various TfL ticketing questions

If we can get past the emotional responses then a few observations.

1. The use of Oyster caps is designed so that people get the best value deal for the travel they make *without* having to choose between ticket types before hand. Some people may have unpredictable travel patterns or may not have perfect knowledge as to whether buses, rail or a mix will be better for them. As Oyster capping works in "real time" it deals with what people do. It also avoids people making potentially expensive, wrong ticket choices up front. [And yes, Oyster PAYG can go wrong with time limits, missed touches etc but paper tickets are not without their issues too].

2. There has been a long term policy, dating back to the introduction of Oyster PAYG, to incentivise people to switch from buying paper tickets to using Oyster or, now, contactless payment. This dates back to Ken Livingstone's time as Mayor so we are talking around a decade or so of this policy. Quite how anyone can really accuse Ken of "chasing bigger profits" I know not. After many years of not being convinced the TOCs are now keen to see a further push towards smarter ticketing as they've seen the benefit of Oyster in their bank balances despite viewing it as an evil TfL plot for years. Now they realise there are opportunities to save on retailing and revenue protection costs.

3. Following up on (2) it is worth saying that LT and then TfL have been trying *for decades* to automate and speed up ticket selling / checking and revenue protection. This is about improving operational efficiency, reducing fraud and for the bus service getting dwell times down so that you need fewer resources to run a given service level. UTS on the Tube helped a fair bit but Oyster and more ticket gates was the really big push in more recent years. Prior to that the introduction of Travelcard was the product innovation that drove simpler retailing and a lot of marginal journeys and higher revenue.

4. I would agree that some "nasty tricks" were played with zonal combinations and pricing during Boris's tenure but the whole thrust of his financial policy was "efficiencies" (cuts) and driving up the revenue base hugely to try to compensate for declining central government support. That was all a political choice at London and national level that people voted for even if they did appreciate what the detail would mean at a personal level.

5. The move to equalise peak and off peak caps was a "sop" to shift the pricing basis of daily caps so "part time workers" would not be unduly penalised from not being able to commit to a 7 day Travelcard product and then having to incur high daily fares / caps. By putting daily caps at 1/5th of the weekly Travelcard, regardless of peak or off peak travel in Z16, this allows people to work odd days over a 7 day period and not be disadvantaged. I don't really like the policy myself as I think it creates a range of rather undesirable effects but it was a political dodge to satisfy growing moans from Tory (and other) Assembly Members and to do something quickly. I'd have preferred a proper off peak Travelcard season which gave genuine choice but that's off the agenda. Ditto for non Z1 daily caps - the removal of the Z26 cap was a crude and unncessary move that massively priced up journeys for people and removed the benefit of capping from them.

You can have a genuine debate about what you do with revenue, costs and subsidy. London has long been out of step with many other large cities. We've had

a) large subsidies paid for from the rates (Fares Fair etc in the early 80s). Difference then was plenty of spare capacity off peak and an ability to carry extra pax if fares were cut. Investment needs were not on a massive scale and construction costs were vastly lower.

b) lower subsidies on fares but more grant funding for investment. More investment needed in order to cater for burgeoning ridership and declining asset health. This was the key issue during the LRT era under govt control. Government refused to provide consistent annual funding resulting in feast and famine for tube investment.

c) the Ken era of putting up Council Tax and introducing new revenue sources to bolster both revenue subsidies and investment spend. Also a lot of Central Govt support for revenue and investment spending.

d) the Boris era of limiting Council tax increases, demanding more and more savings from within TfL (plenty of which were justified), shoving up fares to reduce revenue support after conceding their withdrawal with the Treasury in return for investment grant support. Introduction of powers for new levies from developers and businesses.

e) the Khan era of freezing TfL controlled fares, squeezing investment spend but pretending not to, reducing TfL's cost base, having to live with zero revenue grant levels and living in hope that more revenue streams from air quality related policies will help fill up TfL's coffers. Oh and expecting Crossrail to be an enormous cash cow as TfL gets its hands on some existing TOC revenue flows and seeks to create new demand and revenues from the core section.

I don't know which one of the above is best given the main political parties at Westminster are incapable of agreeing a policy stance on public transport funding for London (or elsewhere). All I do know, having been on the inside, is that consistent levels of funding agreed over a number of years is really very important in terms of trying to get work done properly, at lowest cost and with efficient procurement / VFM from suppliers. I am now getting to the point where I am questioning the value / benefit of political control over transport budgets given the turbulence every new administration causes. I fear the currently Mayoral term will land Londoners with some horrible choices come 2020/21.

And to avoid you having to extract the useful information you need from the previous post, here's the short answers.



