How will crossrail tickets work?

[Horizon22]

Of course, no comparison between 2 real world examples will ever match 100%. But TL and most of LO is a through-and-through TOC on the national network and the tube is it's own thing that happens to share the odd bit of track with NR, whereas the ELL is a dedicated 'core' section, with multiple branches out onto the national network in a very similar way to XR. The key factor in ticket & fare structure will, of course, be the journeys that people are likely to make. I'm not sure how XR compares to TL/LU/LO/ELL on that front.

Its probably most like Thameslink - not many people will go east-west (or vice versa) beyond the core section as their destination (although of course some will). The exception to this might be Heathrow and to a lesser extent, Stratford.

 

[Wallsendmag]

I guess everything will be clear in 10-20 years when it opens.

 

[swt_passenger]

I guess everything will be clear in 10-20 years when it opens.

Many a true word, but then again fares to London Thameslink from the south happened about 30 years AFTER it opened...

 

[Horizon22]

I guess everything will be clear in 10-20 years when it opens.

I know its tongue-in-cheek but in reality we could be less than 12 months away from someone being able to buy a ticket to one of these stations.

 

[Hadders]

I can't see the revenue logic in that - it would presumably be TfL abstracting revenue from...TfL in that case, why would TfL reduce its own income (from a Maltese Cross ticket to a "Via Lizzie" tickets). That's different to Thameslink "Not Underground" tickets whereby GTR take all the revenue as a result.




I wouldn't get your hopes up - there's no real advantage as (Unlike Thameslink) all direct journeys to the core can be made on Contactless (yes, I know that's not great for Railcard holders), and all other cases can be covered by U12 tickets/Travelcards (which I'd argue is simple, as that's what applies to Underground journeys at present)

Depending on how ORCATS divvies up the fare a via Elizabeth Line fare might not need to be shared with Greater Anglia or GWR.

 

[cactustwirly]

Depending on how ORCATS divvies up the fare a via Elizabeth Line fare might not need to be shared with Greater Anglia or GWR.

Depends on the origin, GWR will take a hefty slice of the ORCATs for journeys starting at Slough, Maidenhead, Twyford and Reading

 

[matt_world2004]

I don't think national rail tickets would be valid on it beyond Liverpool Street in the east and Paddington in the west It would require interavailability with nearly the whole tube network in zone 1 if national rail tickets are valid on it.

 

[cactustwirly]

I don't think national rail tickets would be valid on it beyond Liverpool Street in the east and Paddington in the west It would require interavailability with nearly the whole tube network in zone 1 if national rail tickets are valid on it.

They will have to be, because TfL Rail are a National Rail operator who are bound by the TSA.

Btw National Rail tickets are Valid on the ELL...

 

[unlevel42]

All the above is too complicated for me.
I will be travelling weekly from Sheffield to Abbey Wood (or Woolwich Arsenal) starting in the autumn.
I have a senior railcard.
Will a through ticket using Crossrail be available?
Are their better options?

 

[JonathanH]

Btw National Rail tickets are Valid on the ELL...

They are but some of the revenue staff didn't used to be keen on then being used in the core area (although it was six years ago that I was challenged).

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/using-east-london-line-for-cross-london-journeys.109483/

 

[Watershed]

All the above is too complicated for me.
I will be travelling weekly from Sheffield to Abbey Wood (or Woolwich Arsenal) starting in the autumn.
I have a senior railcard.
Will a through ticket using Crossrail be available?
Are their better options?

Do you mean Shenfield (Essex) or Sheffield (S Yorks)?

 

[unlevel42]

Do you mean Shenfield (Essex) or Sheffield (S Yorks)?

Sheffield in Yorkshire

 

[matt_world2004]

They will have to be, because TfL Rail are a National Rail operator who are bound by the TSA.

Btw National Rail tickets are Valid on the ELL...

The only agreement I can find with the dft is that there would be no split pricing between Paddington and reading and Liverpool Street and shenfield nothing about the core. Heathrow connect demonstrates one such example.where a service was only required to accept national rail tickets for part of the route.

When crossrail was delayed it was too late to change London underground ticket machines for the December fare change. Abbey wood Elizabeth line was priced differently from Abbey wood southeastern for example this certainly seems to indicate that there would be a seperation of tickets in the core.

