The Rail Delivery Group has today announced that following in depth negotiation with TfL and the Department for Transport the day travelcard will not now be discontinued in January.
The agreement gives TfL a more reasonable share of the revenue generated by the travelcard and enables it to fulfill it’s funding agreement with the DfT.
There will sadly be a small cost to pay from outside zones 1-6. When the annual fares change occurs in March next year, outboundary day travelcards will rise by a one-off additional 3% (on average), above whatever the standard increase will be.
I’ll add more info from the press release later, but for now, yes I am a little surprised, but definitely happy that common sense has prevailed.
I’m surprised DfT has agreed but I always thought that the revenue split was the issue rather than the “Mayor doesn’t want visitors coming into London” or some of the other, more inflammatory, political arguments put forward to explain it.
Of course, it means something else will probably need to be cut to meet the DfT savings targets but at least this is now out of the firing line.
The agreement to retain Day Travelcards won’t necessitate savings elsewhere as the difference will be paid for by passengers (the one-off additional 3% (avg) adjustment on outboundary issues that Mike refers to).
The directive to find £600m in savings was part of the previous funding package. With an element of those savings not now being found by stopping the sale of travelcards, I very much doubt that the government has relaxed the £600m total meaning that the remaining savings will have to be found elsewhere.
Sadly I can’t see the government agreeing to additional funding for the organisation and allowing that to be used to offset the savings it originally asked for.
Whether it’s saving £40 million from withdrawing the ODT or (as they’ll do instead) raising £40 million from adjusting the ODT price to get their desired share, the net impact is the same. Both options count.
But as you say, TfL have to do more than that to meet the £600 million target; the recent ULEZ expansion (for instance) will supposedly net them £200 million in the first year.
To correct myself, had the ODT been withdrawn TfL were hoping to *raise* (not save) £40 million net from the additional use of contactless/Oyster by passengers from outside London.
In short, passengers would make up the difference regardless; TfL and the DfT/RDG simply agreed the ODT revenue share adjustment (TfL get more, the TOCs get the same as before) was a better way of achieving that.