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Khan 'fares freeze' not quite true

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Clip

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-36477691

Most passengers will pay the same fares in 2020 as they do now, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced.

The freeze will cost £640m over four years, less than the £1.9bn over five years cost projected by Transport for London during the election campaign.

Mr Khan will review TfL's layers of management, cut agency staff, review projects and freeze salaries of top managers to make savings.

Travelcards, monthly Oyster cards and daily caps are exempt from the freeze.
'Broken promises'

The Liberal Democrats have criticised the mayor for breaking his fares freeze promise as the benefits will not be felt by passengers using travelcards.

"Not what he said in his campaign," said Lib Dem London Assembly Member Caroline Pidgeon.

Conservative group leader Gareth Bacon said: "Sadiq Khan was asked about his fares freeze thousands of times during the mayoral campaign.

"Not once did he mention that this freeze would not include travelcards."

Mr Khan said he could only freeze TfL fares, not those under the control of Department for Transport.

"Londoners currently pay some of the highest public transport fares anywhere in the world," the mayor said.

"My fares freeze on TfL services will make life easier for millions of people and will ensure that London becomes a more affordable city for all."

Now whilst I agree that Khan has said only 'TfL fares' during his campaign it was very remiss of him to give the impression that all fares in London would be frozen including capping and Travelcards.

Normal people dont really care about the difference of how its funded and wouldve thought that the fare freeze wouldve included travelcards as well as capping so in effect he has been economical with the truth and it doesnt look good for him. His researchers and advisors should have known about this before he made the promises.

Nor did his slouching and nonchalant attitude about it when being grilled.
 
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Bletchleyite

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Must admit I thought that all the candidates this time round were extremely weak, though Khan was the best of a bad bunch.

I think the former sentence is now being backed up - he is not and never will be a Ken nor a Boris - both very strong Mayors if in completely different ways.
 

Mikey C

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Travelcards, monthly Oyster cards and daily caps are exempt from the freeze.

A lot of people have travelcards, including those within the London boundary

What's a monthly Oyster card anyway? A monthly bus pass or travelcard?

If the daily cap isn't frozen, that will lead to higher fares for many people...
 

deltic

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It was never in his gift to freeze the price of products also provided by the TOCs but no one picked him up on this in the electoral campaign. Presumably the daily bus only Oyster cap has to be frozen as that is a TfL only product.
 

PeterC

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The promise sounded too good to be true and it was.
 

infobleep

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-36477691



Now whilst I agree that Khan has said only 'TfL fares' during his campaign it was very remiss of him to give the impression that all fares in London would be frozen including capping and Travelcards.

Normal people dont really care about the difference of how its funded and wouldve thought that the fare freeze wouldve included travelcards as well as capping so in effect he has been economical with the truth and it doesnt look good for him. His researchers and advisors should have known about this before he made the promises.

Nor did his slouching and nonchalant attitude about it when being grilled.
Why didn't the opposition candidates pick up on it during the campaign and ask him if it included travel cards? Surely they have advisera too?

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455driver

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Why didn't the opposition candidates pick up on it during the campaign and ask him if it included travel cards? Surely they have advisera too?
Because they were too worried about being picked up on their own lies.
Or as 'they' like to call them, misunderstandings!
 

Clip

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Why didn't the opposition candidates pick up on it during the campaign and ask him if it included travel cards? Surely they have advisera too?

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They do but obviously missed it and they didnt get into power did they so that doesnt matter now does it?

Now ill post this column he wrote for the Standard and look carefully at his first few paragraphs

Commuting for Londoners is now more expensive than in any other city in the world. For eight Januaries in a row, the cost of your ticket has gone up — hurting Londoners and our city’s economy. As Mayor, I’ll make London’s public transport more affordable.

Since 2008 fare hikes have cost Londoners thousands of pounds. If you are commuting from Zone 6 you’ve paid an extra £3,351, while from Zone 1 it’s £1,891. And a monthly bus pass has cost you an extra £2,070.

