Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It was on the WCML. But elsewhere I would agree they've made an absolute mess of something that was potentially genuinely simple.
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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
- Start date
It was on the WCML. But elsewhere I would agree they've made an absolute mess of something that was potentially genuinely simple.
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RailUK Forums
The sad thing is that when people say fares need tobe simplified what they really mean is that fares should be cheaper. Unfortunately the opposite happens because, in my experience, simplification always results in fares increases.
Free public transport (Luxembourg), the Klimaticket (Austria) and Deutschlandticket (Germany)* are exceptions, but I can't think of any counterexamples in the UK.
*Unless any tickets at ~€40 per month were withdrawn when the D-Ticket was set at €49 on the grounds it was too close in price to be worth offering separately, although that's still cheaper and simpler for the majority of passengers.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
In the end there isn't the money nor political will to increase subsidy which is what would be necessary to make a fares simplification significantly revenue negative. Thus somewhere around neutral is the best we can hope for, and thus some will pay more and some will pay less.
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Those schemes involve a very high amount of subsidy. Indeed, Germany is struggling with the funding for its scheme, but like the UK's capped bus fares withdrawing it is politically difficult.
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Does this mean that Chiltern will not be setting any early starts to the off-peak cap?
It means that customers touching in between 06:30 and 09:30 will be charged a peak fare.
Capping easements have yet to be announced for any of the Phase 2a stations, though it's reasonable to assume there will be some given the increased distance away from London compared to Phase 1 stations.
As far as I can see none were announced for Phase 1 stations, or at least if they were, they aren't on the relevant TfL web page.
https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/capping
EDIT - Oh, they are here for Phase 1
https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/tick...tactless/pay-as-you-go-with-contactless-caps/
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They're also incorporated into my fare finder.
The three smart card validators at Claygate station have been replaced with four new validators of a new design, with the round yellow pads.
View attachment Claygate Validator.JPG
An email from South Western Railway yesterday states:
Followed by a list of stations being upgraded. Today, they sent another email with an updated list containing additional stations. The complete list is:
• Addlestone
• Ascot
• Bookham
• Bracknell
• Byfleet & New Haw
• Chertsey
• Clandon
• Claygate
• Cobham & Stoke D'Abernon
• Earley
• Effingham Junction
• Esher
• Guildford
• Hersham
• Hinchley Wood
• Horsley
• London Road (Guildford)
• Longcross
• Martins Heron
• Oxshott
• Sunningdale
• Walton-on-Thames
• West Byfleet
• Weybridge
• Winnersh
• Winnersh Triangle
• Woking
• Wokingham
• Worplesdon
View attachment Claygate Validator.JPG
An email from South Western Railway yesterday states:
Followed by a list of stations being upgraded. Today, they sent another email with an updated list containing additional stations. The complete list is:
• Addlestone
• Ascot
• Bookham
• Bracknell
• Byfleet & New Haw
• Chertsey
• Clandon
• Claygate
• Cobham & Stoke D'Abernon
• Earley
• Effingham Junction
• Esher
• Guildford
• Hersham
• Hinchley Wood
• Horsley
• London Road (Guildford)
• Longcross
• Martins Heron
• Oxshott
• Sunningdale
• Walton-on-Thames
• West Byfleet
• Weybridge
• Winnersh
• Winnersh Triangle
• Woking
• Wokingham
• Worplesdon
I understand SWR have now added the rest of the Waterloo-Reading line to that list. (EDIT - As per the post before mine)
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Looking at brfares.com from 7 Dec 2025 Stansted Airport no longer has an anytime return to Liv St (the duo remains, which is effectively an anytime return), but does have an off peak day return valid from 0930 with no evening restriction, £28.
Bishops Stortford to London loses all its super off peak fares, and the off peak day return £27.80 has a new 1600/1900 evening weekday restriction. So if you go in off peak and return 1600/1900 an anytime day return is needed £34, and cheaper to buy a Stansted Airport to Liv St off peak day return at £28 and join and stop short?
Couple of other questions, if joining at Stansted Airport is the 0930 off peak, pretty sure it is but wanted to check (of course if paying contactless will be practically impossible to tap at 0930 and still make 0930 departure, but if have paper or e-ticket thinking the £28 fare is good on the 0930)
Also, if you buy before 7 Dec can you buy the current range of fares in advance for travel 7 Dec and later? How much later, on into 2026?
Bishops Stortford to London loses all its super off peak fares, and the off peak day return £27.80 has a new 1600/1900 evening weekday restriction. So if you go in off peak and return 1600/1900 an anytime day return is needed £34, and cheaper to buy a Stansted Airport to Liv St off peak day return at £28 and join and stop short?
