I am not, in principle, against fare increase, but it’s the amount of increase that has angered me, with more than 10% for every single off-peak journey outside zone 1, some up to 15%! These fares were the cheapest fares in the rail network and were once actually competitive with buses.
Overseas in Hong Kong, metro fares have to be increased or decreased according to a formula. Over the past decade or so there has been minimal increase for the cheapest single fares, with some cheapest concessionary fares for one-stop journeys totally frozen for nearly a decade, with the other, more expensive, longer journeys make up the bulk of fare increase, so fares are still kept affordable.
In the past, I travelled a lot on the TfL network for short single-zone journeys such as Brondesbury – Gospel Oak just because I didn’t want to cycle over a hill, but I will no longer do so now because the £ / km no longer represents good value. I haven’t done such journeys for a long time on the NR-scale routes already as the fare is a total rip-off.