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Hi,
Oyster always charges up to the cap of the highest zone used. This sometimes can cause a perceived overcharge (when you come in from zone 6 and don’t return beyond zone 2 for instance), but in this case you’re still better off. The single zone fare with a railcard is £1.15 off-peak and £1.90 peak, so if you want to use the zone 1-2 cap you would have paid £5.60 + £1.90 + £1.15 = £8.65. Instead you’ve been capped at £6.60.
Hi Peter,
Can you tell me where you are seeing the £11.20 fare, please. I can’t find it.
Within zones 1-9 the EL fares are set by TfL and are the same as used on the Underground. Cash fares are significantly more expensive to try and push most people to use PAYG.
Fares to Heathrow EL stations include a supplement charged by the airport who own the tracks between Airport Junction and the Terminals.
Hi Feathers,
It’s the same across the whole of zones 2-6 on late adopting NR routes. Any 2 zone fare.
The reason is that at every fares increase the PAYG single fares are increased by the standard amount with rounding to ensure a multiple of 10p. The paper return fares are also increased by the standard amount with rounding, but as the fares in question are twice as much the rounding is often less of an issue.
I’ll see if I can get in touch with someone who can flag it to appropriate people.
Hi Adam,
Assuming these were the yellow validators between the Victoria line and GN platforms then you haven’t done anything wrong. Very very occasionally the Oyster system throws up a curveball like this. If it happens again then when you call the helpdesk press them to explain what has happened. You hopefully won’t get it again though.
You are correct that routeing cannot be applied unless a pink reader or out-of-station interchange is present to define the route taken. I can only speculate that the routeing mentioned on brfares.com is likely down to a misunderstanding on the part of the fare setter.
The other thing to understand is that traditional tickets are able to stop/start short, so in the case of a double back the fare needs to reflect the most expensive station. With PAYG you define the journey by your touches so you wouldn’t be able to exit at Sevenoaks without paying the fare to there.
John,
Thank you very much for this information. I’ll try and answer your questions as best I can.
1) Unless they have changed things then yes, the first touch in on a journey sets the rate for the whole journey.
2) Yes, if you pass through zone 1 and out the other side then a peak fare is payable, unless you’ve come from GWR stations from Iver westwards (including the branchlines) where it’s off-peak for any eastbound journey in the afternoon.
3) The fare-finder does specify whether the fare will be peak or off-peak in the afternoon. The times against the peak fare change depending on whether it is am only, am and pm, or pm only.
4) Correct, the off-peak cap applies at any time after 0930 and limits the effect of peak evening fares if earlier travel was off-peak after 0930. The anytime (or peak) cap protects revenue when the inbound journey is before 0930.Do come back to me if you get any further questions.
Hi Saj,
TfL services are not covered by the normal National Rail delay repay so in this case your journey is treated as being in two halves. If the Thameslink journey was delayed by 15 minutes then you might have a claim with them, but they will look at your arrival time at Blackfriars/Farringdon and compare the time you arrived at City Thameslink with what you should have expected at that time. The Underground and DLR also make refunds if you’re delayed by 15 minutes or more. If they were the main cause of the delay then use the Oyster online site and select either Blackfriars or Farringdon as the destination.
Good luck.
Hi Martin,
Thameslink on the LU scale does include London Bridge or Elephant & Castle to Kentish Town and Finsbury Park, but none of those options include London Bridge to New Cross Gate. That’s why you have to touch the pink reader at Whitechapel or Canada Water, or change betweek stations at Shadwell.
I’d agree with Feathers. Fares on late adopting NR services within zones 1-6 are set by representatives of the TOCs concerned under the umbrella of ATOC (now RDG). This group will include SWR, but I don’t think the people setting fares from Epsom will particularly have thought about the fares within the zones.
You could write to SWR and ask them if they have any comment.
