The Rail Delivery Group made a change to the way discounted fares are calculated earlier this year. See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpw8j4d1v2do for more details. As a result of this some railcard single fares on Oyster now cost slightly more (5p, or possibly 10p) than they did at the last fares change in March.
The somewhat disturbing side effect of the recent cyber security incident is that the database that drives our fare finder, as well as TfL’s own single fare finder, has not yet been updated. TfL make a big thing of checking what your fare will be, so it’s disappointing to know that the official source is out of step with the live database.
Are you sure TfL actually updated the fares table? I noticed no fare differences when actually traveling. TfL seem to still be applying the 34% discount after September 15th when fares were supposedly raised by 0.9% when the railcard discount was lowered to 33.4%
Yes, I am sure. A site visitor from Hertford reported paying 5p more than the fare finder said. I raised the issue with TfL and this post is the result of their response.
Most PAYG single fares are too small to make a difference once rounding to 5p has happened.
Sorry Mike. I wasn’t aware that you had received feedback from TfL; I mistakenly thought it was just a comment regarding the discrepancy between the announcement and the fares listed in the Single Fare Finder.
I had been curious about why I hadn’t noticed any changes while traveling within the Oyster PAYG area beyond zone 9, and I incorrectly assumed that TfL hadn’t implemented the changes, possibly due to their philosophical beliefs or the recent cybersecurity incident. However, given that my journey fares have been on the lower end, your explanation makes a lot of sense.
Ha! This post appearing the day before the new fares announcement probably didn’t help. I’ve now learned that the change was only made in early December, so perhaps that’s why you haven’t noticed it yet. The National Rail zone 2-6 fare has apparently changed from £2.40 to £2.45. It clearly depends on how close to the rounding point the calculation took it, although I still maintain that many small fares won’t change.
I hope the fare finder data gets updated soon.
If the fare charged isn’t the same from what the TfL fare finder says, you should contact TfL for a refund, provided that you have touched in and out correctly.
Technically I’d agree, but if TfL say no then I don’t see many people taking it further for just 5p a time. I’m sure that the fare finder database will be updated shortly.
Of course it is not worthwhile to chase for 5p at a time, but I am now recording all my journeys I have made and checking the fare finder every day, and these 5p will soon add up to a non-trivial amount (e.g. 20 such journeys).
If by then the fare charged is still wrong I will ask for a refund for all of these journeys in one go.
I’ve applied for a refund, still waiting to hear
I was charged £1.85 for my journey from Notting Hill Gate – East Putney off-peak (LU 1-2) today, which usually costs me £1.80. However I intend to travel to the 1-2 cap later today and will see what is the total amount charged later.
I’ll wait until the end of this year and check the data again, if the fare charged is really wrong I’ll ask for a refund by then.