On 18 November 2016 the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, confirmed the TfL fares for 2017. As part of this he announced a four-year ‘fare freeze’ on all ‘TfL fares’ starting next year, meeting his manifesto promise. Whilst this is factually correct, however, TfL fares do not apply to many of the tickets under which regular passengers travel. Indeed the majority of commuters will likely still see a fare increase roughly in line with the Retail Price Index (RPI). We look at the reason for this, along with all the fare changes, below.
When is a TfL fare not a ‘TfL fare’?
To the average traveller, it would be easy to assume that the definition of a TfL fare is any fare applied to a journey that takes place on a TfL-run (or managed) service. That is, a journey on a bus, tram, Underground or Overground train.
In reality, however, many fares within London are innately (and legally) linked to National Rail fares, both for Oyster and paper tickets. This is the result of the admirable efforts on the part of London’s transport and political authorities, for more than thirty years, first to introduce Travelcards and then a smart ticketing system (Oyster) that genuinely covers all the journeys London’s travellers need to make.
It is that second goal which is key to understanding the complexity of fares and ticketing in London. This is because the majority of regular travellers in London either begin or end their journey using a method (such as a national rail service) that is outside of TfL’s control. As a result, in order to create Travelcards and then (later) Oyster it was necessary to reach agreements with the DfT and Train Operating Companies (TOCs) as to what level of reimbursement they would receive from any journey made on a Travelcard.
The ‘fare freeze’ stumbling block
Whilst much of the debate during the Mayor’s campaign focused on the direct cost to TfL of a potential fares freeze, in truth it was always these arrangements that were likely to present the bigger stumbling block, something that was pointed out as part of the LR coverage at the time:
Given Travelcard is a jointly priced product with the TOCs then we will see Travelcard prices rise every year because the DfT will demand it. The SoS [Secretary of State] has to sign off the fare deal each year. Mr Khan can’t get round that. This then leaves him with a dilemma – does he go back to the bad old days of a TfL only product (LT Card anyone?) whose prices he can control? That does nothing for simplicity. Daily capping prices involving rail services will also rise unless Mr Khan is going to ship tens of millions of quid from City Hall to the DfT to “compensate” the TOCs for the divergence from their bid projections? I think we should be told.
The simple truth was that TfL were always bound by a set of fares agreements that they would have been hard-pressed to unpick – even if a Conservative-run DfT, themselves under pressure to realise savings, or beyond them the TOCs, who have their own financial targets to meet, had felt inclined to help them do so. Perhaps the only acceptable (and indeed workable) solution would have seen TfL accept the full actual and future cost of the freeze to all parties – something that even Khan’s campaign at the time would likely have agreed was unacceptable, if the opportunity to ask the question had presented itself.
It is this problem that has likely resulted in the ‘fares freeze’ taking the very-specific form that it has. Reading the actual fare guidance, rather than the press release, it is clear that TfL attempted to negotiate a full freeze with the DfT and TOCs, but were unable to do so.
Nor, understandably, were the TOCs prepared to let TfL suddenly start running cheaper services on the parts of the railway where they shared stopping patterns (even if this was somehow technically feasible to do).
What this means for passengers
An individual trying to work out whether their fare is going to rise should essentially ask themselves:
Does my journey take place entirely on a TfL service which doesn’t share stops with a non-TfL service?
If the answer is “yes” then the fare is almost certainly frozen. If the answer is “no” then it definitely isn’t.
Fares on TfL buses, London Underground, London Trams, London Overground, DLR and TfL Rail services are thus frozen except for some small increases in the Brentwood and Shenfield area on TfL Rail. This is because TfL cannot create divergence from Greater Anglia fares. Where TfL fares apply on some National Rail routes, for example Fenchurch St to Upminster, these fares will also be frozen.
On the West Anglia services that were transferred to TfL in May 2015 there will be some fare increases. Cash fares will rise by 10p, as will the special Pay As You Go (PAYG) fares that apply for journeys to Liverpool St (NR). Point to point season ticket prices to Liverpool St (NR) will also increase by 1.9%. This is because there is a tie between TfL and Greater Anglia fares for certain fares on this part of the network. PAYG fares in zones 1-6 will be frozen. Note, however, that fares beyond Zone 6 on these routes are controlled by Greater Anglia so will increase.
Product changes
The good news is that the fare freeze is by far the most complex part of this year’s announcement. There are no structural changes to the product range this year with daily cap / day Travelcard zonal combinations unchanged.
Indeed despite the fares freeze being in place TfL’s income is forecast to rise by around £52.2m. Most of this (£41.2m) comes from TfL’s share of Travelcard income where prices will rise. However £11m of the extra revenue is forecast to come from generated trips as a result of travel becoming cheaper.
PAYG on national rail
The National Rail PAYG tariff sees increases for both peak and off peak travel. Fares increase by 10p for all zone combinations. Through Tube and Train PAYG fares into or through Zone 1 only increase by 10p peak and off peak. The operators have frozen the “add on” fare element for Zone 1 for 2017. The Zones 1 to 6 Tube / Train peak fare rises to £7.80 which will also become the new peak “entry / exit charge” for PAYG for missed touch in or touch outs or exceeding maximum journey times. The off peak equivalent will increase by 10p to £5.40.
