Project Oval on WMT - odd fares

[Bletchleyite]

I'm seeing some suggestion on a local anti-WMT "protest group" on Facebook that people are being somewhat undercharged during the first week of Oval. One suggestion is of people being charged only £21.60 for a return trip from Hemel to Euston whereas I'd expect £26.80 (Anytime Day Return/two Anytime Day Singles). Have they perhaps entered the caps wrong? That seems way too low a cap for that given that TfL's site says the cap from Watford is over thirty quid. One of the cases did involve a zone 1 Tube return journey being made, but that wouldn't get the fare high enough to cap at that level.

Any thoughts as to what might be going on there? One of them is adamant the station staff have said it's correct but I don't see how it can be.

 

[JonathanH]

Something similar to this happened when Contactless was first introduced on the Gatwick route back in 2016.

The price from Redhill until it could be 'fixed' was something like the combination of the Redhill to Zone 4 extension and the all day cap for Zones 1-3. The fix was to introduce extension fares that very much exceeded the usual fare from Redhill to an actual Zone 4 station. See https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...less-boundary-zone-fares.230395/#post-5624368

If the Project Oval set up from Hemel Hempstead doesn't have the artificially high boundary fares, that may explain this.

However, looking at fares from Hemel Hempstead to Wembley Central, it seems that the ordinary fares would exceed £21.60 for a return.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Could well be that particularly because of the Tube journeys involved. Interesting, thanks.

I tried working it out for a Zone 1-3 cap and it comes out higher even with the two Tube journeys contributing to the cap, but it could well be one of the other combinations and I haven't got all night to work all of them out. It does seem a plausible explanation though. Shame that will mean higher BZ fares to fix it, though I rarely use them at this end anyway so personal issues with that would be low.

However, looking at fares from Hemel Hempstead to Wembley Central, it seems that the ordinary fares would exceed £21.60 for a return.

I wonder if the person actually made more Tube journeys than they said, which could have resulted in the cap applying and bringing down the total. But a few people are saying this is happening, and it is pretty typical for a commute to be "London terminal and back and one Z1 return Tube journey". So something odd is going on!

 

[A S Leib]

It's different, but another thing with LNR Oval that I think should be fixed. The TfL single fare finder currently lists the Hemel Hempstead to Luton Airport Parkway fare as £12.20 peak / £7.60 off-peak without mentioning that that's the fare via St. Albans Abbey.

Given that the connection time between St. Albans stations is around the same as Euston to St. Pancras and via London's a lot more frequent, and even going via the Marston Vale isn't much slower, I don't think most people would assume that that's the price of changing at Watford Junction and St. Albans Abbey / City.

If anything, the TfL website gives a reason to assume the opposite, as it also says that some journeys are charged via Zone 1 irrespective of the route taken.

Bletchley – Luton Airport Parkway, where there's a via London and a via Bedford fare but no Watford not London fare, is listed as having the via London fare.

Berkhamsted's in Hemel's situation and Tring's in Bletchley's, which lines up with the tickets available but doesn't make sense for there not to be a Tring – Luton via St. Albans Abbey fare when Tring more or less gets an identical service to Hemel and Berkhamsted.

 

[Haywain]

It's different, but another thing with LNR Oval that I think should be fixed. The TfL single fare finder currently lists the Hemel Hempstead to Luton Airport Parkway fare as £12.20 peak / £7.60 off-peak without mentioning that that's the fare via St. Albans Abbey.

Given that the connection time between St. Albans stations is around the same as Euston to St. Pancras and via London's a lot more frequent, and even going via the Marston Vale isn't much slower, I don't think most people would assume that that's the price of changing at Watford Junction and St. Albans Abbey / City.

If anything, the TfL website gives a reason to assume the opposite, as it also says that some journeys are charged via Zone 1 irrespective of the route taken.

Bletchley – Luton Airport Parkway, where there's a via London and a via Bedford fare but no Watford not London fare, is listed as having the via London fare.

Berkhamsted's in Hemel's situation and Tring's in Bletchley's, which lines up with the tickets available but doesn't make sense for there not to be a Tring – Luton via St. Albans Abbey fare when Tring more or less gets an identical service to Hemel and Berkhamsted.

