please empty your brain below
Fare freezes often come to an end with a large jump, to restore them to where they would have been with "normal" inflationary increases.

But while they are in place, they can affect service provision at the margins. Policymakers have to choose between allocating £x million to fare freezes, or to service subsidies, and it is usually the case that the former wins. For a case in point, see yesterday's blog - no fares freeze may have generated enough revenue to keep both the 72 and 283 in place.

Oh, and the rest of England is finding the same problem with the £3 bus fare cap, particularly as there is no exit strategy, other than extending the scheme again (but not with sufficient funding to pay for the increases in operating costs in the meantime).

Man of Kent | 12.12.25 - 8:13 a.m. | #

I can't see what will happen to fares which involve Tube and National rail, eg Bromley South to Oxford Circus. These can be almost double the equivalent fare (same Zones) on TfL only, a gap that has widened over recent years as NR fares have increased and TfL fares have been frozen.

And its not as if the services are better - just 2 trains per hour on many routes

Timbo | 12.12.25 - 8:17 a.m. | #

Interesting that it's a Labour government which has forced a Labour Mayor to put the fares up.

Yes we all want cheaper fares, but when all your costs are going up (at least) by inflation, it's a recipe for managed decline.

Mikey C | 12.12.25 - 10:16 a.m. | #

And the little weasel has just seen fit to Tweet, self-congratulating himself that the ten busiest (weasel calls it "popular") stations in the UK (cf) are all in London, like it's anything whatsoever to do with him and nothing to do with population. Of course they bloody are!
Weasel.

David B | 12.12.25 - 10:35 a.m. | #

Recently I'd been seeing fewer people pushing through the barriers but fear that may reverse with the price increases.

Over simplistic view perhaps, but my view is that when people have more money in their pockets, they spend more and the economy grows.
Keeping people poorer is a recipe for disaster both socially and economically.

Cornish Cockney | 12.12.25 - 11:42 a.m. | #

I have to keep reminding myself and others that the increase isn't until March. There would traditionally have been an announcement around now about the old January increase, so the timing of this one is odd and there'll probably be another in February. The (possibly short?) bus fare freeze is a bit unexpected but will no doubt be emphasised ad nauseam.

...and re. Heathrow, £12.80 is from Paddington but TfL quote the generic fare from other Zone 1 stations.

dg writes: updated thanks (and ouch!)

Andrew S | 12.12.25 - 11:58 a.m. | #

I doubt Sir Sadiq Khan needed much forcing to put fares up, and the high energy prices in this country don't pay for themselves.

Still Anon | 12.12.25 - 12:57 p.m. | #

A shame that fares are increasing, but clearly in line with what was mandated by central government unfortunately. Whether you like him or not, it does also seem somewhat unfair to describe the mayor as a weasel for celebrating the passenger numbers of a railway within London that has inarguably been very successful.

kerplunk | 12.12.25 - 2:34 p.m. | #

Is it true that travel to Heathrow is cheaper by changing at Hatton Cross, the final bit being free?

dg writes: pay attention

kev | 12.12.25 - 4:24 p.m. | #

Croxley to LHR o/p with a railcard is a bargain at £1.50, if one's prepared to twiddle around Rayners Lane. But I would use the 724/725 for free, any time of the day going south as have a national bus pass!

Nick K | 12.12.25 - 5:21 p.m. | #

I agree, unfair to call him a weasel. There are much stronger words which are more applicable.

Mudcrutch | 12.12.25 - 7:13 p.m. | #

The exit strategy for the £2 bus fare cap should be to make pensioners pay for it too. Sick of socialism, sick to the back teeth of it.

Michael | 12.12.25 - 9:34 p.m. | #

Fact check: the £2 bus cap (now £3) was introduced under a Conservative government.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 12.12.25 - 9:43 p.m. | #

A good exit plan for the £3 bus cap would be a subsidised monthly pass to encourage passengers to stick along and ride regularly. But that'd require some serious thinking and is probably best left for when metro mayors will cover the entire country and will have to make their own decisions.