These huge increases hurt Londoners of all incomes. Taken with the high cost of housing, our city has become an increasingly difficult place to live. Every time the cost of a travelcard goes up, for many Londoners it means cutting back on food, heating or even clothing their children. Even for Londoners on decent incomes there’s less money left at the end of the month to save for a deposit, let alone enjoy London.

And its only further down that he mentions TfL only fares
There’ll be a cash freeze across all Transport for London fares for the full four years of my mayoral term of office. You won’t pay a penny more in 2020 than you do now.

And on his trawl across the boroughs he was mentioning the fact that 'Londoners wont pay more then then they do now' without saying about it being TfL only fares so again he was being economical with the truth.

Dont worry abotu other parties, focus on ther here and now and youll understand it a bit better.

@Mikey C - oddly people do still differentiate by Oyster seasons and Travelcards as its in their minds that a TC is a paper and Oyster is a card - we know their the same thing but for londoners they are different if that makes sense
 

phoenixcronin

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Whilst I realise that Travelcard prices are set by the DfT/TOCs I'm not sure many people will buy his excuse that he can only freeze "TFL fares". Many people, including myself, have travelcards and travel almost exclusively on TFL services, and those who purchase these from TFL will likely not appreciate how it does fall under the definition of "TFL fares".
 

infobleep

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They do but obviously missed it and they didnt get into power did they so that doesnt matter now does it?

Now ill post this column he wrote for the Standard and look carefully at his first few paragraphs



And its only further down that he mentions TfL only fares


And on his trawl across the boroughs he was mentioning the fact that 'Londoners wont pay more then then they do now' without saying about it being TfL only fares so again he was being economical with the truth.

Dont worry abotu other parties, focus on ther here and now and youll understand it a bit better.

@Mikey C - oddly people do still differentiate by Oyster seasons and Travelcards as its in their minds that a TC is a paper and Oyster is a card - we know their the same thing but for londoners they are different if that makes sense
That isn't great what he said that's for sure. Not great at all. Perhaps politicians should be required to print small print terms and conditions 's when making such statements, just as companies do.

Personally I'm not keen on Labour and have never voted for them. However if an opposition politican complains about something then I do think why now and not before.

A couple of years ago, c2014, there was a parliamentary report saying the Government scheme, Access to Work, was not well publicised. I could have told them that back in 2007 when I accidentally found out about it but didn't need it at that time. When I did need it before that point I was unaware of it! Even the job Centres was unaware of it. Why did it take so long for them realise it wasn't well publicised? At least I knew about it from that point onwards and have made use of it since.

Of course the timescales of the fares economics of Khan are much shorter of course.m and I mean economics in both senses, truth and costs.

Doesn't TfL want access to all the metro routes. If that got that then surely they could create their own fares and pricing. Then the higher pricing would only apply to fast or semi-fast / ssmi-slow services still run by TOCs.

Would much cheaper fares on routes owned by TfL with their much cheaper fares, encourage people to move to those areas to rent?

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duncanp

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I suppose it is possible that the TOCs and/or the government would agree to freeze travelcard fares within Zones 1 - 6, providing Mr Khan stumps up the money from his own budget, which would presumably mean an increase in council tax.

Anyone remember the "fares fair" debacle in 1981 after Ken Livingstone became Mayor. He reduced Tfl fares and imposed a supplementary rate to pay for it. The London Borough of Bromley objected to paying for a fares reduction on the tube when they were only served by British Rail services.
 

matt_world2004

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Maybe Sadiq Khan could launch a TfL services only travelcard, that would really put the goose up the TOC's as TfL dominate rail services in the London area, People would probably rather take a slight detour if it saved them a few quid.
 

Tetchytyke

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He's been clear since the start that it was only TfL fares that fall under his jurisdiction, not TOC fares. His only mistake has not been to bat this back towards the money-grabbers at GoVia, who control most of London's heavy rail services.

It's no different to Johnson's disingenuity about "real terms fares freezes" which were neither real terms nor a fares freeze.
 

