Please post the answer back here when you get it, even if it's in a while. I would very much like to know.
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London zone 2-6 travelcard withdrawn
- Thread starter philjo
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Please post the answer back here when you get it, even if it's in a while. I would very much like to know.
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R
RailUK Forums
Wouldn't most travellers get a season ticket if they did a journey regularly? If so, this story has been somewhat blown out of proportion.
I've seen threads on forums talking about the cuts and this 74% increase is mentioned regularly, as if all fares are going up by this amount!
I've seen threads on forums talking about the cuts and this 74% increase is mentioned regularly, as if all fares are going up by this amount!
If TfL didn't want to see 74% mentioned so prominently then they shouldn't have made such a drastic change in the fares structure.
In my own case I regularly travel from Crayford to Norwood Junction and back. I try to avoid zone 1 if I can so it costs £4.40 on a Saturday and £5.60 on a Tuesday evening because one of the journeys starts before 7pm. At present the midweek journey caps at £5.10 on it's own, while on Saturday I will often use a bus in the morning and the extra £1.20/£2.40 invokes the cap then as well. It still doesn't reach the all zones cap, but I'll be seeing a pretty hefty increase all the same.
I don't believe I'm unique; I'm pretty sure there must be lots of others who make ad-hoc train journeys without troubling the central zone. Hopefully the FOI request will highlight just how many there are. If TfL have dismissed usage of the 2-6 day travelcard as irrelevant based solely on paper sales, they need to be bought to account if Oyster capping proves that actually the ticket was a lot more popular than they are making out.
bb21
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Not necessarily. I travel to the capital about once a week and usually only use the tube/NR outside Zone 1. My cap currently is £3.35 for the day but once they're withdrawn next year it goes up to £5.30 I believe, increase of just a shade under 60%. All-day bus travel goes up from £3.35 to £4, an increase of just under 20%.
Part of the reason fares in the central zone are higher was iirc to help relieve overcrowding. How can they do this now if travel outside the central area is more expensive. What's the incentive of avoiding zone 1 during rush hours on the tube?
At first I thought that sounded to make sense. Then I realised that it means during the evening peak a journey Willesden Junction - Elephant & Castle will be cheaper than Pimlico - Stockwell. I'm sure the first journey will have some pretty congestion sections.
RJ
Established Member
I sell a few Zone 2-6 Travelcards after 09:30. Nobody has ever asked me for one but I do it if they're cheaper than a return journey within the zones. In some parts of London, a SDR between two stops on the same stretch of line, within the same zone, about a mile apart costs £7.00, against £5.10 for a Zone 2-6 TC. Similarly if somebody with a Zone 1 - 2 TC asks me for a return extension to Purley, Sutton or Kingston they get a Zone 2 - 6 TC.
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Well, the answer has come back from my FOI request and it's a few days before the legal deadline. I must admit to being a little surprised at how low the figures are. The full response is here, while the crucial figures for average daily caps are:
What I think this is telling me is that for travel within the morning peak time just about everyone has the travelcard they require loaded onto their Oyster. I guess this isn't that surprising. For off-peak travel I think it means that far more people than I imagined are actually paying just what they need for their journeys. Given that many of these may well have bought travelcards before, just to be on the safe side, it is probably a vindication that the Oyster system is actually working very well.
I'm still cheesed off that the outer London cap is being withdrawn, but at least it is clear that the figures used in the justification weren't massively skewed by asking the wrong question. On the one hand, making several journeys outside the central zone may well cover longer mileages than the same number of journeys just within the two central zones; but on the other hand, trains will generally be emptier the further out from zone 1 you go so surely they should be encouraging use. I wonder if it's too late to suggest a compromise that the zone 2-6 travelcard should be increased to the same rate as the zone 1-2 version, or the zone 1-4 version. Thus what is currently £5.10 would rise to either £6.60 or £7.30 rather than £8.00?
Code:
Zones Peak Off Peak
Z1-6 14 2983
Z2-6 11 496
inc Z7-9 13 688I'm still cheesed off that the outer London cap is being withdrawn, but at least it is clear that the figures used in the justification weren't massively skewed by asking the wrong question. On the one hand, making several journeys outside the central zone may well cover longer mileages than the same number of journeys just within the two central zones; but on the other hand, trains will generally be emptier the further out from zone 1 you go so surely they should be encouraging use. I wonder if it's too late to suggest a compromise that the zone 2-6 travelcard should be increased to the same rate as the zone 1-2 version, or the zone 1-4 version. Thus what is currently £5.10 would rise to either £6.60 or £7.30 rather than £8.00?
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