Hi Alexander,
No, you can’t. The National Rail fares database has existed since at least privatisation, maybe before. The PAYG fares database was created to run the original Oyster system in the early 2000s after TfL gave up waiting for the government to specify a smartcard solution. [It’s Cubic by the way, not Cubitt, who run TfL’s revenue contract] As far as charging people for PAYG the master database is TfLs. National Rail wanted to show PAYG fares on National Rail Enquiries so they set up psuedo fare types so they could handle that. I don’t know why they didn’t access the live fares database like my site does, but I’m sure there were reasons. Because there is no link between the databases it is a manualish job to enter the fares onto National Rail. Mistakes often creep in via this process. The bottom line is that all PAYG fares are charged according to TfL/Cubic, be they tube, dlr, NR, cable car, boats, buses, trams etc etc etc.
Actually I’ve worked out what’s happened. When the fares were increased back in March, GWR have added the standard increase to all their fares. What they forgot was that the zone 1 tube fare did not increase, so the difference between Paddington and any other Z1 station should have remained at £2.80 or £2.70 off peak.
Hi Tracy,
Unfortunately very little is logical about UK rail fares since privatisation 30 years ago. The specific issue here is between who sets the fares. On the Cricklewood line it is GTR. They charge by zones within London, and there are no off-peak fares to encourage use of PAYG. London Overground is part of TfL and their stick to promote use of PAYG is to charge very high cash prices.
This is all well and good until you need to use a paper ticket for a days out offer.
Hi,
GWR set the fares from Reading to anywhere else. I agree that something is wrong, but TfL just charge what they’ve been told. I suggest you contact GWR and ask them why it’s cheaper to split with two cards.
Yes, they are both easy. According to Google maps the Brondesbury one takes about 3 minutes while the West Hampstead one is probably only a minute (but you do have to cross the road). Obviously there is the walking time within the stations to add in.
If you click on “Information Pages” at the top, then “Interchanging Trains” and finally “OSI List” you’ll get a list of all the interchanges. In the Outer London OSIs section, click on the distance alongside the OSI you’re interested in and it will display a map showing how to get between the stations. Note that the West Hampstead map shows the route between the two furthest apart, the Overground station is in the middle.
Well, thanks very much for your dedication, which I know you will have enjoyed. The whole misunderstanding stems from my mistaken belief that Wembley Park was further east from West Hampstead. No idea what caused that, but it explains my sentence “I’d only normally suggest it if turning away from London.”
Thanks for the input, Alan. Curious as to why you think Kilburn-Brondesbury is quicker than West Hampstead? I’d only normally suggest it if turning away from London.
Hi Alexander,
Beyond zones 1-9 there is no set rationale for setting fares or caps. They are both set by the operator responsible for the fares. In the case of Reading to London this is GWR. Because PAYG fares are all singles, peak fares are charged going away from London in the afternoon peak. This is so that commuters pay two peak singles (equivalent to an Anytime return). If all your travel is after 0930 then the off-peak cap will apply and will limit the effect of a peak single.
The routeing guide is not really about fares in the same way my tables are for zones 1-9. It’s concerned with defining permitted routes.
Until TfL work out how to handle discounts on contactless then sadly you may find paper tickets with a discount are cheaper than contactless fares.
So, I’ve done some manual analysis and it appears as though Chiltern are copying the usual pattern of charging off-peak in the afternoon peak if the destination is in zone 1. Additionally it’s off peak if you only use Chiltern trains, hence the two Ruislips, Sudbury Hill Harrow and Wembley Stadium all get afternoon off-peak. This may be the way all the Project Oval extensions work, we’ll have to see.
There are some anomalies, particularly the alternative routes for Oxford Circus.
Thanks for the further thoughts. I’m not at this stage suggesting who is wrong, if indeed anyone is. There are some potentially unwanted side effects to what is currently set up though. More later.
You can also travel back from Watford Junction to Watford High Street if you take the faster train. Every 15 minutes and takes about 3.