Maybe TfL and the mayoralty should have a similar think about making monthly passes more affordable to encourage passengers to get those in the WFH era. They could even do it like many cities in France where they give a small discount if you auto-renew it every month. Helps passengers not 'forget' and ensures the transport operator gets more or less predictable revenue. Whereas TfL's Board Documents have noted pax numbers are consistently below levels budgeted barring Crossrail which has a big impact when most passengers now pay as they go
.
I was trying to figure out why bus fares would be frozen until only July and why that month in particular and couldn't figure it out -- barring perhaps the fact that the current government might not make it past the local elections next year?

matthieu1221 | 12.12.25 - 9:55 p.m. | #

Fact check: The last 4 of the last 5 Conservative governments were essentially socialist. (The other one was whatever you can call Liz Truss.)

Stephen | 12.12.25 - 11:59 p.m. | #

Fact check: the £2 bus cap was announced the day before Liz Truss became PM.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 13.12.25 - 12:01 a.m. | #

Indeed, and now Labour have increased it by 50% and are ,unbelievably, crowing about their “achievement” in doing so.

As foreseen by Orwell in “Nineteen Eighty-Four” regarding the chocolate ration.

Weasels.

David B | 13.12.25 - 6:49 a.m. | #

To aid completeness: no rise in cost of Santander bike rides.

I'm surprised that the £1.65 fare for 30 mins wasn't raised to match bus. Useful for dawn dashes across London to connect with first long distance trains of the day, can get quite a distance in 30 mins if there is no traffic, twice the speed of the bus even at early hours

MilesT | 13.12.25 - 9:57 a.m. | #

Do you have some historic figures on how much of Tfl's income is from bus/tube fares and how much is from Central Government grant? Compared to other international capital cities? I'll go away and ask Chat GpT.

South London Lad | 13.12.25 - 11:42 a.m. | #

A lot of trolls on here today, triggered by a mention of the Mayor no doubt.

JohnC | 13.12.25 - 12:15 p.m. | #

A couple of thoughts on the substance here and what the increases are actually worth in the long term.

£1.50 for a one zone PAYG journey in 2016 is (according to the BoE) £2.08 in October 2025, so a March 2026 fare of £2.20 is 12p more expensive than 11 years previously in real terms. Assuming continued moderate inflation it's likely that, at least by the end of the next fares period (March 2027), this particular will have in effect been frozen by Sadiq in real terms over the course of 11 years. The bus fare is starker still, already 33p cheaper in real terms than it was in 2016, and cheaper still with each passing month.

Obviously I've been somewhat selective here in my choice of fares - there are plenty that will have risen by more than inflation. But Sadiq's continued protection for London's least well off commuters - bus users - is imo the correct political decision in the context of a sequence of governments that starve London's transport system of revenue support, in stark contrast to every comparable system globally.

mangers n bash | 13.12.25 - 9:27 p.m. | #

Probably a good thing that the Santander Cycles aren't seeing an increase. TfL noted that ridership dropped significantly when they got rid of the day pass (since restored in a slightly different form) as people simply went for the dockless bikes instead.

matthieu1221 | 13.12.25 - 9:34 p.m. | #

South London Lad, for day to day operational expenditure, I believe the Central Govt grant is a grand total of GBP 0 now. The money that TfL gets from Westminster is solely for capital expenditure.

Any comparison with funding from national govts that other major cities abroad get should also bear in mind the revenue raising abilities of local government which tend to be far higher than here.

matthieu1221 | 13.12.25 - 9:39 p.m. | #

Off-peak fares rising by the same additive amount as peak fares is effectively making peak fares less relatively expensive, which seems backwards considering that the trains are at capacity (if not well beyond) during peak hours but often far below off-peak, and peak demand is fairly inelastic but off-peak demand can be much more elastic. On the other hand, raising peak fares by too much could plausibly cause riots...

sam | 14.12.25 - 7:27 p.m. | #











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