Stratford to Canary Wharf (EL) – An unusual overcharge

Ten days ago, forum user ‘colcestrian’ enquired why he was being charged 20p more than the fare finder suggested when travelling between Stratford and Canary Wharf via Whitechapel on the Elizabeth line. I reported the issue to TfL and then went to try it out with my railcard discounted Oyster card. I was charged the correct fare, which threw me off the scent a bit, wondering whether it was a contactless only or a peak only problem. In fact, when TfL came back to me they explained that it only affected users who touched in/out at the platform validators at Stratford. This is what a TfL spokesperson said:

We’re aware of an issue where customers who touch in on a validator on the platforms at Stratford and then exit at Canary Wharf Elizabeth line station may be overcharged. We are working to correct this as quickly as possible and apologise for the inconvenience this causes our customers. Any customer who believes they may have been overcharged can always contact TfL’s customer services team, who will review their journey history and refund them where required.

Any customers who touch in / out at the ticket barriers rather than using the on-platform validators will not be impacted by this.

After receiving this I went out again and checked a few other scenarios and can confirm that it does only appear to affect Canary Wharf (EL), and it does affect Oyster users too, as long as the platform validators are used.  Adults will be charged 20p too much at peak times and 10p too much off-peak while railcard holders are charged 5p too much off-peak.  A further problem is that if you go into zone 1 after work and then return back to Stratford later you may find that you are capped at the zone 1-3 rate rather than the expected zone 1-2 rate.

‘Colcestrian’, as his name suggests, comes in from Essex using a season ticket and then uses contactless to get to Canary Wharf and back.  There are likely to be many more people in this situation.  All those 40p/day overcharges will likely add up to quite a significant amount as I think the issue has been going on since the Stratford to Whitechapel link on the EL opened.  If you’re in that situation and haven’t yet added your bank card to a TfL account, please do and then check your journey history which is available for the last 13 months.

I’d like thank ‘colcestrian’ for his sterling efforts during the last week to help narrow down the problem.  I’d also like to put on record that TfL’s fares team spotted the issue raised on the forum and had already begun looking into it before my contact asked them about it.