 

[thedbdiboy]

The rat's nest of allocations between TOCs and TfL plus the Government directive that no-one can ever pay more but they can't afford for anyone to pay less has severely hampered attempts to try and sort Crossrail fares out logically. Allocations should not affect passenger outcomes but they do - the reason that London Thameslink from the south took so long to sort was that it had to wait until Southern and Thameslink were combined into one operation.
It doesn't help that Crossrail is on the one hand a National Rail service yet managed by TfL. However, there is a chink of light now that allocations between TOCs have become 'wooden dollars' and the Government are having to fund TfL (giving DfT some leverage with TfL fares policy). Whether it's all sorted out by the time it opens seems unlikely but I'm sure that as soon as some daft outcome affects someone of importance it will miraculously become a top priority to sort out.

 

[plugwash]

My question was not so much about what the fares will be, but whether the tickets will be available at all and if-so what form will they take? Will someone living far from london (say cardiff for example) be able to buy a through ticket to one of the new crossrail stations or will they be forced to split their journey between a conventional rail ticket and oyster/contactless and/or workaround the issue by buying an over-distance ticket to an existing station?

I'm aware that tickets exist to London underground zones but I don't think they exist from all stations (or at least I can't find them on brfares).

 

[JonathanH]

I'm aware that tickets exist to London underground zones but I don't think they exist from all stations (or at least I can't find them on brfares).

Fares to all underground stations should exist from all stations. For example, this from Kyle of Lochalsh to any underground station in Zone 1

https://www.brfares.com/!fares?orig=KYL&dest=0785

The relevant destinations on BRFares are "Zone U1* London", "Zone U12* London" etc. It seems pretty certain that either these fares will apply or there will be tickets issued to the individual stations or "London Crossrail".

 

[Hadders]

My question was not so much about what the fares will be, but whether the tickets will be available at all and if-so what form will they take? Will someone living far from london (say cardiff for example) be able to buy a through ticket to one of the new crossrail stations or will they be forced to split their journey between a conventional rail ticket and oyster/contactless and/or workaround the issue by buying an over-distance ticket to an existing station?

I'm aware that tickets exist to London underground zones but I don't think they exist from all stations (or at least I can't find them on brfares).

I'm sure that Crossrail will be able to be used for a cross-London transfer, e.g. Cardiff to Ipswich route +Any Permitted. It would be absolutely bonkers if it wasn't allowed.

 

[MarlowDonkey]

The relevant destinations on BRFares are "Zone U1* London", "Zone U12* London" etc. It seems pretty certain that either these fares will apply or there will be tickets issued to the individual stations or "London Crossrail".

All the stations on Crossrail between Paddington and Liverpool Street can be reached by existing Underground routes. If not an impossibility, having separate fares implies the ticket barriers have some means of detecting the route.

 

[Horizon22]

All the above is too complicated for me.
I will be travelling weekly from Sheffield to Abbey Wood (or Woolwich Arsenal) starting in the autumn.
I have a senior railcard.
Will a through ticket using Crossrail be available?
Are their better options?

Doubt it would be open this Autumn. Best bet is Sheffield to St Pancras, Thameslink to London Bridge and Southeastern to Abbey Wood. You could try and through Thameslink also to Abbey Wood, but can be irregular.

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

All the above is too complicated for me.
I will be travelling weekly from Sheffield to Abbey Wood (or Woolwich Arsenal) starting in the autumn.
I have a senior railcard.
Will a through ticket using Crossrail be available?

Yes, there will be a fare. It might be a fare to Abbey Wood or Woolwich, or to Underground zones 1-4, it depends upon whether they'll treat those stations the same as in the central area. I'd have thought that a named station would be better to allow use on Southeastern as well, but there seems to be a wish to keep the tunnels wholly within the Underground fare structure.

 

[westv]

Can someone remind me when the Elizabeth line is due to open?

 

[MikeWh]

Can someone remind me when the Elizabeth line is due to open?

Funny you should ask that. From today's Evening Standard:

London’s transport commissioner has set himself the goal of getting Crossrail open by Christmas, the Evening Standard can reveal.
Andy Byford is spending his days focused on the twin challenges of getting the long-delayed, over-budget line open slightly ahead of the latest estimate, while encouraging passengers back onto the Tube and buses.
The official timeline is for Crossrail’s central section linking Liverpool Street, Abbey Wood and Paddington to open in the first half of next year.

