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I have been noticed that TfL is lying to us about the annual fare increase. In particular, I have checked multiple journeys outside zone 1, and they have all been increased by more than 10%. For example, a zone 2 only journey off-peak is now £2.00 compared to £1.80 last year, which is even more expensive than a journey outside London in zone 7.
How does TfL set the fare increases for each zones? And why does it act against Londoners’ interest by increasing the cheap fares above inflation?
I think lying is too strong a word here. TfL have not said that all fares have risen in line with the national increase of 4.6%.
Whenever increases are applied to small fares there is always going to be quite a bit of variation given that the increased fare still has to be a multiple of 10p. There will be winners and losers, but overall the increase will be roughly the desired figure.
That said, the fares in zones 2-6 have seen an abnormally high increase. It should be noted that compared to NR fares, TfL fares are still competitive. I don’t know whether there is a direct connection, but bus and tram fares have been frozen, so across all of TfL the increase is probably just right.
The fares in zones 7-9 may have been an oversight (I genuinely dont know) and they may well go up more next year.
As with all these types of things TfL, as a public body, does what it’s told by government and the mayor/GLA. Sure, they have to divide the overall fare changes between the different zones and ticket types but the amount of money to be raised is imposed on them.
‘Acting against Londoners’ is a cheap shot. Politicians call the shots and public bodies don’t get a choice about implementing them. To make it worse, the “fully funded” NI rise for public bodies isn’t fully funded for TfL meaning their budget for the year is now in deficit. What do you suggest they do? Close the Bakerloo line?
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.
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