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I once made a journey from North Greenwich (zone 2) to Leicester Square (zone 1) during the evening peak at around 5pm. My route was the Jubilee line to Canary Wharf, Elizabeth Line to Tottenham Court Road and then the Northern line to Leicester Square. At Canary Wharf (zone 2), you do an OSI from the Jubilee line to the Elizabeth Line. You know that if you start a journey outside zone 1 and finish it in zone 1 during evening peak, you would usually get charged the off-peak fare. Now when I made the OSI at Canary Wharf (zone 2), it therefore charged me the peak fare and when I tapped out at Leicester Square (zone 1), it still said the peak fare. Is this meant to happen when you do OSI’s during this time?
It’s a limitation of Oyster, which won’t refund a previously charged fare earlier in the journey. If you’re using an adult Oyster, then it will refund the difference if there is one when the days touches are run through the back office overnight. Unfortunately, this doesn’t yet happen with zip cards or other discounted Oysters.
In this particular case, you wouldn’t be overcharged using an adult card as the zone 2 peak single is less than the zone 1-2 off-peak single. It’s only an issue for 11-15 zip cards because of the flat fare system.
Finally, if you wanted to save the 10p then you could change once at Waterloo.
Hi Mike,
Can you help me understand the rationale for evening peak fares to boundary stations that lie in both zones 1 and 2 (Notting Hill Gate, Elephant & Castle, Hoxton, Vauxhall etc.)? If I travel from an outer zone without going into zone 1 before the final station (e.g. West Ruislip to Notting Hill Gate) I get charged a peak fare to zone 2. If I travel via zone 1 (e.g. Epping to Notting Hill Gate) I get charged an off peak fare to zone 1. While in many cases the peak fare to z2 is cheaper, this is not always the case, especially for NR railcard holders. Shouldn’t the system offer whichever is the cheapest?
If the purpose of evening peak fares is to discourage travel out of zone 1, I have never understood why a journey from an outer zone to zone 2 is greater than travelling to zone 1 (e.g. Epping – Bethnal Green is £3.40; Epping – Notting Hill Gate is £2.35 despite travelling on a heavily congested section of the line west of Liverpool Street). The difference is even more marked with a discounted Oyster.Hi Adam,
£2.35 is the discounted fare. Without the railcard it is £3.60. Sadly this is a known disadvantage for railcard holders travelling to boundary zone 1/2 stations in the evening peak. Changing the programming to allow some users to be charged to the extra zone would potentially increase the calculation time allowed to process the touch while the card is still touching the reader.
The purpose of offering off-peak fares ending in zone 1 in the evening peak is to encourage people travelling into London for evening entertainment to use public transport.
I did some more investigation using your fare finder, and some routes shown an alternative via z1 which is cheaper in the evening peak with a railcard (e.g. East Croydon to Elephant & Castle). Others don’t such as Ealing Broadway to Notting Hill Gate where the routing via Paddington using the EL is probably faster than the Central line and I assume would be charges at the z1 fare. Am I right then that approaching a boundary station from the z1 end will trigger a z1 fare? So I could go West Ruislip – Marylebone – Paddington – Notting Hill Gate, or West Ruislip – Queensway (OSI) Bayswater – Notting Hill Gate in order to get the z1 fare?
What happens if I travel West Ruislip to Lancaster Gate touch out and immediately in then return to Notting Hill gate – I assume that would be seen as 2 journeys, would it?Yes, if the system detects that you have approached from the zone 1 side then it will charge the fare to zone 1. However, as with all journeys there has to be a defined fare. There is only one fare for West Ruislip to Notting Hill Gate (not surprising as it’s a direct train). Therefore, if you use OSIs to include zone 1 it won’t make a difference when you touch out at Notting Hill Gate. And yes, via Lancaster Gate would be two journeys.
I am an occasional traveller in London and have an Oyster Card with linked Senior Railcard.
On Friday I made a journey from Vauxhall NR1/2 to Putney NR2/3 at 0936 and was correctly charged £1.70 for Railcard Discounted Off Peak Fare.
Later that day, I made the return journey Putney to Vauxhall at 1635 and had assumed it would be the same fare £1.70. However I was surprised to be charged £2.90 which is the Undiscounted Peak Fare.
Is this correct as Vauxhall is in Zone1 and when travelling to Z1 stations the 1600-1900 peak does not apply and then railcard discount can be applied to off peak fare?
If as I suspect, this will be the correct Oyster return fare £4.60 for this journey since Vauxhall is Z1/2 boundary station.
Further I thought I would check Network Rail fare site and this offers just one option for this journey £3.40 (2xOyster Off Peak with Railcard discount) – I have therefore queried this with Network Rail.
I’ve also queried why I was not offered the significantly cheaper option of anytime Day Return with Senior Rail Card discount £3.30
Is this a unique case where a senior Railcard holder using Oyster (£4.60) is 40% more expensive than Anytime Day Return (£3.30)?
Thanks for running such an informative and detailed site.
Hi John,
The main confusuon seems to be that when travelling to a dual zoned station it is treated as being in the zone relevant to where you’ve come from. In this case that is zone 2. Travelling in the afternoon peak with a railcard is one of the cases where Oyster isn’t always cheaper, especially if you don’t finish in zone 1.
The National Rail Enquiries site is definitely wrong on this. Whilst it’s good that they now seem to be defaulting to PAYG fares rather than paper ticket fares in the contactless area, they do need to get it right. I’d be interested to know what response you get from them.
As to being offered the cheaper discounted Anytime Return fare, that is simply not possible when using Oyster or contactless PAYG. If you had gone to the ticket office at Vauxhall then that is exactly what they would have sold you.
Sorry I don’t have better news, but you have been charged correctly.
Thank for such a quick reply, I’ll let you know outcome with Network Rail who currently dispute their system is wrong.
FYI I made an error in my previous post.
The Anytime Day Return with Senior Railcard discount should have been £3.90, so the difference is not so great to the £4.60 charged to Oyster Card.I wasn’t expecting Oyster to offer Anytime Day Return option, but did expect Network Rail site to offer it (like Trainline), if cheaper.
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