase the price. £21 for a care leaver, who are some of the most vulnerable people in London, is just taking the piss to be quite honest.

 

[Watershed]

the value of the Railcard discount will far exceed the £10 fee.

If you go down that route you could increase it much more. In fact, fares as a whole would be substantially higher - the market value of a Zones 1-2 peak journey is clearly higher than £3.50.

 

[sigwinch28]

but will include the cost of all the back-office administration too.

This implies that the back-office administration for the contactless system is free, which I strongly doubt.

In Paris, a Navigo Easy card is €2, a long way off from TfL’s extortionate tenner.

 

[cool110]

£10 is simply unjustifiable for new Oyster cards, given that their actual cost will probably be below £1 each and that they remain the only real way of getting Railcard discounts for journeys around London.

Oyster is an old legacy system that TfL don't really want people to use. The price won't just include the actual cost of the card, but will include the cost of all the back-office administration too.

Not just those costs, it needs to counter the loophole of going into negative balance and being cheaper to get a new card than clear it

 

[kieron]

I don't have an issue with charging a tenner for an Oyster card, for adults they are now a niche product and the value of the Railcard discount will far exceed the £10 fee.

Maybe, maybe not. What I'd say is that someone who doesn't anticipate saving £10 from having an Oyster card (or, at least, not saving that much within a reasonable period of time) isn't going to lose too much by not getting one.

Do you happen to know if there's an announcement about the price rises on the TfL site? Or supporting documents such as an equality impact assessment? I had a brief look but couldn't find anything.

 

[Hadders]

£10 for an Oyster card feels far too much. I'm all for contactless but there are times when someone needs an Oyster card. TfL also needs to be mindful that not everyone can get a bank account, especially some of the more vulnerable in Society, and whilst many of these will qualify for Freedom Passes not all will and will reply on Oyster cards to pay for their journeys.

 

[Dstock7080]

Do you happen to know if there's an announcement about the price rises on the TfL site? I had a brief look but couldn't find anything.

No announcements on TfL website.
The new charges were uploaded on Tuesday:
https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/free-and-discounted-travel/60-plus-oyster-photocard

 

[redreni]

Oyster is an old legacy system that TfL don't really want people to use.

Maybe so, but only a few months ago I was using it because it was the only way I could check my journey history to make sure I'd been charged the right amount and keep a contemporaneous note of any incorrect charges, ready for when TfL finally recovered from being hacked by a child.

TfL don't want people using it not just because its old tech, but because you don't have to give them all your personal data (which they have a track record of losing control of).

And as others have said, they really ought to lay off punitive increases on the basis that people shouldn't be using Oyster until they have provided a viable alternative for those entitled to a child visitor or Railcard discount.

 

[Adam Williams]

Oyster is an old legacy system that TfL don't really want people to use. The price won't just include the actual cost of the card, but will include the cost of all the back-office administration too.

Then they should crack on with providing a viable replacement, shouldn't they?