TfL proposes to withdraw Day Travelcards

[island]

So at least three or four off peak trips to reach the cap even if it includes zones 1-6. Does the cap reduce if you use a railcard on Oyster or is cap fixed? If so it is even worse with the discounts.

Railcards reduce off-peak Oyster caps, yes.

 

[redreni]

That depends on where you're travelling once you arrive in London, and whether you've got a railcard associated with an Oyster card.

Assuming you haven't then a single Adult Underground journey in Zone 1 is £2.80 peak or £2.70 off peak. If you only travel in Zones 1-2 then the maximum daily cap is £8.10. If you travel out as far as Zone 6 by Underground then the fare is £5.60 peak or £3.60 off peak. The Zone 1-6 daily cap is £14.10.

So that's £5.40 if you make a return journey on the tube using undiscounted PAYG.

With the Network Railcard discount, isn't the add-on only £4.45 return if you just buy a through ticket from Lewes to London Underground and DLR Zones 1-2, though (if you find a retailer that will sell it)?

Actually there are two subtle confusions, strictly they used term National Railcards (not just railcard), so could argue a Network railcard isn't National, it's obviously no more National than say a railcard valid in Scotland. But much general did not make this clear.

The other one is the multiple people railcards, eg two together and family railcards. Obviously cannot add it to a single Oyster card. So in my opinion this has been misleading, because wasn't made clear.

It looks to me like the various people who contributed to the advice had different levels of understanding of the subject matter and the senior person who pulled it together didn't understand the detail at all. Much of it should have been rejected.

It includes the Network Railcard in a list of National Railcards that attract a 1/3 discount on paper day travelcards, so there can be no argument that the term is designed to exclude the Network Railcard.

The bit about the Two Together railcard in Appendix 2 is nonsensical. It says the discount for the additional travellers will not be available to be applied to Oyster, but it's unclear how that would work given you can't use a Two Together railcard at all unless there are two of you travelling together. Unless TfL are saying you will be able to use it for a 1/6th discount (i.e. 1/3 off the fares for one of you)? Or are they saying they won't enforce the requirement to travel with another person on their services, so the holder of a Two Together railcard will be entitled to a 1/3 off even when travelling alone? It's entirely unclear.

The only thing a lay person absolutely wouldn't understand from reading this advice is that discounts for holders of Two Together Railcards on TfL day Travelcards are being withdrawn and there are no plans to mitigate this by offering any discount on PAYG. If that's what it means it should state that clearly, and it doesn't.

A similar point applies to Family Railcards.

Worth noting people travelling in groups of 2-5 are particularly likely to eschew trains, tubes, buses etc. for private cars or taxis if you charge them too much, since the cost of travelling by private car or taxi would be shared between them. If you don't give them heavy discounts on public transport fares, driving or taking a taxi will become very much the cheaper option.

 

[SWT_USER]

I suspect the reference to Network Railcards being aboe to be added to Oyster is incorrect. Further in the supporting documentation, where there are examples of different fares it does say that a Network Railcard cannot be added to Oyster.

I wouldn't try and get a Network Railcard added to an Oyster card. If you did manage to get it done you could have issues if your card was inspected by an RPI at a later date.


The c2c website sells them!

I have to say I am tempted to try this. I can't see a prosecution being successful given they've now said on record it is permitted... Even if it is an error it is their error not mine.

From what I can remember when I had a gold card, it isn't mentioned exactly which Railcard someone holds on oyster - just the fact that they have one so it wouldn't be obvious it was a network Railcard discount.

 

[island]

From what I can remember when I had a gold card, it isn't mentioned exactly which Railcard someone holds on oyster - just the fact that they have one so it wouldn't be obvious it was a network Railcard discount.

Indeed, the possibilities are "disabled Railcard" or "NR Railcard".

In over nine years of holding an Oyster card with a Railcard discount attached I was never once asked to produce the Railcard.

 

[thedbdiboy]

But the people affected by this decision are not, in the main, going to be voting in London's mayoral elections.


That's RDG who represent the train operators who can't agree to reduced revenue without government agreement.

£40m over 7m tickets is £5.71 per ticket on average, noy a major issue.

Perhaps individual rail companies could do a deal in the absence of RDG action?

