I know we’ve “locked horns” on this one before, but I’m with @Hadders unsurprisingly. The abolition of those on the WCML cost us a fortune when they were withdrawn a few years ago. Still irks me now, and we don’t even live in Coventry any more!
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Project Oval: TfL win DfT contract to expand contactless system to 233 rail stations by May 2024, Railcards coming to contactless payment cards
- Thread starter JaJaWa
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I know we’ve “locked horns” on this one before, but I’m with @Hadders unsurprisingly. The abolition of those on the WCML cost us a fortune when they were withdrawn a few years ago. Still irks me now, and we don’t even live in Coventry any more!
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RailUK Forums
778
Member
The 2 examples you have given with no evening restrictions are for trains heading away from London.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
They are towards it.
In most cases they remain unrestricted in the evening peak for travel from Project Oval stations to stations on the line of route towards London. It becomes more complicated once central London is crossed. For example, Leighton Buzzard to Ealing Common doesn't have an afternoon peak restriction, Leighton Buzzard to Ealing Broadway does, as does Leighton Buzzard to West Ham. You end up with a situation where it is cheaper to split in some cases than have a through fare.
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There are two things:
1. the anytime day returns from London to "country" destinations are generally priced lower than those in the London direction.
2. passengers going into London for the evening might find their journeys somewhat expensive if asked to pay the peak fare between 4pm and 7pm.
The latter case is somewhat protected by the continued presence of the off-peak day travelcard.
In terms of Cross London travel there must be lots of journeys that people just don't make now. For example, a journey from Southend Central to Reading on Contactless PAYG is charged at the peak single fare of £46.10 from 1600 to 1900, which in many cases won't involve actually going from London to Reading in the traditional peak time. Only gets worse as Contactless spreads further.
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Haywain
Veteran Member
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"Generally" is inaccurate. It has been the case on some routes around London but by no means all of them.
Whereas passengers making a local journey in the "wrong" direction, starting from over 30 miles outside London, can just suck it up?
I think it applies on more routes than it doesn't apply on, but maybe that is not enough for "generally".
Apparently yes, in the eyes of those people who set the fares, essentially because they consider the railway to be something that is used to travel to London. The fact that the only daily and weekly capping on Contactless is Zone 1 centric is also clear evidence of that.
How much thought have the people planning Project Oval actually given to winners and losers?
I find the Evening Out, and Sunday Out fares useful.
I tend to go up to London on a Sunday, as a result of cheaper Sunday Out fares.
Project Oval - as far as I can see - is just a smokescreen for removing the cheapest fares, dressed up as 'simplified fares'.
Simplified in my mind is
Anytime/Peak
Off-Peak
Super Off-Peak
Three types of fares is not complex.
There is no need for any kind of advance fare anywhere within the Project Oval area.
As @Hadders has alluded to. Many will just see fares increase even further. In a number of cases, by an extra xx%, that is on top of any annual and mid year price increases.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
The problem is that the TfL system can't cope with that three-step approach. One could (in a speculative thread, not this one) question if it was the right approach to use that, but as that decision has been made the fare structure is set in stone as being TfL's one, which is two-step.
TfL should of not been allowed anywhere near ticketing for rail services outside of their jurisdiction.
Whilst the Anytime and Off Peak may work within London Zones, the 'two step' doesn't for destinations a distance from London.
If we get Project Oval at our local station, it will kill much of the traffic towards London.
The current Super Off Peak arrangement compensates for the longer journey times, which makes the journey more tolerable.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Seeing as I alluded to such a thread I should probably create one:
Was TfL's system the right choice for contactless payments in the South East?
OK, seeing as I alluded to it I should probably create the thread to prevent dragging the other one into speculation. Was TfL's system the right choice for contactless payments in the South East? It does have a number of advantages, most notably integration with TfL's fares for stuff like...
www.railforums.co.uk
Sleepy
Established Member
On brfares.com some contactless fares are showing, Chelmsford to Liverpool St. £12.90 (current Super off peak Return £23.50 or a Duo weekends only £35.25) Peak contactless from London £19.00 (current Anytime single £20.90)
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778
Member
They can get an off peak London Travelcard which has no evening restrictions.
2x £12.90 = £25.80, so effectively half-way between the current Super Off-Peak (£23.50) and Off-Peak Day Return (CDR, £28.10). Given that evening peak restrictions will be introduced, that sounds about right - though of course there will be winners and losers.
