These are the extensions that were pulled out of the December update at the last minute. The reason given at the time was that there were some technical issues. When the new stations were enabled in the fare finder at the end of February it became clear what some of those issues were; including Broxbourne to Roydon being priced several times higher than it should. At the time we were told that the update would be postponed until the summer, but I’m guessing that the lack of fare rises due to the governments fares freeze encouraged them to go early. I’m sorry to say that there are several issues which have not been sorted out, and just maybe they would have been better waiting until the summer.
Which stations are involved
From today (Sunday 8th March 2026), Contactless extends from Broxbourne to Roydon, Harlow Town, Harlow Mill, Sawbridgeworth, Bishop’s Stortford, Stansted Mountfichet and Stansted Airport. It also extends from Shenfield to Ingatestone, Chelmsford, Beaulieu Park, Hatfield Peveral and Witham on the mainline, and Billericay, Wickford, Rayleigh, Hockley, Rochford, Southend Airport, Prittlewell and Southend Victoria. Fares to and from all these stations are now showing on our fare finder, along with daily caps where one end of the journey is within zones 1-9, and early starts to the off-peak cap where applicable. I’m still waiting for the time allowed for journey data and will add that when it is received.
So what’s gone wrong?
Firstly the off-peak cap applicable to stations east of Shenfield is wrong (apart from Beaulieu Park). The off-peak cap is supposed to be around a 3% discount on the off-peak day travelcard, but somehow the wrong travelcard has been used to calculate those caps so the off-peak cap is actually more expensive than the off-peak day travelcard. This has been picked up and arrangements have been made to adjust charges made where they exceed the desired cap. Unfortunately the page on the National Rail website which lists all the caps says that the correct figures are shown in the table. They aren’t. The figures shown are the inflated figures and I have no way of knowing what the proper figures are at this point. Hopefully I’ll have clarity soon and will update here when I do.
Edits: Southend Airport also has an incorrect off-peak cap and the issue at Witham has been cleared up. See this news article for further details.