There is a very specific London Scheme legal construct that manages the relationship between TOCS and TfL, and the associated Agreements - it's not a case of RDG managing an ad-hoc arrangement, the Agreements mandate the mechanisms ad the representation.
There is no scope for individual TOCs to 'de a deal' outside of this; they are bound to the contractual mechanism through the machinery of the Agreements.

 

[Jan Mayen]

Indeed, the possibilities are "disabled Railcard" or "NR Railcard".

In over nine years of holding an Oyster card with a Railcard discount attached I was never once asked to produce the Railcard.

I was. On a bus. I was told my (standard issue) season ticket photocard wasn't valid with my Gold Card. I smiled nicely, apologised and asked if they could describe the photocard I should have so I could get the correct one.
I still have the same photocard

 

[Hadders]

Indeed, the possibilities are "disabled Railcard" or "NR Railcard".

In over nine years of holding an Oyster card with a Railcard discount attached I was never once asked to produce the Railcard.

I’ve had to produce my Gold Card discount twice in recent years, once when interchanging at Kings Cross St Pancras where there was a block in the corridor between the tube ticket hall and the SSL lines, the other was onboard a Piccadilly Line train.

 

[redreni]

Oyster/Contactless continues to act as an integrated method of travel within London with the caps being cheaper than a paper travelcard.

Passengers who use stations on the GWML from Reading into London and Luton Airport Parkway/Welwyn Garden City on GTR will continue to be capped using Contactless rather than purchasing the paper travelcard, although that only works if you don't have a discounted railcard, where they'll have to buy a standard ticket into London and then get the railcard added to Oyster. Southern stations from Merstham to Gatwick will also still be capped using Oyster or contactless.

With contactless being extended to more of the London commuter belt, passengers without railcards can still get the integrated travelling they've been used to when buying a paper day travelcard.

Contactless is better in some ways and worse in others.

I travel regularly from Slade Green to Maidenhead and could use contactless. I don't because the contactless fare is £20.40 return (which is also the daily cap) and the paper ticket is £13.30 with a Network Railcard (or £14.60 for an inboundary day travelcard plus extension). Even without the railcard, a paper ticket is still 20p cheaper than PAYG if you're just making the return trip.

Finding out what the daily cap is when you start your journey further out than zone 9 is not particularly straightforward - you have to go hunting on the TfL website where you'll eventually find a PDF that you can search through. If you want to compare that with the single fare you have to navigate to a completely separate page and enter the journey you want to make to get the single fare. And if you want to know how long you can spend at an interchange station and still be charged for a single journey, or whether an out-of-station interchange that isn't shown on the tube/rail map has been set up, as far as I know you have to go to a third party website as the information appears to be semi-secret. So it's a very easy system to get along with if you're very trusting and assume PAYG fares are always the cheapest available, but involves you in a fair bit of admin if you want to
(a) be sure before you travel that PAYG will be your cheapest option,
(b) know what the applicable fares and caps are, and
(c) check after travelling that you have in fact been charged the right amount.

I'm not sure why it's too difficult for the industry to have a poster at stations saying what the standard adult PAYG single fares and caps from that station to zone 1 are? Maybe it's only me that wants to know the price of a thing before I decide if I want to buy it and expects this to be made clear without me having to hunt around for it?

That's in contrast to the ouboundary day travelcard which, from memory of living in Slough in the 90s, were always offered as an option (alongside the London Terminals return) if you looked up train times into Paddington, so you'd likely know what the fare was before arriving at the station and definitely before you started travelling.

On the other hand the drawback of the travelcard is you need to know in advance if you're going to make enough journeys in the day to make the travelcard worthwhile. The daily cap gives you much more flexibility to see how things go.

Even after the next planned expansion the PAYG area is, as I understand it, going to be a lot smaller than the area from which outboundary travelcards can currently be bought. Moreover PAYG will never be capable of fully replacing railcards that entitle the bearer to buy discounted tickets for people travelling with them. It will never be able to offer Family and Two Together discounts at all and if you make the holders of those railcards pay full fare for discretionary off-peak travel, they're just going to stay away from London or drive.

 

[johncrossley]

Even after the next planned expansion the PAYG area is, as I understand it, going to be a lot smaller than the area from which outboundary travelcards can currently be bought.

Contactless will still only cover a tiny proportion of the south-east. For example, there will not even be any coverage beyond Gatwick and Brookwood on two of the country's busiest main lines.

 

[JonathanH]

Contactless will still only cover a tiny proportion of the south-east.