Does it matter? No-one in their right mind is going to travel from Hemel Hempstead to Luton Airport by train.

 

[Hadders]

As I understand it, the default fare is £12.20/£7.60 regardless of the route taken. This is what you would get charged travelling via Euston and St Pancras.

I’m not sure if an Out of Station Interchange exists between St Albans City and St Albans Abbey so anyone going that way could be charged more by using contactless.

Via Bedford would not be allowed with contactless as that route goes outside the contactless PAYG zone.

This does look like an anomaly but it really isn’t because, unlike using a traditional ticket, you cannot finish short and use a Hemel Hempstead to Luton contactless fare to travel only as far as Euston.

 

[JonathanH]

Fares to Luton Airport Parkway from LNR stations are a bit inconsistent. The fares from stations on the Abbey Branch are considerably more than the fare from those stations to St Albans Abbey and then from St Albans City to Luton Airport Parkway. Likewise stations on the Abbey branch to Radlett. Hemel Hempstead to Radlett is quite a bit more expensive than Hemel Hempstead to Luton Airport Parkway.

Given Hemel Hempstead to Harpenden is £32.90 peak / £16.00 off-peak, something seems awry with the Luton Airport Parkway fare, but I recognise that break of journey means a lower fare can be charged if someone wants it to be.

TfL haven't updated the OSI list since October 2022 so there is no public facing information about a St Albans OSI. I assume there is a Windsor OSI because the Datchet to Slough price is consistent with a journey being made that way.

 

[noger]

I'm seeing some suggestion on a local anti-WMT "protest group" on Facebook that people are being somewhat undercharged during the first week of Oval. One suggestion is of people being charged only £21.60 for a return trip from Hemel to Euston whereas I'd expect £26.80 (Anytime Day Return/two Anytime Day Singles). Have they perhaps entered the caps wrong? That seems way too low a cap for that given that TfL's site says the cap from Watford is over thirty quid. One of the cases did involve a zone 1 Tube return journey being made, but that wouldn't get the fare high enough to cap at that level.

Any thoughts as to what might be going on there? One of them is adamant the station staff have said it's correct but I don't see how it can be.

Someone screwed up somewhere. Saw a screenshot earlier which showed that the price for the whole journey between Berkhamsted and London Euston was included in the Zone 1-4 fare cap.

 

[akm]

Someone screwed up somewhere. Saw a screenshot earlier which showed that the price for the whole journey between Berkhamsted and London Euston was included in the Zone 1-4 fare cap.

The website doesn't make it especially clear what's in the cap and isn't, it just tells you when a particular day and/or journey benefitted from capping. Are you able to share the screenshot?

TfL haven't updated the OSI list since October 2022 so there is no public facing information about a St Albans OSI. I assume there is a Windsor OSI because the Datchet to Slough price is consistent with a journey being made that way.

There are currently no OSIs outside London. Anyone doing Datchet to Slough via Windsor will be charged for two journeys. Anyone doing it via London will be charged the fare that Single Fare Finder shows...

 

[redreni]

There are currently no OSIs outside London. Anyone doing Datchet to Slough via Windsor will be charged for two journeys. Anyone doing it via London will be charged the fare that Single Fare Finder shows...

How does that fit with the best fare guarantee, I wonder?

Nobody in their right mind would do that journey via London, and as far as I can see you can't do that journey via London on a through paper ticket, since the only fares that have been set are route restricted via Windsor (no Any Permitted). The PAYG fare seems to be half the day return via Windsor.

Anyone doing this as a return journey off-peak would be charged 4 x £1.80 = £7.20 when the equivalent ticket is £5.20 (with a further 1/3 discount available to Railcard holders, subject to railcard restrictions).

It just goes to show that if you want the convenience of not having to bother about buying a ticket or checking the fares, you do open yourself up to being overcharged at times.

Maybe that's fair enough in some ways, but it is wrong in my opinion to push PAYG onto consumers by pretending it gives them the best fare all the time.

 

[JonathanH]

There are currently no OSIs outside London. Anyone doing Datchet to Slough via Windsor will be charged for two journeys. Anyone doing it via London will be charged the fare that Single Fare Finder shows...

That is hardly passenger friendly.