Child PAYG flat fares for rail travel in Zones 1 to 6 remain frozen at 85p peak and 75p off peak for use on TfL services and those TOCs which use the TfL tariff. Child fares on other TOC routes are priced at half the adult rate.
One Day Tickets and PAYG Caps
The revised prices for 2017 are shown below. Prices and caps typically rise by 10p-30p. Note that Zones 7 to 9 retain a price differential between peak and off peak caps which does not apply within Zones 1 to 6.
| 2017 Prices | Anytime | Off Peak | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paper | Oyster Cap | Paper | Oyster Cap | |
| Zones 1-2 | n/a | £6.60 | n/a | £6.60 |
| Zones 1-3 | n/a | £7.70 | n/a | £7.70 |
| Zones 1-4 | £12.30 | £9.50 | n/a | £9.50 |
| Zones 1-5 | £17.50 | £11.20 | n/a | £11.20 |
| Zones 1-6 | £17.50 | £12.00 | £12.30 | £12.00 |
| Zones 1-9 | £22.10 | £17.10 | £13.10 | £12.10 |
Season Tickets
Weekly Travelcard prices increase by around £0.40-£1.10 (approximately 1.8%) depending on the number of zones purchased. There are no changes to the standard multipliers from the 7 day to monthly and annual prices.
Some examples of new prices are set out below.
| 2017 Prices | 7 Day Travelcard |
|---|---|
| Zones 1-2 | £33.00 |
| Zones 1-3 | £38.70 |
| Zones 1-4 | £47.30 |
| Zones 1-5 | £56.20 |
| Zones 1-6 | £60.20 |
| Zones 1-9 | £85.70 |
| Zones 2-3 | £24.70 |
| Zones 2-4 | £27.30 |
Other Details
There are no changes to the time bands for peak PAYG charges – they remain as 0630 to 0930 and 1600 to 1900 Mondays to Fridays.
There are no changes to the time at which the off peak period starts for One Day Travelcards. It is still 0930 M-F and all day Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays.
As is typical the special PAYG rates which apply to journeys outside of the Mayor’s control are not stated in the Mayoral Decision document. This covers places like Watford, Cheshunt, Hertford East, Gatwick Aiport and the special St Pancras – Stratford International fare.
The Oyster Card deposit is unchanged at £5.
Cycle Hire charges
There are no stated changes to charges for the use of the Santander Cycle Hire Scheme.
Emirates Air Line fares
The Mayor has announced that fares on the Emirates Air Line will be frozen.
Spinning the savings
Overall, longstanding readers of our fares coverage will likely see many positives in this year’s announcement. Indeed the Mayor should be commended for delivering any element of a fares freeze at all, and for managing to secure from TfL commitments that it is possible to do so without compromising the overall delivery programme the organisation is already committed to.
At the same time, however, there is a very real danger that the announcement fails to manage the expectations of Londoners, the vast majority of whom will look only at the headlines prompted by the press release from the Mayor’s Office, rather than the full Mayoral Decision it relates to.
This isn’t to say that the press release is factually misleading. Simply that it can fairly be accused of relying on a misunderstanding of the scale of travel in London to imply a broader fares freeze than actually exists. The Mayor’s press release, for example, is keen to point out that:
Every month at least seven million customers will benefit all the time as they do not reach ‘caps’ on pay as you go fares or do not use Travelcards where the fare is set by the Department for Transport according to national Government fares policy. Each month a further four million customers will benefit from the freeze whenever they use TfL services for part of their journeys.
This is factually correct. But TfL’s own numbers indicate that 111.6 million passenger journeys are made, per month, on the London Underground alone. This should not be taken as a direct comparison – the figures in the press release do not make clear whether they refer to ‘journeys’ or ‘passengers’ – but either way the scale of the difference is clear, and this before factoring in the daily numbers for bus or rail users as well.
Indeed even the inclusion of the clarifying phrase ‘where the fare is set by the Department for Transport’ is interesting, for it represents one of only two mentions in the press release of the fact that there are limits to the fare freeze at all.
This stands in contrast to the underlying fares Mayoral Decision itself, which makes repeated statements –at the rate of 1.85 per page – that any increase in fares is as a result of decisions by the TOCs who are complying with Government policy.
That this fact is so important to state repeatedly in one place but not the other is telling in itself.
Managing expectations
Ultimately, it would be unfair not to expect the Mayor to make the most politically out of the freeze that has been delivered. Indeed those who have watched the politics of City Hall for some time will remember that his predecessor, Boris Johnson, was fond of announcing ‘real terms’ fare freezes annually in a similar way.
The impact of freezing bus fares should also not be under-estimated. When partnered with the new ‘Bus Hopper’ ticket, the fare freeze here will have a hugely positive impact on some of London’s poorest citizens, many of whom have no choice but to use the bus network (often with multiple changes) to complete journeys that they simply can’t afford to make by Tube or rail.