Yes, although as the previous poster has pointed out it will not necessarily be the cheapest option for all, unless the current fares are withdrawn.

For example, there will not even be any coverage beyond Gatwick and Brookwood on two of the country's busiest main lines.

'hwl' has indicated it will reach Brighton and Farnborough (Main) but your point is still valid that it will have a boundary https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...less-payment-cards.231684/page-3#post-5970988

And if you want to know how long you can spend at an interchange station and still be charged for a single journey, or whether an out-of-station interchange that isn't shown on the tube/rail map has been set up, as far as I know you have to go to a third party website as the information appears to be semi-secret.

Maximum journey times are even more secret, once you are travelling outside Zone 6. They are not published at all as far as I can tell - the relevant page now only covers travel in Zones 1-6, ie not even all of TfL's services - https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/how-to-pay...y-as-you-go/keep-within-maximum-journey-times.

I think in some circumstances passengers would have to be very careful about their journeys back out of London, if they have been interchanging on the way and triggered out of station interchanges in the centre or had to wait somewhere.

 

[MikeWM]

I'm not sure why it's too difficult for the industry to have a poster at stations saying what the standard adult PAYG single fares and caps from that station to zone 1 are? Maybe it's only me that wants to know the price of a thing before I decide if I want to buy it and expects this to be made clear without me having to hunt around for it?

It's not just you, not at all. As I've said earlier in the thread, I was quite happy to pay for a travelcard every time even if I wasn't going to get full value from it, just so I didn't have to keep all these things in my head when I'm supposed to be enjoying myself.

Even if it was crystal clear what all the fares and caps are, you've no idea if you're *actually* going to be charged the right price until 'later', and if you haven't for whatever reason, you're in for a delightfully fun time trying to get someone to sort it out.

Quite how this is supposed to be an improvement over the mechanism we've used for centuries of 'I want to buy this', 'It costs x', 'Ok, here's x', 'Ok, here's what you've bought' is anyone's guess. It certainly doesn't appear to be an improvement for the customer.

 

[philjo]

I usually get a travelcard for a work journey that involves 1 return trip on the underground from kings cross plus the journey on GN. It is 10p more than the equivalent ticket issued to the appropriate underground zones that only permit 1 return underground journey. If there is an issue with the northern line the travelcard allows me to use alternative bus and Thameslink services which I can’t do with the ticket issued to the Underground zone.

 

[ThameslinkUser]

If there is an issue with the northern line

If there were more than minor delays, there would be ticket acceptance in place which would allow you to use alternative bus and Thameslink services.

 

[MikeWh]

contactless fare is £20.40 return (which is also the daily cap)

Minor pedant mode. The off-peak single is £10.40 and the off-peak cap limits the cost of two singles when making a return.

Finding out what the daily cap is when you start your journey further out than zone 9 is not particularly straightforward - you have to go hunting on the TfL website where you'll eventually find a PDF that you can search through. If you want to compare that with the single fare you have to navigate to a completely separate page and enter the journey you want to make to get the single fare. And if you want to know how long you can spend at an interchange station and still be charged for a single journey, or whether an out-of-station interchange that isn't shown on the tube/rail map has been set up, as far as I know you have to go to a third party website as the information appears to be semi-secret.

If you start on the third party website then there is also a fare finder which provides the same single fare information, but also shows what the daily caps are when making each journey.

I'm not sure why it's too difficult for the industry to have a poster at stations saying what the standard adult PAYG single fares and caps from that station to zone 1 are? Maybe it's only me that wants to know the price of a thing before I decide if I want to buy it and expects this to be made clear without me having to hunt around for it?

You're not the only one, no. There is quite a bit of secrecy relating to contactless fares, especially where extension fares are involved.

 

[1D54]

Apologies if this has been mentioned before or it is slightly going off thread. Capped daily prices at £8.10 for zones 1-2 and £9.60 for 1-2 3 seems really good value so no worries about not getting railcard discount but what happens if someone decides to use debit/credit to go through barriers at say Euston and just spends a couple of hours at the end of the platform photographing and then taps out again without having been anywhere? It must come across as suspicious even though it is totally innocent with a person just perusing a hobby.