Couple of other questions, if joining at Stansted Airport is the 0930 off peak, pretty sure it is but wanted to check (of course if paying contactless will be practically impossible to tap at 0930 and still make 0930 departure, but if have paper or e-ticket thinking the £28 fare is good on the 0930)
Also, if you buy before 7 Dec can you buy the current range of fares in advance for travel 7 Dec and later? How much later, on into 2026?
And presumably, unless I've missed something, by definition commuters make repeated journeys into work, so are the most likely to have season tickets of some sort and not use pay as you go.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Single fare pricing permits an appropriate single each way and two singles for a period return. However that workaround might save a quid or two
going back to the Bishops Stortford example, anytime day return £34.20, will be beaten by peak single £17.10 + peak single with Network Card £13 = £30.10, and even more by peak single £17.10 + peak single with gold card £11.35 = £28.45 (c£6 a day saving means Hatton to Lapworth pays for itself with less than 40 trips); and if you go in after 0930 savings much bigger, discounted off peak single = £9.25 + £11.35 = £20.60, which is however still an increase on the current discounted off peak day return with no evening restriction, £18.40
You can tap in from 0927 and still get off-peak prices thanks to the grace period at the end of the peak. It's there to avoid minor discrepancies with the time on the gates.
The other option is to get an Off-Peak Day Travelcard costing £36.10. Depending on what you're doing in London that may well work out cheaper.
In a lot of cases it will be, yes!
As others have said, the actual threshold is 09:27 for contactless, and there may be some further easements announced for daily capping.
Fares changes at the usual fare rounds (e.g. 7 Dec) typically have an 'Advance Sale Date' of 4 weeks beforehand. In other words, you can no longer buy tickets for after 7 Dec using current prices or restrictions.
Oval go live is a separate fare round. This year the "normal" rounds were 2nd March, 8th June and 7th September.
Ah, my mistake. I wonder why there's the disparity between the fares change and the contactless rollout then? Is it purely to align them with the December timetable change so LNER don't have to accept it to Stevenage?
yes, thanks, and i note this retains its current morning restriction of valid to arrive after 10am, so valid on 0915 Stortford, change Harlow T arr Liv St 1003
That's certainly a possibility. Another option is that TfL want to undertake a week of testing with live fares to make sure everything works as expected. (Compared to Phase 1 where they had nearly seven months between the cash fares changing and Chiltern going live, then a further six months or so for the other Phase 1 stations due to the cyber attack.)
aron2smith
Member
Do caps apply for more local journeys or only ones to/ from London?
So for example, Southend Central to Basildon. Or are the caps only applicable once in zones 1 to 9?
From the National Rail page linked to earlier:
So, if you travel repeatedly between Southend and Basildon you will be charged for each journey every time. However, if you travel more than once into London from the same outside London station then you will be capped at the rate for that station. It's not clear how much geographic knowledge the system has, so it may be that it knows Basildon is on the way to London from Southend and might therefore include Southend to Basildon when another journey was made from Southend to zones 1-9 and back. I'll be happy to liaise with anyone willing to try that out.
I did some testing on the line to Reading a while back, even including a trip to Windsor, and it did seem to know what was what along that line. That may in part be due to the fact TfL runs many of the trains.
The cap is Zone 1 centric, that is the only cap is the one equivalent to the current out boundary travelcard. If you take the wording on the relevant page literally, you actually have to go to a station within the zones for the cap to even apply, but maybe the testing 'MikeWh' did proves that wrong. I note that his testing wasn't on a Project Oval route.
My understanding is that pick-up and set down restrictions at Stevenage is no about Oval but a hack to make the new timetable work. I believe LNER have been involved in discussion about Oval from the start.
Haywain
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 3 Feb 2013
- Messages
- 24,677
This is true.
I am far from convinced by this theory. The restriction only gives flexibility for setting down in the southbound direction, as departures after the northbound pick up are still controlled by the timetable. I don't see that there would be any significant difference to dwell time either. But LNER doesn't want to be part of Oval, having spent several years understanding the impacts of it.
It seems a bit weird that LNER (controlled by DfT) don't want to be part of Oval (controlled by DfT).
Sleepy
Established Member
They don't want to fill a long distance train with people only going to Stevenage any more than GWR would want to fill a Plymouth service with people only going to Maidenhead ?
Haywain
Veteran Member
- Joined
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- Messages
- 24,677
And don't want all of the administrative inconvenience that goes with it.
Kite159
Veteran Member
Surely you mean Reading rather than Maidenhead, considering hardly any long distance GWR services call at Maidenhead.
Reading doesn't work as the comparison as it does have long-distance trains filled up with short-distance passengers.