There will be many more losers than winners on the GTR and SWR expansions to East Grinstead and Dorking. For example, GTR have simply halved the £21.50 CDR from East Grinstead to London Terminals when determining the off-peak PAYG single. They have seemingly ignored the existence of Super Off-Peak Day Return fares (£16.20 on weekdays, £17 on weekends).
Moreover, the CDR is valid to arrive into London from 09:45, making the 09:06 the first valid departure - but the 09:06 will attract the peak PAYG fare. Similarly, those returning in the evening will pay the peak PAYG fare even though the CDR has no evening peak restrictions.
SWR have been rather underhanded with the rounding they've used on their PAYG fares on the Dorking route. They've rounded everything up to give a nice little 20p fare increase for a day trip - again, ignoring the existence of Evening Out and Sunday Out fares. Those currently using "Southern only" fares would also be worse off using PAYG as there is no equivalent.
Only in a London-centric view of what rail travel is for. A London-centric cap is no help to someone looking to travel from Denham to High Wycombe for an evening out who is charged £9.10 instead of £6.30 for their single journey between 1600 and 1900.
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OneOfThe48
Member
The CPAY fares listed in BRFares will not always be right - we will have to wait until they are updated in journey planners to find the final confirmed fares.
For East Grinstead, i'd expect it to be more around £20 for a return off-peak trip.
If they were amounts that were totally implausible, yes. However these amounts very neatly align with the explanations I've given.
It would be great if it were £20 return but I doubt that will be the case.
OneOfThe48
Member
Let’s come back to this in a week or two then (assuming it is 14 December as the poster above said) and see what it ends up being. I would be very surprised if it’s not around £20.
Think you only picked Flitwick as an example and it would be the case for somewhere like Harlington, but Flitwick isn’t in this Project Oval phase so Airport Parkway to Flitwick should be left as is, no?
My example of Denham to High Wycombe is a real world Oval example of where it could be argued that an unnecessary peak charge is being levied on someone wanting to make an evening journey.
OneOfThe48
Member
Yes, there will definitely be things that are charged as Peak in the evening that don’t ‘feel’ peaky - e.g a Luton to Harlington journey at 16:00, but your example is a good one too
Haywain
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 3 Feb 2013
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- 24,684
That's OK then because it's not in this phase?
OneOfThe48
Member
That’s not what I said
The fares shown in brfares will be the same as shown in journey planners because they come from the same source. The way Oval fares are transferred to the TfL system means that anomalies are much less likely, but the absolute bible for what the fares wil be is a fare finder powered by TfL open data.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Has inclusion of Milton Keynes Central been delayed? Its fares appear to be unchanged. Aylesbury Vale has been done, though - only change is adding an off peak day single at half the return and Ovalisation of time restrictions.
They've not been uploaded to journey planners though.
For journeys from CPAY Thameslink (North) and Great Northern stations to central London it looks like the new Off Peak Day Return fare (DDR) is based on the outgoing weekday Super Off Peak Day Return, usually midway between the weekend equivalent and existing Off Peak Day Return (CDR) - both of these going as well. Day Travelcard changes will follow the same pattern save for the Off Peak type (ODT) simply changing in price, so I think weekday evening journeys will stay permitted with that particular ticket.
As a result 'CPAY OffPK Info' fares for those journeys tend to be lower than the test equivalents that were based on the CDR.
It looked like they were now in place from 7 December 2025 when I looked at journeys after that date on the GWR booking engine earlier.
Milton Keynes has never been planned for this roll out.
Existing fares in earlier Contactless roll outs not affected earlier, so, for instance, it appears that you can still get a super-off-peak day return from Potters Bar to London from 7 December, but not one from Stevenage to London.
Also, things like the Sunday Out / Evening Out structure applying from Gomshall to London destinations at the old fares, but withdrawn for Dorking to London, where the fares were previously in clusters.
Simpler train travel for the South East as contactless ticketing rolls out at 47 more stations
New tap in tap out system will guarantee passengers get the best fare available at the time on the day.
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Nothing beyond Phase 2A has a broad date yet, discounting the original 'everything by December 2024' milestone that isn't worth a damn. Perhaps when the go-live date for 2A is officially stated they'll give advance notice of the next sub-phase.
The forum's site is still offering this period's fares for the journeys I'm looking at (as you say GWR is offering the next period's fares).