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Sadly there are lots of routes that journey planners will suggest which don’t necessarily take account of programmed interchanges. There are no direct trains between Euston NR and St Pancras NR, and as someone making that transition would need to use two OSIs with plenty of internal walking, I imagine that it was requested by ATOC in the run up to Oyster extending to all NR routes. They also requested Marylebone NR to Paddington NR which is almost never used. There are also no direct trains between Aldgate and Aldgate East unless you count a Circle line train which turns into a District or Ham&City train at Edgware Road.
Finally, Richmond to Clapham Junction is quite frequent and some of the services are limited stop, Clapham Junction to East Croydon has plenty of non-stop services, so I’m not surprised that the route sometimes turns out to be quicker.
Hi Michael,
So, the zones 1-5 off-peak railcard cap is £10.15, as you found out on the 11th. If you have capped at £6.95 for zones 1-3, the most you will be charged extra is £3.20. You are correct that breaking the OSI did save you 30p, but the cap would have prevented the full £4.15 mixed mode fare being charged from either Seven Sisters or Ravenscourt Park. You could also touch on a bus at Victoria which would be free as you had capped and would also have broken the OSI. Unless you are certain that you won’t travel again I wouldn’t recommend using a different card because you lose the protection of the cap.
In the case of Ravenscourt Park you could have changed at Earls Court, West Brompton and Clapham Junction for a cheaper zone 2-5 fare of £2.45. You might even have got the direct Southern service from West Brompton to East Croydon.
As for the £1.00 refund, I have no clue. If it had been £0.95 then I’d think it could be the difference between the full fare from Victoria and the extension fare from boundary zone 3. However, I don’t think that discounted Oyster cards are put through the back office overnight, yet. You’ll have to ask the helpdesk and see if they can explain it.
Hi Peter,
Yes. Take a look at the longer reads section where it talks about special short hop fares in zones 1-2.
Hi Jase,
I’ve split this question as it really is a new topic.
You are correct that both legs of your journey approach Stratford from the zone 3 side, but you do need to pay for zone 3. Therefore you need a zone 3-6 travelcard to make that journey without issue. Having said that, if you do try to make the journey with an Oyster card with a zone 4-6 travelcard, the system will deduct a zone 3 single fare from your PAYG balance. You only have a problem if you haven’t got enough balance to pay for that fare.
Hi Robin,
I think Michael is correct here. The sytem can’t differenciate between changing between LU and NR at Blackfriars or Waterloo, even though you did it the other way round (NR to LU). However, they have put in place an automatic adjustment for when people do actually do it.
Hi Gavin,
I suspect you’re not going to be alone in finding these sort of discrepancies.
Firstly it’s important to explain that any fares for journeys beyond the zonal area are set by the train companies, in this case Greater Anglia. Even if there is a problem with a particular fare, TfL can’t just fix it. Fares are currently set to be updated three times a year, in March, July and November. If the fare is set by TfL then they can make changes at those times, but if it is set by a train company then the company has to agree the change.
In terms of the fares to Canary Wharf, I suspect that Greater Anglia are pricing the Elizabeth line fare as just a National Rail fare while those using the Jubilee line or the DLR attract a premium. I’m not certain that they should be treating the EL route that way as the Paddington to Abbey Wood line is treated as a tube like line. However, for now they are so you can benefit. If you wish to complain about the premium being added for the short zone 2 hops from Stratford then you’d need to write to Greater Anglia.
Splitting the journey by using two credit cards is certainly one way of reducing the premium addon because the TfL fares within the zones are cheaper. The drawback is that you run the risk of not capping correctly if you decide to make any other journeys in the evening, for example. You might also try exiting through a gate at Stratford and then coming back in again using the same card. That should split the journey in two but still preserve the tally towards a cap should you need it. Note that it MUST be a gate rather than a platform validator.
I think you’re lucky if TfL have refunded you this time. I wouldn’t want to raise hopes that it will always happen, particularly if you ask yourself several times.
Hi Robin,
I can’t see anything obvious wrong. Can you please copy and paste your journey history for the day with each journey expanded so I can see actual deductions and reimbursements.
Thanks
(sigh)
TfL are actually correct. I would write back to Greater Anglia and point out that they are wholly responsible for setting fares from any station beyond Broxbourne. They also set whether afternoon peak applies or not.
Within zones 1-6 (and possibly 9 as well) the incomplete journey charge is a zone 1-6 mixed mode fare. This covers most journeys that Oyster is used for. Repeated incomplete journeys are likely to trigger investigations. If your touch in is at a remote location (ie Gatwick) then the incomplete journey charge is higher.
Hi Gary,
£10.40 is the incomplete journey charge at peak times which is deducted to disuade against not touching out. As you saw, it is adjusted if you do touch out.
That’s actually another issue which really needs sorting out. Walthamstow Cenral is also a National Rail station so the fares are not actually assuming use of the Underground. I’m afraid Walthamstow Central is quite a hornets nest of issues and you’ll sometimes be charged different fares to the one you expect by looking at the TfL fare finder. If you use my fare finder then I have added a patch to expose the different fares from stations where that is a problem. Stansted Mountfitchet is fine, but both the Airport and Bishop’s Stortford have the issue.
I must admit I hadn’t looked at Bishop’s Stortford, but I did check Stansted Airport and that is the same as Mountfitchet. It might be worth contacting Greater Anglia and see if they can explain the difference, as it’s they who set the fares.