I note that the fare from Datchet to Slough is 'in scale' with a journey via Windsor, but the fare from Sunnymeads to Slough very much isn't.

Isn't this whole Project Oval implementation meant to be about setting fares at the 'right' long term levels as part of 'true reform'?

 

[redreni]

That is hardly passenger friendly.

I note that the fare from Datchet to Slough is 'in scale' with a journey via Windsor, but the fare from Sunnymeads to Slough very much isn't.

Isn't this whole Project Oval implementation meant to be about setting fares at the 'right' long term levels as part of 'true reform'?

Because higher 'Any Permitted' and 'via London' fares exist for Sunnymeads to Slough, presumably?

I've no objection to the PAYG fares reflecting these higher fares by default, but Windsor is the obvious route and (in reality even if not according to the Routing Guide) the shortest route by both distance and time, so that is the route most people will take and it is absurd that no PAYG fare exists for it.

It is not as if the usual excuse of "well, they system doesn't know what route the passenger has taken" applies here. The system does know, because you have to exit at one Windsor station and enter at the other. So even if the default PAYG fares scaled to the 'Any Permitted' or 'via London' fares where they existed, that wouldn't prevent a lower PAYG fare, scaled to the 'via Windsor' fares, existing as well, if there were an OSI at Windsor (which there obviously needs to be).

At the risk of coming across grumpy, if Project Oval hasn't been doing things like setting up new OSIs where they are needed, what has it been doing all this time?

 

[Hadders]

Clearly some ‘outside London’ OSIs need to be added. It won’t be many but we’ve already mentioned a couple in this thread.

 

[Watershed]

Clearly some ‘outside London’ OSIs need to be added. It won’t be many but we’ve already mentioned a couple in this thread.

Hertford North to East also comes to mind for when the extension to Stevenage is launched. Even now there are a few journeys where it would be useful to be able to avail of the equivalent of paper "not via London" fares.

 

[mickey]

Windsor is an anomaly that needs fixing urgently. brfares suggests that GWR have priced up (correctly) contactless fares crossing Windsor, but they don’t show on TfL’s single fare finder and they’re not being charged in practice. For example, Slough-Staines £4.40. Even more confusingly/annoyingly, NRE is showing these fares along with the text pay as you go with contactless, so customers are being hugely misled as it’s not actually possible to pay this in practice.

 

[noger]

The website doesn't make it especially clear what's in the cap and isn't, it just tells you when a particular day and/or journey benefitted from capping. Are you able to share the screenshot?

Sorry, a wee bit late to reply to this.

I can't find the screenshot and can't remember the exact stations but it was something like this:

Total: £23.00 (exactly)
Berkhamsted to Euston £14.20
[Zone 1] to [Zone 1] £1.70
[Zone 1] to [Zone 1] Free
Euston to Berkhamsted £7.10

I should have been more specific about the cap. It wasn't the PAYG cap for Z1-4 but it seems to have capped at the Day Anytime Travelcard for Z1-4 at £15.90. And for some reason, it only charged an extension fare on the way out but that doesn't seem enough from Zone 4 in the peak.

Apparently, this is still ongoing.

 

[akm]

Sorry, a wee bit late to reply to this.

I can't find the screenshot and can't remember the exact stations but it was something like this:

Total: £23.00 (exactly)
Berkhamsted to Euston £14.20
[Zone 1] to [Zone 1] £1.70
[Zone 1] to [Zone 1] Free
Euston to Berkhamsted £7.10

I should have been more specific about the cap. It wasn't the PAYG cap for Z1-4 but it seems to have capped at the Day Anytime Travelcard for Z1-4 at £15.90. And for some reason, it only charged an extension fare on the way out but that doesn't seem enough from Zone 4 in the peak.

Apparently, this is still ongoing.

I expect it's this:

Something similar to this happened when Contactless was first introduced on the Gatwick route back in 2016.

The price from Redhill until it could be 'fixed' was something like the combination of the Redhill to Zone 4 extension and the all day cap for Zones 1-3. The fix was to introduce extension fares that very much exceeded the usual fare from Redhill to an actual Zone 4 station. See https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...less-boundary-zone-fares.230395/#post-5624368

If the Project Oval set up from Hemel Hempstead doesn't have the artificially high boundary fares, that may explain this.