Trial running has begun with four trains an hour and Mr Byford is driving his team daily to get the £19 billion line open as soon as possible, with December 24 earmarked as a possible opening date.

However testing has to increase to 24 trains an hour with the final integration of the software that allows trains to communicate with the signals.

 

[JonathanH]

Trial running has begun with four trains an hour

I'm not sure that is right. In fact, I think it has been pushed back in the schedules another week as the schedules reported here aren't there any more. However, https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...n-updates-and-progress-towards-opening.211880 is the better thread for discussion about opening date.

However, on tickets and opening, the interesting thing about an opening before the end of the year is whether fares and tickets get amended for opening on day 1, perhaps in mid-December, or whether they wait for the January fare change. Presumably there are some structural changes to Oyster / Contactless fares because of the additional journey opportunities that Crossrail provides.

 

[plugwash]

IIRC from one of Geoff mashalls videos the Oyster/Contactless fares for crossrail have been in place for some time.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Do we expect the creation of GBR to have any bearing on Crossrail fares and validity on "National Rail"?
It should at least unify the positions of the connecting DfT TOCs.
TfL is also still on hand-to-mouth government funding and is therefore under greater DfT leverage than before.
And we are promised fares "simplification".

 

[hkstudent]

Do we expect the creation of GBR to have any bearing on Crossrail fares and validity on "National Rail"?
It should at least unify the positions of the connecting DfT TOCs.
TfL is also still on hand-to-mouth government funding and is therefore under greater DfT leverage than before.
And we are promised fares "simplification".

The simplest way would be copying the way where Thameslink Core works, stopping London Terminal validity at the first (and second) boundary station (STP for north, CTK and BFR for south); which PAD and LST would be the logical ones, though, would LST be Southeastern's new London Terminal is doubtful.
To simple fare, I guess TfL may charge a flat fare on National Rail ticket in Thameslink core to simplify things, likely an NR Zone 1-2 fare, which is £3.80 for a single for most TOCs in southern Greater London.

 

[PeterC]

To a layman it would seem self evident that the core and Abbey Wood branch would be treated as part of the Underground for ticketing purposes. Ticketing T&Cs will probably be amended if required.

 

[thedbdiboy]

Do we expect the creation of GBR to have any bearing on Crossrail fares and validity on "National Rail"?
It should at least unify the positions of the connecting DfT TOCs.
TfL is also still on hand-to-mouth government funding and is therefore under greater DfT leverage than before.
And we are promised fares "simplification".

Once GBR is established then I would expect that it will be in a much greater position to evaluate and make decisions on Crossrail validities, including agreements with TfL. A bit like how the original cross-London validities did not magically appear on a mountainside but were created between BR and LT (and without Ministers being involved). It is only in the weird interlude of privatisation that ticket validities were viewed as some sort of immutable law and the agencies involved (TOCs, DfT etc) mere mortals that had to try and interpret it all without ever substantially changing anything. Trying to do this in relation to a brand new line that fundamentally alters the relationships of a significant number of journeys is really jumping the shark.

 

[jfollows]

Yesterday's Evening Standard states that Crossrail/Elizabeth Line will be "no more expensive than the Tube or the corresponding trip on the mainline rail network" with the exception of Heathrow. Heathrow will cost more but the journey will be incorporated into the capping system for zones 1-6, currently £13.50 a day.
Quote from https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/heathrow-crossrail-tickets-cost-elizabeth-line-b944300.html:

Heathrow passengers using Crossrail will have higher fares ‘capped at Tube rates’

By

Ross Lydall

@RossLydall

1 day ago

Plans to minimise the cost of using Crossrail to get to and from Heathrow have been revealed.

Airport passengers will be charged a premium rate compared with the same journey on the Tube - but will benefit from fare capping if they make additional journeys on the Transport for London network, the Evening Standard has learned.

This will have the effect of “neutralising” the higher cost of using the Elizabeth line, and means that adult passengers will not pay more than £13.50 a day - the current cap for zones 1-6 - for all travel within a 24-hour period.

