please empty your brain below

The comparisons between the commuters from Uxbridge and Kingston ignore the face that the £8.00 fare will be capped to £12.50 if they make a return journey, bringing the effective fare down to £6.25. Still more than the comparible tube fare, but equivalent to the Orpington commuter.

dg writes: Point taken, post updated, thanks.
I was queuing up behind someone at a ticket machine and watched them buy a cash fare for £4.90 using a contactless card to pay. They were only carrying a handbag and could have walked to their destination station in 20 minutes.

I have encountered what I think is the only valid reason to buy a cash fare several times this year - a tourist with a non-contactless bank card or a US card (which don't work reliably on oyster readers) who needs to take the tube exactly once or twice (perhaps from Kings Cross to Heathrow).

As Oysters can only be refunded 48 hours after purchase, the deposit is effectively non-refundable if they are leaving, unless they are certain they will remember to bring it alon if they ever come to London again. Also TfL machines only accept topups by card in £5 multiples, so if they don't have coins to top up an exact amount (or don't want to work it out), it may be cheaper to pay the cash fare.
I have seen someone talk to a member of staff by the ticket machine, buy a 'cash fare' ticket with the help of the member of staff, pay with contactless, and at no point did the member of staff tell them that they could just use their contactless card and save them money.

I told them on the escalator on the way down. Good deed done for the day.
First sighting of the H-word in a British context: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/savings/inflation-3pc-bank-rate-set-rise-savers-need-do-right-now/ When does Sadiq Khan get enough wriggle room for a wider rise?
The extra charged to South Londoners is accentuated by the much greater number of stations which have been placed within Zone 6.

We all pay the same £276 pa GLA precept, but even allowing for the cap, if you make two peak journeys a week from Zone 6 south of the river, you generally pay an extra £235 a year compared with coming from the north. (Unless you're over 60, in which case you pay £8 for each peak hour trip south of the river, and nothing at all north of it!)

Khan, of course, lives in the only area south of the river where the Tube has a strong presence.
@John & Gordon...could be those travellers needed a receipt/ticket. I have been told to get one such and to ask station staff to let me out at the destination in order to have the ticket to claim back the fare from the organisation asking me to visit them. I'm sure as hell not going to supply them with my Oyster travel history.
The phrase "mandated by the TOCs" appears as many as sixteen times in the text of the Mayoral Decision

Only sixteen times? He must be slacking. TfL referred to it seventeen times in their advice to the Mayor.
@b - this will depend on employer, but I recently needed to claim some travel expenses. I paid contactless, and just submitted a redacted statement from the TfL Contactless pages. Just blanked out whatever they didn't need to see, and passed it on. Expenses approved.

Sure it helps my employer has a sizeable London presence. But I'm sure many other employers would accept it. What may be the case is that employees don't realise what they can do. And of course TfL staff won't be able to advise on that.
So Khan misled electors, who didn't understand what they were voting for. Time for another referendum, sorry, election then.
I don't pay anything anymore thanks to the last mayor who gave me a over 60s Boris pass.
"Khan mislead electors". But begs the question why the media / his opponents did not challenge him on this during the campaign?
"continuing the TfL fares freeze will not have an adverse impact on TfL’s ability to run and invest in the transport services that London needs to remain successful."

But it will impact on TfL's ability to invest in transport services that Watford needs to justify concreting over its allotments.
John C: because everyone was having a right-on fit of the vapours about Goldsmith 'being a racist' and modishly, snidely belittling the Lib Dems (I see Khan continues to claim the Hopper idea was his. Liar). Khan could have said up was down and black white and no-one would have dared say 'really?. Now live with him.
@Andrew....well that's all well and good for you but, wait until you have to deal with a completely inflexible organisation whose minions follow only the rule book (not amended since year dot).
@b - well I did say it would depend on the employer!
"Sadiq's supposed fare freeze is no such thing if you're a regularly-capped traveller."