 

[island]

Apologies if this has been mentioned before or it is slightly going off thread. Capped daily prices at £8.10 for zones 1-2 and £9.60 for 1-2 3 seems really good value so no worries about not getting railcard discount but what happens if someone decides to use debit/credit to go through barriers at say Euston and just spends a couple of hours at the end of the platform photographing and then taps out again without having been anywhere? It must come across as suspicious even though it is totally innocent with a person just perusing a hobby.

If you did that you would be charged 2 maximum journey fares, which don't count towards the cap.

 

[Mark J]

The ULEZ charge pulls in over £200m a year, the expanded zone (if it does go through) will pull in even more £millions.

For TfL to say they cannot afford to subsidise the £40m a year cost of maintaining Travelcards is utter bull.

It is pretty clear that the powers that be want to build some kind of wall around London, for which entry is permitted if you are prepared to pay.

The cost of a Travelcard from Reading to London with Travelcard is £29.60. With Railcard discount, this is £19.50.

The cost of a return without travelcard is £24, £15.80 with Railcard.

A daily zones 1-2 cap is £8.10. It has been said that majority of people who travel to London for the day are around zones 1-2.

So the 'new cost' of traveling to London with PAYG would be £32.10 and £23.90 with Railcard. These prices also do not take account of next years price rises.

There also seems to be ignorance within TfL as to the tourism/economic boost for providing cheaper travelcard fares from outside London as part of a combined ticket.

Not to mention that the majority of people coming to London only make a couple of journeys on TfL services to get to where they want to be.

I'm more than happy to vote with my wallet and completely boycott traveling to London, if I'm financially penalised for doing so. Not all of us on this forum can afford the proposed price rises by scrapping the travelcard.

TfL really are tone deaf to the cost of living crisis.

 

[1D54]

Jump on a train to South Hampstead tap out/in and come back to Euston then is one way around it.

 

[ThameslinkUser]

For TfL to say they cannot afford to subsidise the £40m a year cost of maintaining Travelcards is utter bull.

How so?

Not to mention that the majority of people coming to London only make a couple of journeys on TfL services to get to where they want to be.

This will still provide them a greater degree of revenue than what is provided by travelcards with such huge discounts you just listed.

TfL really are tone deaf to the cost of living crisis.

It's almost as if TfL have their own financial ultimatum to deal with.

 

[Haywain]

So the 'new cost' of traveling to London with PAYG would be £32.10 and £23.90 with Railcard. These prices also do not take account of next years price rises.

But these are maximum prices. Typically, people do not make more than two underground journeys and will therefore pay only a few pence more than they do currently (in your Reading example).

 

[Mark J]

But these are maximum prices. Typically, people do not make more than two underground journeys and will therefore pay only a few pence more than they do currently (in your Reading example).

It is still an incredibly stupid move by TfL.

Also not everyone uses contactless. There are still a fair amount of people who trade in cash.

I was alerted to this yesterday by someone who still prefers to trade with cash. They were asking how they would be affected as a cash trader. Considering they won't be able to shove notes and coins into a ticket machine for a combined ticket.

Of course the TfL defenders out there will still try to polish this turd of a move as nothing significant.

TfL clearly can't manage their finances, yet expect everyone else to pay for their incompetence. Whether it be stealth ULEZ taxes or lumping 5.9% on fares this year.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Also not everyone uses contactless. There are still a fair amount of people who trade in cash.

I was alerted to this yesterday by someone who still prefers to trade with cash. They were asking how they would be affected as a cash trader. Considering they won't be able to shove notes and coins into a ticket machine for a combined ticket.

They can get an Oyster and load it with the value of the daily cap using cash.

 

[Mark J]

How so?


This will still provide them a greater degree of revenue than what is provided by travelcards with such huge discounts you just listed.


It's almost as if TfL have their own financial ultimatum to deal with.

You may be happy/not bothered with the changes, however a lot of people out there are.

 

[Sonic1234]

It is pretty clear that the powers that be want to build some kind of wall around London, for which entry is permitted if you are prepared to pay.

It comes from a belief that London has a big enough draw that people will happily pay more to visit. Which is probably true - it doesn't tend to be a place to go if you're price sensitive. I can see a lot of confusion and complaints in January when people go to buy a train ticket and can't find "London including the Tube".

The Travelcard was the only decently-priced paper ticket. Other than the Travelcard, TfL for a long time has effectively not taken Two Together, Family and Network railcards, whilst officially accepting them for their overpriced non-Travelcard paper tickets.

