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I am checking some fares from outside the numbered zones but it seems that the fare finder is not consistent with the description stated on the train company website.
The Southeastern site says that “The evening peak times of 16:00 to 19:00 only apply if you touch in within the peak period and if you are travelling from a London station.
If you are travelling to a London station with contactless, the evening peak times will not apply and you will be charged an off-peak fare.”
However, if I enter Sevenoaks to Waterloo East into the fare finder, it shows both morning peak and evening peak, which contradicts with the above statement.
Could anyone please check the data?
This was picked up by the local rail user group and Southeastern said it would be corrected. I suggest that you contact them about this issue as it is they that supply the data to TfL’s system.
All the evening peak contactless fares from the Sevenoaks area Southeastern stations (Sevenoaks, Dunton Green, Bat & Ball, Otford, etc) to Zone 1 were set on the TfL system as peak rate: that is what the TfL fare finder said and that is what passengers using contactless have been charged. The Sevenoaks Rail Travellers Association noticed this shortly after the introduction of contactless fares. Although Southeastern (who correctly charge the off-peak fare for a paper ticket into Zone 1 in the evening peak) said that this was a mistake at TfL and that they would raise it with them, and we also raised it directly with TfL at the time, the TfL Fare Finder continued to show Sevenoaks to Zone 1 as a peak rate fare in the evening peak, and the appeals of a number of passengers to TfL have all been refused.
The local MP Laura Trott has become involved and she reported yesterday on Facebook [1] that:
Following my letter to the Transport Minister and yesterday’s Facebook post, the Deputy Mayor of London for Transport has now responded to me regarding the Contactless overcharging from Sevenoaks stations into London between 4pm and 7pm.
He has admitted there was a charging error, which he says was fixed in early June, and claims TfL is looking into how affected passengers can be refunded automatically.
While he says customers can contact TfL’s customer services for a refund, I’ve tested this today — and they are still wrongly insisting the higher charge was (and is) correct. This is simply not good enough.
I also still have serious questions about who knew what and when — and why it took my intervention for this issue to be acknowledged. Right now, my focus is on making sure TfL fixes its customer service response and puts a proper refund process in place for everyone affected. However, I will be revisiting these questions so we can get to the bottom of what’s happened.
The TfL Fare Finder now correctly shows Sevenoaks to Zone 1 as a peak fare only 0630 to 0930.
TfL say that they are “looking into” automatic refunds. However given the refusal of TfL to generate automatic refunds in the Reading case discussed elsewhere on this site we do not hold out much hope for TfL doing so for Sevenoaks. Nevertheless it is good that the MP has promised to pursue this.
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the updates both here and on the news page. I’m hopeful that TfL will sort out some automatic refunds as they did so for the other major issue from the March fare revision involving c2c.
Not excusing anyone, but I feel it might help to explain the processes involved here. With Project Oval stations the responsibility to enter the correct fares rests with the train company who set them. The fares from February were supplied to TfL last summer in readiness for the original launch. Then came the cyber security incident and everything got put on hold. In the meantime the revised fares from March were supplied to TfL where I’m pretty sure only the actual fare would have been changed. TfL (or Cubic who actually do it) require between two and three months notice of fares changes so that testing can be carried out and an inplimentation plan agreed. When the old fares went live in February it was way too late to make any changes in time for March, which is why the corrections came into effect with the (normally) minor revision in June.
I’m less clear about what should happen with customer services, but hopefully the intervention of a local MP and the Department for Transport may elicit improvements going forward.
Incidentally, I don’t think they’ve fully fixed the issue. If I attempt to buy a single ticket from Sevenoaks to Oxford Circus on the Southeastern website leaving at 1700 on Monday it will sell me an off-peak single at £11.20. But if I ask the fare finder what the PAYG fare will be it says £18.20 as the peak fare is still showing as both morning and evening. What is your understanding where the journey ends in zone 1 but beyond a London Terminal?
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