What will the best way for me to travel with a single TfL Zone 2-6 Oyster fare from Croydon to Harold Wood on that day?

Unfortunately that isn’t possible. However, if you do travel via London Bridge and New Cross Gate and do not touch out at London Bridge then you’ll be charged the slightly more expensive NR Zone 2-6 fare.

has this issue been discussed in the London Assembly?

I don’t know. You could always write to your assembly member and ask them.

Trust me, the page has been amended and is now clearer. You can see the previous version at https://web.archive.org/web/20260619195853/https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/free-and-discounted-travel/60-plus-oyster-photocard although the stupid cookie message gets in the way a bit.

The National Rail services that don’t accept the 60+ Oyster card are HEx and HS1.

The linked map also explains the situation accurately, apart from a spurious column about disabled freedom passes.

Dear Richard,

[Double sigh]

The Rail Ombudsman relies on advice from the train companies, and has obviously spoken to the wrong person at GA. My contact at TfL says that the web page they are relying on will be amended and expects it to go live next week after getting approval. They admit that what is there now is confusing. If it was me, my next move would be to reply with the following bullet points:

• The map at https://content.tfl.gov.uk/60-plus-london-free-travel-national-rail-map.pdf clearly states that travel is valid on National Rail routes operated by Greater Anglia within zones 1-6. That map is linked from the page they are quoting, before the confusing extra bit.
• The Oyster 60+ card is an off-peak travelcard and thus can be used to the boundary of zone 6 along with an appropriate extension ticket without the train needing to stop at the boundary, as per NRCOT 14.3, as long as the travel within zones 1-6 is not before 0930.
• The page they are quoting will be amended at some point next week to remove the confusion
• Request a letter from the MD of GA apologising for the lengthy saga and confirming that what you have asserted all along is in fact the truth.

Good luck.

Because there are way more than 15 different sets of travelcard prices.

Hi kijeta,

Thank you for spotting my coding error, which I’ve now fixed.

I’ve asked a relevant fares expert about your Aylesbury query. An obvious default route would be Chiltern to Harrow-on-the-Hill, Metropolitan to Baker Street, Bakerloo to Regent’s Park. I don’t know why it should be more expensive though. I’ll update when I hear back.

Ok, so the train company has taken the piss on everyone relying on the cap or buying Travelcards from Epsom.

To be fair to GTR, they never wanted Epsom to be in zone 9, but the DfT insisted that Epsom be added to Oyster and there were only two ways of doing that; zone 9 with cheaper day caps than desired, or zone 10 and don’t recommend people rely on capping because they couldn’t adjust it all. I think TfL should take a little blame here that their page on the station stated that it was in zone 9. That was probably an unforseen consequence of the way those pages are generated, but it certainly didn’t help the situation.

And now suddenly they have removed the validity of zone 1-9 Travelcard there and can now penalty fare anyone who use his usual ticket to commute to, or through, Epsom, without making any public announcement that the station is rezoned.

The likelihood is that commuters will have been using Epsom to zone 1-6 period travelcards because they were significantly cheaper than the zone 1-9 variety.

Don’t get me wrong, GTR’s refusal to publicise when changes are made is not a good look. They did it before when they got TfL to change how extension fares worked on contactless for Gatwick Airport, and now they’ve done it again. What we have now is almost what was supposed to be put in place in the beginning, so it’s not going to be reversed.

Thank you Vincent. It seems the training didn’t happen, particularly as their MD cant agree with their Revenue Protection manager on the issue

Not to minimise this, but I’m not sure that the MD would necessarily be included within routine training. They should know, obviously, but the fact that the revenue manager did know means that the message is getting through.

Thanks for that email, Richard. I’ve passed it to TfL for them to deal with.

Right, I see! So you’re saying that the ‘NR-T’ fare category only EVER applies on journeys that include zone 1? If so then I didn’t see this on the ‘NR-T’ part of the table on your ‘Fares Guide & Tables’ page?

I’m saying that the NR-T fares are the same as NR if the journey doesn’t involve zone 1.

I hadn’t seen that guide with the map until now. That’s very good! The map shows Watford High St where i think Watford Junction should be …

The map is specifically zones 1-9 and Watford Junction is outside that area.

Thanks for the history lesson, Si. The point I was rebuffing was that Epsom was only ‘in zone 9’ for Oyster which arrived long after the 2010 period we were talking about.

Hi kijeta,

Yes, there are some anomalies at the edges of the Oyster area. The train companies accept that anyone using Oyster in the correct way will be charged according to the fare finder, so it’s not really a grey area. If a travelcard covers the zones shown on my fare finder for the journey made then no extra will be deducted.

In your specific examples, Ewell East to West is described as being a zone 3-6 journey, so a travelcard (on Oyster) would be valid to travel via Epsom with no extra charge. A paper travelcard would not be valid, but I prefer to view that as a benefit of using Oyster. Slade Green to Crayford is well known to me and the same applies, except that there are direct trains between the two which stay within zone 6. If you do travel via Dartford then the same fare would be charged as that is the zonal coverage for that journey.

Did you mean Turkey Street to Enfield Lock via Cheshunt? In that scenario the single fare is described as zones 6-8, so you would be charged extra if you had a zone 1-6 travelcard. If you want to stay within the six zones then you need to travel via Tottenham Hale and Seven Sisters using the Victoria line. It is also possible to buy a paper zones 1-9 travelcard by specifying the origin station as Amersham or Brentwood.

In terms of the Freedom Pass or 60+ Oyster card you do need to stay within their specific areas. Whilst you would get away with touching in at Ewell East and out at Ewell West, if an inspector checked your card en-route then you would be treated as having no ticket. Dartford has historically always been in the Freedom Pass area, so that isn’t a problem. Cheshunt is valid on a Freedom Pass as long as you use the Overground services.

There is an OSI between Waterloo and Waterloo East, so that is pretty much the best example for that fare.

When the Oyster fares were originally set up for the 2010 expansion of PAYG there were a lot of redundant routes put in just in case. In those days pretty much all Oyster fares were solely within zones 1-9 (only Watford Junction and Grays existed beyond that). I agree that in this specific example routes going beyond Wimbledon are pretty pointless. If someone really did want to go from West to East they would probably buy a ticket via Epsom, or take the bus.

Hi JR,

Through fares using both old NR and LU/DLR are only more expensive if the journey includes travel in zone 1. If not, the same fares as just old NR are charged. Old means late adopting routes that joined in Jan 2010 (eg Southeastern) as opposed to routes that charged TfL fares before then (eg c2c).