Contactless is great for obscuring what the cost of travel is, even where the prices are published. How many people in London could tell you how much their journey cost? It's tap and go, and then get an aggregate charge at the end of the day on a bank statement most will barely read.

 

[Haywain]

Of course the TfL defenders out there will still try to polish this turd of a move as nothing significant.

Demolishing your rather poor argument is not defending TfL. I would much prefer this change not to be happening and I am fully aware that many people will be paying more as a result. However, it is important that arguments against it are actually valid arguments, and it is important to understand that the changes TfL propose to make are essentially forced on them by central government.

 

[Mark J]

Demolishing your rather poor argument is not defending TfL. I would much prefer this change not to be happening and I am fully aware that many people will be paying more as a result. However, it is important that arguments against it are actually valid arguments, and it is important to understand that the changes TfL propose to make are essentially forced on them by central government.

My poor argument?

That is a bit rich. You speak like you represent a majority on this subject. You really don't.

I can tell you here and now the Internet is awash with comments condemning this move.

 

[swt_passenger]

Apologies if this has been mentioned before or it is slightly going off thread. Capped daily prices at £8.10 for zones 1-2 and £9.60 for 1-2 3 seems really good value so no worries about not getting railcard discount but what happens if someone decides to use debit/credit to go through barriers at say Euston and just spends a couple of hours at the end of the platform photographing and then taps out again without having been anywhere? It must come across as suspicious even though it is totally innocent with a person just perusing a hobby.

They’re such a small proportion of daily users I expect TFL don’t care. I‘d be highly surprised if DfT or RDG saw it as an important issue either.

 

[Haywain]

My poor argument?

Yes, that this is so terrible for people travelling from Reading. With Reading being in the contactless area already it is much less punitive to people travelling from there than form many other towns across the south-east where everybody will be disadvantaged rather than just the subset who both use railcards and make multiple journeys in London.

 

[johncrossley]

Incomplete journeys can usually be refunded as long as you don't claim more than three times a month. However, there looks to be automatic refunds for same station exits, so perhaps it is fine as long as you don't make a habit of it.

Touched in and out at the same station

How to get a refund if you have been charged for touching in and out at the same station.

tfl.gov.uk

We aim to automatically refund you for a same station exit if you have not had one in the last 7 days.

 

[redreni]

But these are maximum prices. Typically, people do not make more than two underground journeys and will therefore pay only a few pence more than they do currently (in your Reading example).

And those that do often don't need to.

Now that we can get walking directions from our phones the phenomenon has reduced, but hasn't stopped, whereby visitors will want go to one place that's told them "nearest tube Piccadilly Circus", then from there to another place that says "nearest tube Tottenham Court Road" and will take the tube between the two even though it'd be quicker to walk. Maybe this will encourage people to check if they can walk rather than use the tube for wayfinding in this way.

The argument that this won't cost people more, to the extent it is correct, does make this entire measure pointless, though (except, maybe, to the extent it's about the revenue split).

In addition the argument regarding the impact on the London economy has some real force, in my opinion. People coming in from Reading don't, in general, want to go to Paddington and even those unfamiliar with the ticketing system will assume they can get a return ticket at least to those central London stations that are served by direct trains from Reading (Bond St, Tottenham Court Road etc.) If they ask for that at the ticket office (not sure about GWR TVMs?) they'll be issued a return to London Underground and DLR Zones 1-2, I believe.

They may or may not understand all the things you can and can't do with that ticket, so I predict more people will end up being hassled/threatened by gateline staff or revenue inspectors, which is not a great way of getting these discretionary travellers to come back. But if they do understand the restrictions and comply with them, this may deter them making extra stops and spending money while they're in London. Ditto if they're using PAYG for all or part of the journey and trying to restrict themselves to two single tube journeys on cost grounds.

As I've said, if this goes through I'll buy a point-to-point Maltese cross ticket for a regular journey that I currently make on a travelcard plus boundary zone ticket combo. All that means is (if I believe TfL rather than the NRCoT with respect to the ticket restrictions) I cannot stop en route and potentially spend money in London, which is my entire reason for spending a little more to have the Travelcard.

Overall fare revenue isn't increasing at all, in fact it's decreasing slightly (not sure how TfL's share is affected, admittedly, but I can't imagine they get more for a Maltese cross than for a Travelcard?)