Bletchleyite

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Maybe Sadiq Khan could launch a TfL services only travelcard, that would really put the goose up the TOC's as TfL dominate rail services in the London area, People would probably rather take a slight detour if it saved them a few quid.

There used to be one, called the LT Card, it was abolished years ago.
 

Starmill

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I don't understand. If Day Travelcards, Travelcard Seasons and PAYG caps are not being frozen... then what is? Bus and tram PAYG singles and the bus and tram pass? What about the bus and tram cap? If this is all it will apply to then clearly he has been very disingenuous.

Or does he mean it will apply to all the PAYG single fares?
 

radamfi

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I suspect that some people will stop buying Travelcards and only use PAYG. I think Travelcard prices have been increasing at a higher rate than single fares for a number of years so I suspect some people have already stopped buying Travelcards, and others may well be paying more than they need to because they are buying Travelcards out of habit when they would pay less using PAYG.

There are arguments in favour of keeping season tickets, for example getting revenue up front and the possibility of generated trips because of the low or zero perceived cost, but there is less incentive to make season tickets attractive compared to the 80s/90s as there is no longer any need to worry about ticket office queues or printing tickets.
 

jon0844

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It does seem that the best trick is to keep individual fares the same, but increase the cap or axe it completely.

You'd still be technically accurate about not increasing fares. It's just as sneaky as Trainline going on about saving 40%, as it relies on the general public reading it wrong - but it never having actually been wrong, or a lie.
 

Bletchleyite

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I suspect that some people will stop buying Travelcards and only use PAYG. I think Travelcard prices have been increasing at a higher rate than single fares for a number of years so I suspect some people have already stopped buying Travelcards, and others may well be paying more than they need to because they are buying Travelcards out of habit when they would pay less using PAYG.

There are arguments in favour of keeping season tickets, for example getting revenue up front and the possibility of generated trips because of the low or zero perceived cost, but there is less incentive to make season tickets attractive compared to the 80s/90s as there is no longer any need to worry about ticket office queues or printing tickets.

There is probably also a motivation to make ODTCs including Outboundary ones poor value. If for most people it's just as easy to buy a return to London then use Oyster/contactless, magstripe ticketing could be abolished entirely on TfL, which would save an absolute fortune in maintenance by making the ticket reading equipment on the barriers totally solid-state.
 

jon0844

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I can see that with capping on Oyster and CPCs (equivalent to a TC) you could one day seek to get rid of the paper travelcard.

And once there's no TC to compare against price wise, you can adjust the capping but focus on individual fares.

With the one hour ticket for buses, the mayor can probably claim not only to be freezing prices but actually reducing them - technically.

He's just like any other politician really - very smart, or some might say sneaky. Hardly matters what side of the fence you sit on these days.
 

Starmill

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There is probably also a motivation to make ODTCs including Outboundary ones poor value. If for most people it's just as easy to buy a return to London then use Oyster/contactless, magstripe ticketing could be abolished entirely on TfL, which would save an absolute fortune in maintenance by making the ticket reading equipment on the barriers totally solid-state.

But with most of the TOCs pretty much committed to installing their own smartcard infrastructure in the future anyway...
 

swt_passenger

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There is probably also a motivation to make ODTCs including Outboundary ones poor value. If for most people it's just as easy to buy a return to London then use Oyster/contactless, magstripe ticketing could be abolished entirely on TfL, which would save an absolute fortune in maintenance by making the ticket reading equipment on the barriers totally solid-state.

And yet again, what about people making use of inclusive cross London fares? Make them pay separately for the bit in the middle?
 

DynamicSpirit

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Maybe Sadiq Khan could launch a TfL services only travelcard, that would really put the goose up the TOC's as TfL dominate rail services in the London area, People would probably rather take a slight detour if it saved them a few quid.

That was one of my first thoughts when I heard the news about the fares. However, on reflection, I would hazard a guess that doing so might be difficult: The Oyster/Travelcard system works on National Rail - I would guess, thanks to carefully negotiated agreements between Tfl and TOCs. The TOCs would probably be extremely annoyed if TfL introduced TfL-only travelcards, and I could imagine that making negotiations on future fare levels difficult.

