TfL zonal caps

[mrmartin]

Any ideas why Zones 2-4 *daily* cap is £9.30, vs £6.50 zone 1-2 (50% more), whereas weekly zone 2-4 is £26.80 vs £32.40 (50% less?).

This doesnt make any sense at all to me. It seems to me the £9.30 is way more than it should be. You'd have to do ~6 journeys to hit the daily cap for zone2-4, vs Zone1-2 where going to work and back at peak hits the daily cap for zone1-2.

It gets even more silly for zone2-3 on paper - where you can get a weekly for the cost of 2 daily travelcards.

Any idea why this is? It seems that single journeys & weekly passes are very good value outside of zone1-x, but daily caps are very very poor value.

 

[nicobobinus]

Your 2-4 daily cap is charged to include zone 1, i.e. even if you travel entirely within 2-4 you won't cap out until you hit the equivalent 1-4 daily cap, which is £9.30. If it looks unfair that's because it is.

TfL did a lot of shifting around with capping at the beginning of 2015, including scrapping the peak/off peak distinction for caps within 1-6 and setting an all-day cap at a compromise level for each band - but they all run from zone 1. They do run an automatic refund scheme for regular daily users within zones 4-6 but as you travel within 2-4 this doesn't help you.

As far as I can see it was a deliberate move to subsidise the cut in the peak cap for the ad-hoc peak hour daily traveller into London.

 

[mrmartin]

Yeah I sometimes work in Zone4 (once a fortnight really, coming from Zone2. Normally I'm zone1-2). I only noticed as I did a lot of journeys that day but still didn't hit the daily cap (compared to my normal journey to work which caps out if you do two trains/tubes + a bus).

What do you mean by this automatic refund scheme?

 

[Be3G]

Well, I'd argue the biggest reason for this particular piece of madness is the abolition of the non-zone-1 travelcard caps…

 

[ictl]

What do you mean by this automatic refund scheme?

See: https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/oyster/using-oyster/price-capping#on-this-page-2

Automatic refund payments are given to all off-peak pay as you go customers who repeatedly pay more than the former off-peak daily cap in Zones 4-6.

In January 2015, we changed our daily pay as you go caps to reflect modern-day travel patterns. Many of the all day caps are cheaper than the old off-peak caps and the majority of customers now enjoy cheaper fares as a result.

However, if you are repeatedly paying more because off-peak caps for travel in Zones 4-6 were withdrawn, we will automatically refund you.

You are eligible for a payment if your day's travel means you would have reached a Zones 4-6 off-peak cap on:

• Two or more days in a single week (from Monday to Sunday), or
• Four or more days in a fortnight, or
• Eight or more days in four weeks

 

[JonathanH]

Well, I'd argue the biggest reason for this particular piece of madness is the abolition of the non-zone-1 travelcard caps…

Was the underlying reason for removal of the 2-6 travelcard the fact that people were crossing zone 1 and it was impossible to police it or was it more cynical to just make money?

Given London is polycentric it is a shame that there can't be local area travelcards in the Oyster system.

 

[PeterC]

Given London is polycentric it is a shame that there can't be local area travelcards in the Oyster system.

I am sure that all the people who commute across zone 1 to Canary Wharf would love to be charged for some extra zones.

If Oyster is extended outwards it would make sense for zones 7,8 and 9 to be split into North, South, East and West but no mayor is going to risk his electoral chances by doing this to the zones within Greater London.

 

[Mojo]

Any ideas why Zones 2-4 *daily* cap is £9.30, vs £6.50 zone 1-2 (50% more), whereas weekly zone 2-4 is £26.80 vs £32.40 (50% less?).

There is no such thing as a Zone 2-4 daily cap. All daily caps and paper Day Travelcards include Zone 1.

£9.30 is the price of a Zone 1-4 cap.

 

[TrenHotel]

There used to be a zone 2-6 cap, but it was scrapped in 2011 (it was £5.10, I think). Generally, under Boris Johnson, the fare caps grew in the suburbs, so there are now some big leaps once you get beyond zone 3.

One big problem is that London has changed hugely since the zones were drawn up in the early 1980s - yet it's a hard system to change without penalising passengers or cutting revenue.

 

[Mojo]

TfL did a lot of shifting around with capping at the beginning of 2015, including scrapping the peak/off peak distinction for caps within 1-6 and setting an all-day cap at a compromise level for each band - but they all run from zone 1. They do run an automatic refund scheme for regular daily users within zones 4-6 but as you travel within 2-4 this doesn't help you.

This will actually help the OP if they travel often enough to meet the requirements.

The Zone 2-6 daily cap and Day Travelcards were withdrawn back in 2011. The 2015 changes meant that there was a huge price hike for anyone who since 2011 paid the Off-peak 1-4 or 1-6 cap. So if they travel within Zone 2-4 and travel enough then they will pay the 1-4 cap.