Brentwood (Zone 9) to Zone 2 fare confusion

Hi Jack,

It’s complicated.

You might get a bit of a clue reading the Fares Guide page, but the anomaly you are referring to is niche. Firstly, Amersham to Finchley Road is on the standard TfL-LU scale which is usually the cheapest. Although Epsom is in zone 9 its fares are set by South Western Railway so they don’t quite match the NR scale. Brentwood is on the TfL-Ang scale which is a hybrid scale forced on TfL when they took over the Anglia services out of Liverpool Street. It used to be worse, but now the differences between TfL-LU and TfL-Ang are limited to zones 7-9 and longer distance off-peak journeys in zones 2-6.

So, initially there were three scales covering just about everything on Oyster. TfL-LU was the Underground, DLR and any NR company using TfL’s fares (obviously including Overground, but also C2C and GWR amongst others). NR was for the late adopting companies (Southeastern, Southern etc) and also applied to any wholly NR journeys using Overground, C2C etc as well as late adopting NR. Finally NR-T was any journey on late adopting NR which also included Underground or DLR. There are some variations, but that’s broadly the picture.

After some complaints around discontinuing season tickets when LO took over some of Southern’s services, The DfT imposed restrictions when they took over the Anglia routes. These hybrid fares were to apply on any TfL journey that included the Anglia routes. However, where a journey included TfL-Ang, TfL-LU and late adopting NR it became, I think, too complicated. The result is that NR overrode TfL-Ang and produces the anomaly you have discovered.

There is no point in asking TfL to reduce fares from Brentwood to Whitechapel because they can’t. If you highlight the discrepancy when you include late adopting NR routes the outcome will either be nothing, or the lower fares will get raised. I hope this helps.

Actually, on reflection, I suppose my Brentwood-Lewisham example is not that perverse. After all, going via the DLR is more convenient than via Southeastern.

The DLR option involves very regular service and fewer interchanges: Brentwood–>Stratford on EL or EL+GA (if doubling-back via Shenfield or changing at Romford to get a faster GA service); then Stratford–>Lewisham on DLR or LU+DLR (if going to Canary Wharf on the Jubilee line before changing to Canary Wharf DLR or Heron Quays DLR).

Conversely, the Southeastern option is more convoluted, and one leg relies either on a non-trivial OSI (New Cross Gate–>New Cross) or a not-so-regular LO service (4 trains per hour): Brentwood–>Stratford on EL or EL+GA; then Stratford–>Canada Water on LU; then Canada Water–>New Cross (only 4 trains per hour!) or –>New Cross Gate (8 trains per hour) on LO; then (having made the OSI from New Cross Gate to New Cross if applicable, which is a 7-minute walk in my experience) New Cross to Lewisham on SE.

Of course, once EL has through-running between the north-east branch and Paddington (due next month), the Southeastern option will get a bit simpler, since you will then be able to make a direct Brentwood–>Whitechapel journey on EL and change to LO at Whitechapel (instead of Canada Water). This could result in one fewer interchange (I say “could” because if doing EL+GA for Brentwood–>Stratford this would be cancelled-out by the extra interchange to return to EL for Stratford–>Whitechapel), and cut any need for the Jubilee line, although the gain is likely to be limited, since the Jubilee line is very regular and the LU-LO interchange at Canada Water (less than 30 seconds if you get the right carriage) is quicker than the EL-LO interchange at Whitechapel (minimum 2 minutes, I would say).

Glossary: DLR=Docklands Light Railway; EL=Elizabeth Line; GA=Greater Anglia; LO=London Overground; LU=London Underground; OSI=Out-of-Station Interchange; SE=Southeastern.