Exactly. What a pack of lies he told to get elected. The guy has achieved NOTHING in office.
And a PS to Diamond Geezer - excellent article - the fare rises since 2008 are horrific and should be pointed out.
Boxer, with the 60+ London Oystercard or a Freedom Pass you still have to pay on non tfl services before 9.30am weekdays. So that would not help in dg's example of a commuter leaving from Kingston.
This proves that old adage.
Political decisions made about financial matters, rarely work out for the best.
Considering the distribution of Tube and Rail, if I live south of the Thames I will have quite some reason to rally people to vote out Khan next time. Ironically, this guy lives south of the Thames himself.
Sadiq was very careful to say, in his manifesto and in pre-election speeches, that he planned to freeze all "TfL fares" for four years.

He was also careful not to expand on precisely what "TfL fares" meant, which was deliberate misdirection, but he wasn't lying.
I wonder why it's not possible for London to implement an integrated fare scheme, where it doesn't matter whether you take the bus, tram, tube or NR train to where you're going.
@Simon Hellinger
Because both TfL and DfT are contractually beholden to the private train operators and their guaranteed fare incomes

@Patrickov - his home patch of Tooting is one of the few areas south of the river that is served by the Tube.
Nice stuff DG. But --

Mark - Khan has done NOTHING? Look at the three tables DG starts his article with. What is the rise for each fare compared with last year? That's right -- NOTHING! What would the rise have been under the Tories MORE THAN NOTHING!

Boxer - According to Wiki free travel for over 60s existed before but was done away with after national legislation to increase the retirement age by the Tory/Lib Dem coalition. Boris was forced to act....

Patrickov - I too live south of the river. Don't you use buses? Have you noticed the fare has not changed since Khan got in? Unless we get a candidate who promises to expand the tube network all over south London, who is your alternative?
Campaign instead to have London suburban railways incorporated into Tfl -- or nationalised!
@Chris

Khan did try to extend TfL into S London, but was blocked by the Transport Secretary, who wasn't brooking any mayoral interference in HIS constituency. Although he didn't seem to be aware that, for fares are least, most of the stations in his constituency already have their fares set by the mayor!
I do think the mayor limited himself unnecessarily by saying that none of the fares he controlled would go up. The £1.50 off-peak tube fare throughout Zones 2-6 isn't just damned good value, it's ridiculously underpriced and could have been inched up to a more sensible level to bring in extra income, and I can see no reason why fares for travel outside Greater London shouldn't go up.
...and don't get me started on continuing to give free travel to 60 year olds to get to work.
@ John C - most of the media are not sufficiently tuned in to the minutiae of fares policy to challenge properly. There was the famous moment when the BBC's Tom Edwards almost had the now Mayor explode when challenged during the campaign over the cost of the fares freeze and the difference between "his" numbers and those of TfL. Some of us did point out, under a different nom de plume, that the Mayor had no control over Travelcard prices and caps but no one picked up on that. We were still right though.

@ 71m80 - it is worth noting that TfL take revenue risk on all of its contracted operations be they bus, tram, DLR or main line rail. They are therefore not beholden to their contractors in respect of revenue. If fares revenue is below budget then TfL have to cut their cloth appropriately in terms of costs overall so they can pay their contractors for the performance they have delivered.

With the TOCs they are required to shove up fares in line with the assumptions they made *and* the DfT signed up to in their franchise contracts. If revenues fall for reasons outside of their control then they put out their begging bowls in front of the DfT.

The entire approach of the Fares freeze for 4 years is wrong. A far more nuanced and less damaging approach could and should have been taken. If we think things are bad now imagine the mess come 2020 and / or if the economy tanks and commuting volumes fall.
When the unlimited bus/tram hopper is introduced next year, I look forward to the DG 'how many different routes can I ride in 60 minutes' special.

dg writes: I have a Travelcard, so I can already ride as many as I like for 'free'.
So daily off-peak cap zone 1-4 goes up from 9.10 to 9.40?

If so, this means it's still capped at less than price of four single journeys (z1-2 £2.40 or z1-4 £2.80).

If I can i'll keep to 3 journeys, if not i'll go crazy.










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