Thornton Heath -> Highbury & Islington Oyster fare

When querying the above fare at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/tickets/faresandtickets/farefinder/current/default.aspx I get the following fares (peak/off-peak).

£3.50/£2.40. This is the default fare and corresponds to the 1-4 NR only scheme.

So what route would this be? All I can figure is:
Thornton Heath to St Pancras (via Thameslink)
walk to Kings Cross
Kings Cross to Finsbury Park
Finsbury Park to Highbury & Islington

Seems an odd route for a default fare. LO is classified as TfL is it not?

Next, we have £2.40/£1.80 (via Stratford). This corresponds to 2-4 through fare. This seems to imply that you would catch an LO service (at West Croydon/Peckham Rye) and then change at Canada Water onto the Jubilee line to Stratford; completing the journey via LO again! Very odd, especially as services from Peckham Rye will go directly to H&I (I'm pretty sure that the fares database has been updated for the LO extension to Clapham Junction as that fare is £1.50/£1.40 which equates to z2 tfl only.)

Finally we have the £4.90/£3.70 route if you interchange between NR and LU in zone 1.

So what happens if I get LO all the way to H&I?
And what about changing at Vauxhall for the LU service?


Am I missing some key knowledge here?

CheapAndNerdy said:

So what route would this be?

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Any route NOT passing through any ticket barriers will be charged at the default fare (unless there are pink readers en-route and there is a fare for use of the pink readers).

CheapAndNerdy said:

Seems an odd route for a default fare. LO is classified as TfL is it not?

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LO is a National Rail TOC but is a TfL concession. Therefore any route that is TfL only (including LO) is charged at TfL rates and any route that is NR only (including LO) is charged at NR rates. Sometimes the system does not know which way you went therefore it charges the default fare which will make assumptions and in some cases will be the lower of the two fares.

A good example of that is Farringdon to Wimbledon which is charged at the NR Only rate as this is slightly cheaper than the TfL Only rate so you get the 'benefit of the doubt' - unless, of course, you use ticket barriers en-route and the system determines an more appropriate fare.

CheapAndNerdy said:

Next, we have £2.40/£1.80 (via Stratford). This corresponds to 2-4 through fare. This seems to imply that you would catch an LO service (at West Croydon/Peckham Rye) and then change at Canada Water onto the Jubilee line to Stratford; completing the journey via LO again! Very odd, especially as services from Peckham Rye will go directly to H&I (I'm pretty sure that the fares database has been updated for the LO extension to Clapham Junction as that fare is £1.50/£1.40 which equates to z2 tfl only.)

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It is good that such cheaper options exist. They may be a bit odd but they are valid routes and some people will use them to save money and avoid the congestion in Zone 1.

CheapAndNerdy said:

Finally we have the £4.90/£3.70 route if you interchange between NR and LU in zone 1.

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Yes, that's paying the dreaded mixed mode including Zone 1 tax.

CheapAndNerdy said:

So what happens if I get LO all the way to H&I?

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That would be the default fare as you do not pass through any ticket barriers.

CheapAndNerdy said:

And what about changing at Vauxhall for the LU service?

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That's TfL + NR mixed mode.

(Note: the above was typed off the top of my head in about 4 mins, it should be accurate however I've not gone through it all to check. I am sure MikeWh in particular can correct me if I've made any mistakes!)

yorkie said:

Any route NOT passing through any ticket barriers will be charged at the default fare (unless there are pink readers en-route and there is a fare for use of the pink readers).

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OK, that makes sense.

yorkie said:

...any route that is NR only (including LO) is charged at NR rates.

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Ahh, I didn't realise that.

yorkie said:

It is good that such cheaper options exist. They may be a bit odd but they are valid routes and some people will use them to save money and avoid the congestion in Zone 1.

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Yes indeed. I try to make use of them when I can. It just seems ironic that I could be on a train heading towards my destination, but I have to leave it, and then change a second time in order to get a cheaper fare.

yorkie said:

(re:interchange at Vauxhall) That's TfL + NR mixed mode.

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Presumably (?) there are gates involved here. Maybe MikeWh knows how that would be charged?

CheapAndNerdy said:

Presumably (?) there are gates involved here. Maybe MikeWh knows how that would be charged?

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Interchange at Vauxhall will involve passing through one set of gateline to get out of one station and through another set to enter the other. The NR and LU stations are separate.

Yorkie is pretty much spot on. Via Vauxhall is a special case sometimes because the NR part ends at the edge of zone 2 and the LU bit starts at the edge of zone 1, so it isn't always classed as a mixed journey, but can be one journey made up of two separate fares if the total would be cheaper. In this case it isn't, so you should be charged the same as changing at any other London terminal.

Using the direct trains from Peckham Rye to Highbury & Islington will charge the default fare which includes zone 1. To get the cheaper one you need to touch the pink validator at Stratford. And yes, the fares have already been updated as though the ELLX is open because it couldn't be done this weekend and was unlikely to have a negative impact on any journeys in the meantime (many will be cheaper with little if any impact on maximum journey times).

