Why is there a need of so many different prices? Other countries can fit an area of a hundred kilometre radius into about a dozen of fare zones or even less! 40 years ago work was done to fit London into 5 (eventually 6) fare zones, why can’t the process be repeated now to the wider commuter area?!
Complexity, basically. Within the zonal (1-6) area fares are relatively cheap so the outcome of rationalising them into standard fares was relatively painless, even though I’m sure there were some losers. If you were to allocate the entire Project Oval area to the next 6 zones there would have to be lots of losers to keep the whole change revenue neutral. The other issue is that there is no desire to expand the zonal system further than zone 9. By that I mean that West Drayton to Upminster is charged as a 6 zone fare the same as West Drayton to Paddington or Fenchurch Street to Upminster. Imagine the revenue loss if Reading to Shoeburyness was also charged the same as Reading to Paddington. It’s not going to happen.
I’ll go through the FOI response later…