miklcct
On Moderation
London has the most expensive public transport prices on paper, but despite the world-class provision TfL is now in financial trouble, compared to some other metropolitan cities where the farebox recovery ratio can come close or even exceeds break-even.
I have realised that it is too easy to cap an Oyster card. Once it's capped, the remainder of the day is free. As a result I am motivated to either:
1. stay well under the cap
2. if capping is inevitable, travel as much as I need such that I won't need to cap my Oyster on subsequent days.
Also, the non-integration between bus and rail fares makes me to avoid London Buses as a connection to the railway, and use non-TfL rail services such as Thameslink instead. This further hurts TfL finances as a significant portion of the fare will be given to non-TfL operators.
For example, using my Railcard-discounted Oyster, if I only want to make a simple return between Cricklewood and Gospel Oak off-peak, I will use Thameslink to go to West Hampstead to change to London Overground at £1.70 per journey, £3.40 total. However, if I want to make additional journeys on the day, I will use a bus instead to connect to the Overground such that I won't need to enter zone 3, to cap my Oyster at £5.10 for the day for zones 1-2. If I use a bus to connect to Overground and make a simple return, my Oyster will definitely be capped at £5.10, compared to £3.40 total if I use Thameslink to connect to Overground.
Even at adult prices, taking a mixed-mode zone 1 journey and another journey, or a Heathrow Elizabeth line journey and another journey, will make capping nearly certain.
Therefore, I suggest that prices of caps and day Travelcards to be increased in order to increase TfL revenue, and introduce hopper fares between bus / tram and rail to make London Buses more competitive as a mean to connect to the railways.
I suggest that the off-peak price cap of a zone should set at 4x the TfL off-peak single fare, and the anytime price cap should set at 2x peak + 2x off-peak single fares. This also fixes the anomaly that the anytime cap is equal to the off-peak cap for zones 1-6, making no incentive to avoid the morning peak if one intends to cap the Oyster for off-peak leisure travel unless a Railcard is held.
Here is a comparison table between the current price and my suggestion:
As shown above, there is a substantial increase in the cap prices for the inner zones, which should reduce the amount of capped Oysters / contactless cards held by visitors on any single day. I don't suggest any increase to weekly caps / season Travelcard prices in order to avoid increasing the burden of commuters, as I believe the multiplier between the daily and the weekly cap is too high already (e.g. for zones 1-2, the price is £38.40 for the weekly cap and Travelcard which is currently 4.99x the daily cap, making it little benefit for commuters, and if the Oyster is Railcard-discounted, the weekly cap can never be reached currently even if travelling 7 days a week between zones 1-2 after 09:30. If the daily cap is increased substantially, off-peak commuters will buy season tickets instead)
Another money loser of TfL is the Heathrow premium. The zone 6 cap currently means the premium is ineffective unless the traveller is only doing a single journey. As such I suggest Heathrow Rail to be moved outside zones 1-6 to unadvertised zone 9 (like Epsom), but makes all Travelcard season tickets valid in zone 6 routed AAA (also available at) Heathrow Rail to prevent a fare increase to commuters. With my suggested fare scale above, a traveller entering Heathrow Rail after 09:30 will still have £7.20 to go before capping after taking the Elizabeth line to central London.
Finally, in regard to hopper fares, my suggestion is that the hopper fares scheme should be extended to:
1. Any bus / tram touches made within 1 hour of the initial bus / tram touch (the current rule) - in such case no charge is deducted in the subsequent touches the hour
2. One rail touch in made within 1 hour of the initial (non-hopper fare) bus / tram touch - in such case the bus / tram fare will be discounted at the end of the rail journey, but no refund will be made if the rail fare is less than the bus fare
3. One bus / tram touch made after rail touch out, 30 minutes for buses and the appropriate connection time for trams at the interchange station. In such case the bus / tram journey will be free unless the rail fare plus the preceding bus / tram fare is less than a single bus fare, in such case a total of a single bus fare will be charged. The 1-hour timer is reset on this bus / tram to enable further transfers according to rule 1.
In effect, this means a bus / tram - rail - bus / tram journey is charged as a single journey, where the initial bus / tram leg can made up with any number of legs within 1 hours between the first leg and the rail touch in, while the final bus / tram leg can made up with any number of legs, started within 30 minutes (or the appropriate time for a rail-tram connection) after the rail journey and done within the subsequent hour.
Although this may represent a revenue loss on paper, in effect if one makes such journey under the current fare scale, his Oyster will likely be capped already making the non-integration between modes only on paper. However, if one switches from non-TfL National Rail to London Buses to make the rail connection (e.g. a Thameslink - Overground journey totalling £1.70 replaced with a London Buses - Overground journey totalling £1.65), it will represent a revenue gain instead, and buses / rail will get equal footing in term of connecting transport to the rail network. This can encourage bus use in London as an integral mode of transport, focusing in railway connection, instead of an inferior mode of transport only to be used when there aren't other connecting rail services, by slashing the "mixed-mode premium" between bus and rail.
I have realised that it is too easy to cap an Oyster card. Once it's capped, the remainder of the day is free. As a result I am motivated to either:
1. stay well under the cap
2. if capping is inevitable, travel as much as I need such that I won't need to cap my Oyster on subsequent days.