No. There is a combined rail+bus cap, or a separate bus cap. Buses are not zonal and any buses can be used with any combination of zone cap, with the bus cap counting towards such - i.e. if you hit the bus cap but not the zone cap you'll pay cap+single fare. If you then meet the zone cap that is all you will pay.



In nearly every circumstance, no.



Z1-4 peak time ODTCs are still available. Certain NR ticket offices within London will also sell you Z1-2, Z1-4 etc at other times of the day. TfL are "trying to get rid of the ticket" because the vast majority of people use neither cash nor tickets for travel. The associated costs are very high.



They've been like this for some time now - the differentiation is largely for discounted travel. In any event, even accounting for the price differentials the caps still tend to be cheaper than the corresponding ODTC.

But in London they issued the limited freedom pass for 60 year olds. This was a Boris idea to win votes. They must by now have run out of travel bribes for pensioners unless we can think of some.

With London's population increasing by 2 million in the last few years. It has become a foreign capital to the natives exacerbated by white flight to the county towns and coastal towns.

Thanks for a most informative article, snoggle.

Another factor in peak/off peak is that travel into Z1 from the outer zones is now off peak at any time save M/F 0630-0930. This does not apply if you travel z6 to z2, for instance.
But it does affect the cost of getting into London for theatres, etc, which for me from z6 is only £4.20 return with Railcard discount loaded onto Oyster.
As to pensioner bribes, the London 60+ oyster must eventually be vulnerable; and out of London some authorities (eg Herts) don't have the 0930 bar, and others (eg Essex) start availability at 0900. Also, ENCTS passes are available on TfL buses at any time.
There are also of course young person bribes.

Nice to see that the exhortation to supply meanings for arcane initialisms is having effect [\SARCASM]

For anyone who doesn't know (such as myself, before I looked it up), ENCTS => English National Concessionary Travel Scheme.

Bus passes began with restricted hours in 1973.

The GLC held elections 1970 (conservative win), 1973 (labour win), 1977 (conservative win), 1981 (Labour win under Andrew McIntosh, deposed by Ken Livingstone the day after),1985 elections not held (as the GLC was abolished by the Tory government in 1986).Each election promised the pensioners more regarding the travel passes. The bribery  of pensioners continued with the Mayoral system from 2000.

The article cited mentioned workmen's tickets. They were abolished on the underground early 1960's???. My father told me he would at 7.30am??? get on the end of the ticket office queue so the sale of cheap tickets could be stopped.

I have a quick question, and this may be the best place to ask it.

I use Oyster PAYG and travel between zones 1-3 during a Monday-Sunday week, so I would expect it to max out at the weekly adult rate of £38.70. However if I make one journey into zone 4, would it charge me Z1-3 £38.70 with an additional £2.50 journey, or increase my maximum cap to the Z1-4 rate of £47.30?

Need to be careful here. If you are using PAYG and an Oyster Card to touch in and out then there is NO 7 day (Monday to Sunday) capping yet on Oyster. It is due next year as part of the now very delayed Future Ticketing Project. All your trips will be charged as made and may or may not cap at the daily rate depending on how much you travel cost you incur on a daily basis. Without knowing the precise nature of your journeys it is impossible to know what each daily charge would be, whether it would be capped and whether 5 daily caps would broadly equate to the 7 day cap. Obviously if you travel more than 5 days in a week then your daily charges may exceed the 7 day Travelcard cost.

If you are using a contactless bank card to touch in and out then it WILL cap over a Monday to Sunday time period at the Z13 7 day cap. If you travel outside Z13 then you will be charged the excess fares until such time as the next 7 day for Z14 is reached / exceeded. If you are using contactless and travelling more than 5 days in any M-Su period then you are likely to gain as the cap could kick in and save you money. If you only travelled 5 days out of 7 and reached / exceeded the daily cap then your travel costs for Z13 should be equal to the 7 day ticket cost as the daily cap is set at (7 day Travelcard price divided by 5).

So, if you have a rail card they've really fouled up.

Use an Oyster and you can load your rail card but the caps don't work as well as with a bank card, or use a bank card and lose you rail card discount.

Fortunately I don't need a weekly cap or the other odd one that Oyster gets wrong - elsewise I would be a little miffed.

Perhaps the long delayed Future Generation Oyster will look like the C2C Smart ITSO card, with an inbuilt photo. (By the way an Itso card can already operate the Tube ticket gates now, hence I can currently travel FREE using my ITSO card between Cannon Street, London Bridge, Waterloo, and Charing Cross Tube Stations!).

I don't see why that would be a problem. There is no reason why any inspection equipment should not contain a list of all registered CC/DC's paired with a railcard along with the railcard type.

Nowadays you could easily store such a combination for everyone on the planet a many thousands times over on something the size of a thumbnail.