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Here’s one of my usual unusual (!) jaunts around London.
Oyster with senior railcard added.Understanding capping isn’t one of my strong points, especially when peak & off-peak travel are both involved, I’d appreciate your thoughts.
Date/Time Journey/Action Charge Balance
Tuesday, 26 August 2025 £13.25 daily total
16:38 Bus journey, route H25 £0.05 £5.85
15:55 – 16:36 Earls Court to Hatton Cross £1.50 £5.90
14:40 – 15:06 Kensington Olympia to High Street Kensington £0.00 £7.40
14:27 Bus journey, route 28 £0.00 £7.40
13:09 – 14:25 Walthamstow Queens Road to High Street Kensington £0.00 £7.40
11:37 – 12:31 Morden to Walthamstow Central [London Underground] £0.00 £7.40
11:31 Bus journey, route 164 £1.70 £7.40
11:21 – 11:30 Wimbledon to South Merton [National Rail] £1.95 £9.10
10:23 Bus journey, route 219 £1.75 £11.05
09:30 – 10:21 West Brompton to Wimbledon £1.35 £12.80
07:37 – 09:16 Hatton Cross to West Brompton £3.20 £14.15
07:29 Bus journey, route 203 £1.75 £17.35The first oddity is at 11:31. I was charged only £1.70 for a bus even though I hadn’t yet reached the bus cap and I’d spent only £10.00 so hadn’t reached either of the other caps.
The next few journeys are free, presumably capped, but why? I’d spent £11.70 which doesn’t match any cap.
The next oddity is the 15:55 – 16:36 journey when I was charged £1.50 when I expected it to be free because the previous journeys were.
And lastly. I was charged 5p for the final bus journey as though the system had remembered that it hadn’t charged the full fare at 11:31!
Purely for my own education, are you able to explain what’s happened here?
Confused of Berkshire
Hi Alan (confused of Berkshire),
That’s a great question which highlights some odd features that aren’t often seen these days, and a long standing bug just to add a further curve ball.
First thing to remember is that the system keeps track of which zones have been used for both anytime and off-peak caps. With all day caps in zones 1-6 (unless a railcard is added) this rarely makes a difference. Then there’s the oddity that for some weird reason all bus journeys are treated as off-peak. This came in years ago when weekly bus capping became a thing on Oyster, and it’s never been fixed.
So, your first bus journey added £1.75 to both caps. The tube from Hatton Cross added £3.20 to the anytime cap and set the anytime zone limit to 5. The tube from West Brompton added £1.35 to both caps and set the off-peak zone limit to 4. The 11:31 bus hit the zone 1-4 off-peak railcard cap of £8.50. The tube from Earls Court extended the off-peak zone limit to 5, and the final bus hit the daily bus cap as you said. Had you made another train journey this would have capped at the zone 1-5 off-peak cap of £10.15 (unless you went beyond zone 5).
Thanks for that challenge.
Many thanks for the clear explanation, Mike. The gap in my knowledge was that the off-peak cap didn’t start until the first off-peak journey. Previously I’d assumed that the day started with the first journey and charges were then allocated to whichever cap was applicable at the time of touch-in during the day.
It makes sense that the system works the way it does – even though it makes things more complicated – but because I make so few peak journeys it hadn’t ocurred to me that it worked that way. Thanks again.
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