Also, the non-integration between bus and rail fares makes me to avoid London Buses as a connection to the railway, and use non-TfL rail services such as Thameslink instead. This further hurts TfL finances as a significant portion of the fare will be given to non-TfL operators.
For example, using my Railcard-discounted Oyster, if I only want to make a simple return between Cricklewood and Gospel Oak off-peak, I will use Thameslink to go to West Hampstead to change to London Overground at £1.70 per journey, £3.40 total. However, if I want to make additional journeys on the day, I will use a bus instead to connect to the Overground such that I won't need to enter zone 3, to cap my Oyster at £5.10 for the day for zones 1-2. If I use a bus to connect to Overground and make a simple return, my Oyster will definitely be capped at £5.10, compared to £3.40 total if I use Thameslink to connect to Overground.
Even at adult prices, taking a mixed-mode zone 1 journey and another journey, or a Heathrow Elizabeth line journey and another journey, will make capping nearly certain.
Therefore, I suggest that prices of caps and day Travelcards to be increased in order to increase TfL revenue, and introduce hopper fares between bus / tram and rail to make London Buses more competitive as a mean to connect to the railways.
I suggest that the off-peak price cap of a zone should set at 4x the TfL off-peak single fare, and the anytime price cap should set at 2x peak + 2x off-peak single fares. This also fixes the anomaly that the anytime cap is equal to the off-peak cap for zones 1-6, making no incentive to avoid the morning peak if one intends to cap the Oyster for off-peak leisure travel unless a Railcard is held.
Here is a comparison table between the current price and my suggestion:
| Zones | Current anytime | My suggested anytime | Current after 09:30 | My suggested after 09:30 |
| Bus & Tram | £4.95 | £6.60 | £4.95 | £6.60 |
| 1 only | £7.70 | £10.00 | £7.70 | £10.00 |
| 1-2 | £7.70 | £11.60 | £7.70 | £10.40 |
| 1-3 | £9.00 | £13.00 | £9.00 | £11.60 |
| 1-4 | £11.00 | £14.80 | £11.00 | £12.40 |
| 1-5 | £13.10 | £16.80 | £13.10 | £13.60 |
| 1-6 | £14.10 | £18.00 | £14.10 | £14.00 |
| 1-7 | £15.30 | £20.80 | £14.10 | £17.60 |
| 1-8 | £18.10 | £23.60 | £14.10 | £17.60 |
| 1-9 | £20.00 | £24.00 | £14.10 | £18.00 |
As shown above, there is a substantial increase in the cap prices for the inner zones, which should reduce the amount of capped Oysters / contactless cards held by visitors on any single day. I don't suggest any increase to weekly caps / season Travelcard prices in order to avoid increasing the burden of commuters, as I believe the multiplier between the daily and the weekly cap is too high already (e.g. for zones 1-2, the price is £38.40 for the weekly cap and Travelcard which is currently 4.99x the daily cap, making it little benefit for commuters, and if the Oyster is Railcard-discounted, the weekly cap can never be reached currently even if travelling 7 days a week between zones 1-2 after 09:30. If the daily cap is increased substantially, off-peak commuters will buy season tickets instead)
Another money loser of TfL is the Heathrow premium. The zone 6 cap currently means the premium is ineffective unless the traveller is only doing a single journey. As such I suggest Heathrow Rail to be moved outside zones 1-6 to unadvertised zone 9 (like Epsom), but makes all Travelcard season tickets valid in zone 6 routed AAA (also available at) Heathrow Rail to prevent a fare increase to commuters. With my suggested fare scale above, a traveller entering Heathrow Rail after 09:30 will still have £7.20 to go before capping after taking the Elizabeth line to central London.
Finally, in regard to hopper fares, my suggestion is that the hopper fares scheme should be extended to:
1. Any bus / tram touches made within 1 hour of the initial bus / tram touch (the current rule) - in such case no charge is deducted in the subsequent touches the hour
2. One rail touch in made within 1 hour of the initial (non-hopper fare) bus / tram touch - in such case the bus / tram fare will be discounted at the end of the rail journey, but no refund will be made if the rail fare is less than the bus fare
3. One bus / tram touch made after rail touch out, 30 minutes for buses and the appropriate connection time for trams at the interchange station. In such case the bus / tram journey will be free unless the rail fare plus the preceding bus / tram fare is less than a single bus fare, in such case a total of a single bus fare will be charged. The 1-hour timer is reset on this bus / tram to enable further transfers according to rule 1.
In effect, this means a bus / tram - rail - bus / tram journey is charged as a single journey, where the initial bus / tram leg can made up with any number of legs within 1 hours between the first leg and the rail touch in, while the final bus / tram leg can made up with any number of legs, started within 30 minutes (or the appropriate time for a rail-tram connection) after the rail journey and done within the subsequent hour.
Although this may represent a revenue loss on paper, in effect if one makes such journey under the current fare scale, his Oyster will likely be capped already making the non-integration between modes only on paper. However, if one switches from non-TfL National Rail to London Buses to make the rail connection (e.g. a Thameslink - Overground journey totalling £1.70 replaced with a London Buses - Overground journey totalling £1.65), it will represent a revenue gain instead, and buses / rail will get equal footing in term of connecting transport to the rail network. This can encourage bus use in London as an integral mode of transport, focusing in railway connection, instead of an inferior mode of transport only to be used when there aren't other connecting rail services, by slashing the "mixed-mode premium" between bus and rail.