MikeWh said:

Via Vauxhall is a special case sometimes because the NR part ends at the edge of zone 2 and the LU bit starts at the edge of zone 1, so it isn't always classed as a mixed journey, but can be one journey made up of two separate fares if the total would be cheaper.

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Does this mean the system is clever enough to figure out that the OSI should be ignored and charge two separate fares, if cheaper?

bb21 said:

Does this mean the system is clever enough to figure out that the OSI should be ignored and charge two separate fares, if cheaper?

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Sort of. My belief is that there are extra entries in the fare table for both Vauxhall and Elephant & Castle.

MikeWh said:

Sort of. My belief is that there are extra entries in the fare table for both Vauxhall and Elephant & Castle.

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That is actually quite interesting. I might just try this out this coming Sunday and report back on my findings.

MikeWh said:

Yorkie is pretty much spot on. Via Vauxhall is a special case sometimes because the NR part ends at the edge of zone 2 and the LU bit starts at the edge of zone 1, so it isn't always classed as a mixed journey, but can be one journey made up of two separate fares if the total would be cheaper. In this case it isn't, so you should be charged the same as changing at any other London terminal.

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Thanks for the confirmation, Mike.

Just had a brief look at the fares from East Dulwich (Southern) to stations on the ELL core south of Whitechapel in Zone 2, which like Southeastern stations south of New Cross are being charged at NR rates rather than the TfL/NR rate, which at least provides those passengers with cheaper journeys to other parts of Southwark and East London as long as their journey ends on the Overground.

MikeWh said:

Using the direct trains from Peckham Rye to Highbury & Islington will charge the default fare which includes zone 1.

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How are the helpline likely to react to a refund request due to overcharging (charging a zone 2 only journey (on a direct train) as z1-4)?

34D said:

How are the helpline likely to react to a refund request due to overcharging (charging a zone 2 only journey (on a direct train) as z1-4)?

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The original question was about Thornton Heath to Highbury & Islington which is zone 1-4. My comment was in response to a point in the OP. If you only travel from Peckham Rye to Highbury & Islington direct then it will be a zone 1-2 journey.

I must say, I was really hoping there'd be a pink validator installed at Clapham Junction as part of the latest Overground opening. Earlier this year I wanted to get from Turkey Street to Wandsworth Town avoiding zone 1 – TUR to Clapham Junction is fine, but change at CLJ to go that one extra stop and you're stuck with paying for an extra unwanted zone.

(I know I could have touched out then back in at CLJ, but that's something I never like doing.)

Rather than start a new thread I thought I'd continue the existing one as it is related.

Tooting Bec to Whitechapel.

The default fare is £3.10/£2.60 -- tfl 1-3. Changing at London Bridge and Canada Water seems the likely route.

There is an alternative fare of £2/£1.60 for travelling via Balham and New Cross Gate (avoiding zone 1). I interpret this as changing onto NR at Balham and onto LO at Crystal Palace or Sydenham.

However changing at Clapham North and doing an OSI to Clapham High Street seems very reasonable, and also avoids zone 1. This fare (tfl 3-2) should be £1.50/£1.40. So it looks like a fare is missing from the database. I wonder how it would be charged right now: the higher default fare as there is no interchange at Balham, or the lower fare as there is no interchange in zone 1?

I'm surprised the option of cheaper TfL fares hasn't been programmed in from the Northern line Morden branch stations via Clapham North/High Street as one of the benefits of the ELL is to provide a journey in particular to Canary Wharf which doesn't involve zone 1.

When changed to Canary Wharf, Fare Finder still gives the same results and even tells you to touch the pink reader at Canada Water.

MikeWh said:

Yorkie is pretty much spot on. Via Vauxhall is a special case sometimes because the NR part ends at the edge of zone 2 and the LU bit starts at the edge of zone 1, so it isn't always classed as a mixed journey, but can be one journey made up of two separate fares if the total would be cheaper. In this case it isn't, so you should be charged the same as changing at any other London terminal.

Click to expand...

MikeWh said:

Sort of. My belief is that there are extra entries in the fare table for both Vauxhall and Elephant & Castle.

Click to expand...

bb21 said:

That is actually quite interesting. I might just try this out this coming Sunday and report back on my findings.

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Having tried this route Saturday night, as promised, I am now in a position to confirm that Oyster PAYG does indeed charge the sum of the two separate fares to/from Vauxhall if cheaper when interchanging at Vauxhall between LU and NR, hence avoiding the so-called "Zone 1 premium". It is still logged in the system as one through journey however, consistent with when an OSI has been applied.

My journey was Euston LU - Vauxhall LU, then Vauxhall NR - Kingston NR.

I was correctly charged £1.30 for the first leg, and the second leg an additional £1.55, the 5p discrepancy (Zones 2-6 NR Only off peak single fare £1.50) seemingly resulted from rounding errors as I assume the calculation of the discounted fare is based on the total undiscounted fare for the journey (£4.30) and then less 34%, rather than the sum of two discounted fares for the two legs of the journey.

All fares with 16-25 discount.