Also, unless the TfL-only Travelcard was priced at the same level as the current TfL+National Rail one (which would amount to an effective fares increase), introducing it would presumably cause TfL considerable loss of income as people who don't really use National Rail much switched to the new cheaper travelcard.
 

infobleep

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That was one of my first thoughts when I heard the news about the fares. However, on reflection, I would hazard a guess that doing so might be difficult: The Oyster/Travelcard system works on National Rail - I would guess, thanks to carefully negotiated agreements between Tfl and TOCs. The TOCs would probably be extremely annoyed if TfL introduced TfL-only travelcards, and I could imagine that making negotiations on future fare levels difficult.

Also, unless the TfL-only Travelcard was priced at the same level as the current TfL+National Rail one (which would amount to an effective fares increase), introducing it would presumably cause TfL considerable loss of income as people who don't really use National Rail much switched to the new cheaper travelcard.
But any price freeze would cause a loss of income. It's how you deal with the loss.

Of course TfL services aren't universal across London yet. So introduce a TfL only card and only some parts of London benefit. Of course that might be considered desirable regardless.

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Busaholic

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Unlike Liam Byrne, Boris Johnson didn't leave a note for his successor saying the cupboard is bare, but, thanks in part to his actions/inactions over the last eight years, and part to the Treasury's treatment of London public transport going forward, that is the case. BJ wasted huge sums on a new bus vanity project and reduced Central London road capacity by 20%, so helping to increase traffic congestion by 12% p.a. since 2012, which is having a deleterious effect on bus services, catastrophically so on some individual routes. The money is not there to put on the extra buses required to maintain frequencies, although I have noticed West London has escaped relatively unscathed in this regard, which, I suppose, was helped by having a mayor who was simultaneously an MP for a west London constituency!
 

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When London Regional Transport ran public transport in London there used to be an 'LT Card' which was basically valid on the tube and bus services. However I seem to remember that it wasn't valid north of Queens Park on the Bakerloo Line because National Rail fares applied between Queens Park and Harrow & Wealdstone.

Just to confuse things further we also had Travelcards which were valid, as now, on trains, tubes and buses in the relevant zones.
 

Mojo

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When London Regional Transport ran public transport in London there used to be an 'LT Card' which was basically valid on the tube and bus services. However I seem to remember that it wasn't valid north of Queens Park on the Bakerloo Line because National Rail fares applied between Queens Park and Harrow & Wealdstone.

Just to confuse things further we also had Travelcards which were valid, as now, on trains, tubes and buses in the relevant zones.

The Through Ticketing (Non Travelcard) Agreement still has a provision for LT Cards:

The Operators shall honour LT Cards on Railway Services operating on the following routes:

Upminster - Fenchurch Street
Stratford - Liverpool Street
Stratford - West Ham [1]
Finsbury Park - Moorgate
King's Cross Thameslink - Moorgate [1]
King's Cross Thameslink - Elephant & Castle/London Bridge [2]
Amersham - Marylebone
Richmond - Gunnersbury
West Ruislip - South Ruislip.

[1] Obviously these lines have now shut down so these are no longer applicable.
[2] I think this should actually be Kentish Town because later in the document it says something different.
 

matt_world2004

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The Through Ticketing (Non Travelcard) Agreement still has a provision for LT Cards:



[1] Obviously these lines have now shut down so these are no longer applicable.
[2] I think this should actually be Kentish Town because later in the document it says something different.

Isn't sections of this agreement applied to veteran passes and Freedom passes before 9:30?
 

Deerfold

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The Through Ticketing (Non Travelcard) Agreement still has a provision for LT Cards:



[1] Obviously these lines have now shut down so these are no longer applicable.
[2] I think this should actually be Kentish Town because later in the document it says something different.

Would you have to pay separately between St Pancras and Kings Cross Thameslink?
 
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