The decision to bring Elizabeth line fares within the capping system for Oyster and contactless cards emerged as the first of nine new Crossrail stations was opened to Tube passengers.

Crossrail chiefs also revealed that they should know within the next two to three months exactly when the £18.7bn line can open under central London next year.

To date, TfL has only committed to opening it in the first half of 2022, about three-and-a-half years late.

At present, a single journey on the TfL Rail services between Paddington mainline station and Heathrow Terminal 5 rail station - a route which will eventually be incorporated into the Elizabeth line in 2023 - costs £11.10 at peak times and £10.40 off peak.

By comparison, using the Tube from Paddington to reach the airport via the Piccadilly line costs £5.30 at peak times and £3.30 off-peak.

But TfL confirmed today that its fare-capping system would include the Elizabeth line - meaning that Heathrow passengers would pay no more than £13.50 at current rates for all journeys made the same day.

Ticket prices to and from Heathrow from other Crossrail stations are yet to be announced but are also expected to be set at a premium.

Fares for the Heathrow Express 15-minute non-stop shuttle to and from Paddington start at £22.

Liverpool Street station is said to have been the most complex in engineering terms and is also the deepest, at 42m below ground. The station is so big that it stretches from Liverpool Street mainline station all the way underground to Moorgate station.

Transport for London had previously announced, in 2018, that peak hours travel between Heathrow airport and zone 1 would cost £7 more than the same journey on the Piccadilly line, while zone 2 passengers would pay £4.50 more.

Andy Lord, managing director of the London Underground, said that, excluding Heathrow, the Elizabeth line would be no more expensive than the Tube or the corresponding trip on the mainline rail network.

Mr Lord said having a unique fare structure for the Elizabeth line would be “logistically complex” because of the ability to interchange with the Tube. “We will keep it under review, but at the moment the intent is that it will be the same,” he said.

Passengers using the Circle, Metropolitan and Hammersmith & City lines can now use the new step-free Crossrail station entrance on Moorfields, beside Moorgate station.

Farringdon, Tottenham Court Road, Custom House and Woolwich stations have already been handed over to TfL but Liverpool Street, built by main contractor Laing O’Rourke, is the first to benefit Underground passengers.

Paddington should be ready to be handed over to TfL in about three weeks, followed by Whitechapel and Canary Wharf.

But Bond Street may not be completed until early next year, and may not be ready for the start of Elizabeth line services. In that case, trains would run through the station without stopping for several weeks.

Mr Lord said the integration of the new entrance at Moorfields was a “fantastic milestone”. He said: “It’s almost a cathedral underground. It’s an amazing station.

“The Elizabeth line is going to be a fantastic asset for London. The trains are already proving themselves on the TfL Rail network. I think the Elizabeth line will be something that the whole of London will be incredibly proud of.

“The Elizabeth line will do two things for us. It will play a key role in the economic recovery post-pandemic… it delivers a 10 per cent increase in capacity to our network.

“The stations are huge, there is plenty of space and they are well-ventilated. It will enable people to socially distance, if that is still a requirement in the longer term.”

Kim Kapur, head of station integration for London Underground, said: “I think [passengers] are going to be amazed. It’s phenomenal. I don’t think they are going to be prepared for what they are going to see.”

She said the scale of the Crossrail stations would reassure passengers wary of returning to public transport in the wake of the pandemic.

“People will find that there is such vast space and the platforms are so long, the cross passages are so wide, they won’t feel so confined either,” she said.

Mark Wild, Crossrail chief executive, said the completion of Liverpool Street station was a “big jigsaw piece” in an intricate puzzle to get the line open.

“This has been 10 years in the making,” he said. “To get Liverpool Street over the line, we are very, very pleased. It is one of the most complex and most difficult stations, and one of our largest.”

He said the key factor in determining the opening date for the line was the final software upgrade linking the new trains and signalling systems, which is due to happen between August and October.

“When you are talking about software, you are never sure until you are sure,” he said. “We need to see how good that quality is. Then we will know.

“But I am very confident about the [six month] opening window. I think we can almost be guaranteed that we will open in that opening window.”

 

[swt_passenger]

I don’t think the explanation of fares to Heathrow in the above article is any different to what’s been in place ever since TfL took over the “connect” service…