Hi Graham,
Sadly this is a case of different policies combining to make things difficult. Greater Anglia, like several other companies, allow contra-peak travel in the afternoon to be at off-peak rate. As soon as you want to include Underground or DLR travel then it becomes peak for the whole journey. There is no differentiation between Central London and a bit further out.
Where interchange involves passing through two gatelines the system automatically joins legs into one journey, which is normally what you want, but not always. An unfortunate case at Tottenham Hale is that the interchange time is set to 20 minutes, which is completely over the top given how far apart the gatelines are. If it was only 5 minutes then it wouldn’t be too onerous to wait and cause the two legs to be treated as two journeys.
You have a few options. You could buy a ticket for the Greater Anglia leg which should be at the off-peak rate, then use contactless for the Underground. You could also use two different cards, if available, but beware that capping won’t apply properly if you were later to go into Central London. If you don’t mind paying an extra £1.75 then you could touch in on a bus at Tottenham Hale and get straight back off. Bus drivers are quite used to this so won’t bat an eyelid. The effect of the bus journey breaks the interchange immediately. Finally you could intend to do something else for 20 minutes and let the interchange time out naturally.
I do sympathise with your situation, and hope that one day a sensible policy will be applied to fares, but for now this is how it is.
I think Norbury has been added afterwards without considering other stations on the line. There also isn’t a zone 3 only fare from Streatham Common, or a zone 3-4 fare from Selhurst. Probably need to ask GTR why.
They are zone to zone within zones 1-9, but they still need to know which stations were used. OSIs are only set between certain stations, otherwise the system gets too complicated.
Thanks for this. I did some testing ages ago, but never finished what I wanted to check as something came up.
As for the year nearly up – it’s been anounced that the facility will continue until May 26th, at least. That was covered in the fare revision post undwer latest news.
Hi,
If you touch in without having touched out it may well charge you an incomplete journey. You should be able to fill that in, but only up to 3 times a month. It’s also not certain that the system will join the journeys together again automatically. If you head to Ladywell it will definitely be charged as two journeys.
Have you considered getting a zone 2-5 travelcard?
Hi Adam,
You need to either touch at both stations or neither. If you only touch at one then you are likely to get an incomplete journey, and may also be in trouble if you are inspected while the system thinks you are out.
Following on from that, if the touches are needed to prove the route then you must touch at both stations.
TfL are not as to blame as you seem to make out. Fares beyond West Drayton are set by GWR. This March it is the fares within zones 1-6 which will rise as the NR (GWR) set fares are all frozen. If GWR/SWR asked for an OSI at Windsor and priced fares accordingly then TfL would set it up. Travelcards with validity in zone 6 are available to use on the Elizabeth line trains to Heathrow. That is how people making a return journey aren’t penalised with the fare grab being aimed at tourists making a single journey.
Now that the new revenue contract has been settled I am hopeful that we’ll finally get some movement on discounts with contactless. As I understand it, the main sticking point is NR needing to know that a railcard is attached so they can ask to see it. Adding an extra list to the inspection devices makes it not an off-the-shelf blacklist/whitelist application, and clearly nothing can be written to the bank card.
I’ll not offer any defence on delay repay, other than it will have been agreed with the DfT when signing the contracts.
This has opened up a huge can of worms.
The first thing to note is that there is no difference between fares from Richmond Underground and Richmond (London) Rail stations. It’s all one station but TfL have this obsession with showing multiple instances of stations if they have more than one mode.
The next thing is that there is no out-of-station interchange in Windsor. So far none have been set up beyond zone 6, although issues with intermediate gatelines mean that we should see internal OSIs at Stevenage and Welwyn Garden City soon. This explains why your via Windsor journey was split into two – it was actually two journeys according to TfL.
West Drayton to Reading and branches were the last contactless extensions set up before project Oval, as I mentioned above, while Feltham to Windsor is very much part of Oval. However, given that there is no OSI in Windsor we can say that fares between Richmond and Slough are set up differently and there’s a reasonable chance that National Rail and TfL won’t show the same fare.
We can get some clues by looking at my fare finder (driven by TfL open data) because I add zonal coverage for journeys set up before Oval. The default route for Richmond to Slough is zones 3-16 which as suggested means District via Turnham Green to Ealing Broadway. The alternative routes involve taking SWR to South London terminals or Vauxhall or Queenstown Road Battersea and then taking various Underground lines to Paddington. Note that the change between Underground and National Rail at Paddington does not trigger the alternative route, which leads us onto …
About that can of worms. The National Rail journey planner thinks Richmond to Willesden Junction on Overground, then Overground/Bakerloo to Paddington with an optional change at Queens Park, then GWR to Slough is the second best option after Windsor. Because the OSI between Paddington LU and Paddington NR is not used in the fare setting, the fare charged will be the default fare. Indeed, it’s possible to do it without passing through a gateline because the Bakerloo line and Elizabeth line stations at Paddington are linked inside the paid area.
In summary, I’ve no idea where National Rail is getting the £9.70 fare from. You will be charged according to the TfL driven fare finders either £10.20 via South London terminals, £8.70 if you make two journeys via Windsor, or £4.50 via any other route (but don’t leave the PAYG area via Ascot and Reading).
Hi Michael,
There are two trains a day direct between Battersea Park and other Windrush line stations towards Dalston Junction. These are run to retain route knowledge for drivers for when engineering works close the line to Clapham Junction. At all other times you need to use a Southern service to Clapham Junction before picking up the Windrush line, so the fares charged reflect that reality. There is no way for the Oyster system to detect that you’ve taken the direct route.