Internally at least, the fact that the mainstream media (or at least their headline writers) have largely failed to pick up the difference between the reality and the impact of the release will also likely be seen as a success.
In that final success, however, lies a danger for the Mayor’s Office – and by extension for TfL. For the majority of the 24,000 people who have shared the Evening Standard’s article: ‘Sadiq Khan formally confirms Tube and bus fares will be frozen until 2020’ will likely not be covered by the fare freeze itself. The same likely applies to the readers of ‘Mayor confirms London transport fares freeze until 2020’ on the BBC, ‘TfL fares to be frozen for four years’ on the Guardian or many of the other articles written.
The Evening Standard article
How those readers – and indeed media sources – will feel in January when the reality of the fares freeze doesn’t match the headline remains to be seen. For whilst TfL claim to have found the necessary financial savings required to make this freeze happen, they’ll be unable to help if London’s commuters decide that a promise was broken. If that happens, then the Mayor’s Office will have to handle that deficit of trust on their own.
You can read the read the full text of the Mayoral decision on 2017 fares online.. Cover image courtesy (and copyright) of Martin Hoscik
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Perhaps it is a good time to think about reintroducing a TfL-only Travelcard product, only valid on services run directly by TfL or it’s concessionaires. That way the mayor might be able to implement the fares freeze on at least some stored period tickets and caps including rail – i.e a separate (potentially) lower rail cap could apply unless you go through a National Rail station gate. It would be more useful than the original TfL Travelcard scheme as it could now include the orbital and new radial Overground routes as well as the other new Tube, DLR and tram lines that have appeared since then. As more local inner suburban lines come under some level of Mayoral control and TfL branding, the greater value a slightly cheaper TfL-only Travelcard would become. In addition it could help to incentivise more people to travel on the slower stopping trains instead of all crowding onto the ‘expresses’ at places like East Croydon and Bromley South.
@ Mark Townend: no, for the reasons set out in the article. I would ascribe a higher value to ease of use than you do. If analytical resource were free and abundant, a Mayor might commission modelling your proposal. But for now, that ship has sailed, as a result of the decisions set out in the decision document.
@Mark very hard to enforce, as rush-hour checks can only be done at station entry-exit, not on-train for the very crowding you mention. And it would cause big problems for TfL takeover of inside M25 rail services if taxpayers in Z6 stations like Surbiton were forced to pay more for the fast trains while subsidising the slow trains through their council tax.
@ Mark T – you can’t move to a “TfL Card” product where TfL contracted services run close to or over the Z16 boundary because of the agreements with the DfT. That therefore kills off parts of West Anglia, part of TfL Rail, Overground to Watford Junction and you may run into issues with Chiltern at Rickmansworth and north thereof. Therefore the utility of the product declines as it becomes more complex, difficult for people to understand and open to abuse. You would also get the perverse situation of revenue abstraction from the Travelcard pool which would almost certainly bring on very considerable difficulties with the Secretary of State for Transport. I can’t stress too strongly that TfL (and therefore the Mayor) do not have a free hand on fares in a number of areas. The other issue is that the Mayor and TfL are reliant on decent relationships with the DfT /HMT over investment finances, borrowing limits, Crossrail 2 and more rail devolution. I think you have to choose where you have your battles and I think a “TfL Card” would be a step too far in current circumstances.
Of course there is a hidden issue lurking which is what happens to all season ticket type products when they keep rising in price but many of the single fares that will have been frozen for 4 years. It also applies with the Hopper ticket “unlimited rides” concept due in 2018 and the pricing of Bus and Tram Pass. TfL are already advertising on the radio to suggest people move to PAYG and capping rather than buy in to unlimited ride products. As the pricing differential widens for those who mostly / largely use TfL services then I forecast things will get difficult for Travelcard as a product if sales and revenues fall because people switch away. That then gets political and I believe Travelcard is a product recognised (protected?) by one of the Railway Acts so quite what happens is anyone’s guess. You have to wonder whether someone has had a “meaningful chat” with City Hall to at least warn where they may be headed on fares and ticketing come 2020.
@OB. That’s certainly the case for the upcoming 2017 fares revision. Far too difficult to negotiate and implement with all parties in the limited time available, but a TfL only product MIGHT still be developed for subsequent years. The politics have begun it appears with Lib Dem London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon already accusing Mr Khan of “attempting to spin” the announcement. The Mayor in response is pressing for the Government to match his commitment for London fares.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/nov/18/tfl-fares-to-be-frozen-for-four-years
Perhaps for the first year there could be a truce with no rises agreed for intervalid rail Travelcards and caps, then a seperate TfL only product developed for subsequent years. The bus and tram caps are ‘TfL only’ by definition and will be frozen , so that is a big win already.
I can remember a campaign to save the Travelcard in the early 90s, when the details of rail privatisation were emerging. Sad that – at least inside London – it’s slowly dying a death, particularly because the annual Gold Card product is very useful.
Politically, I wonder if Khan would have had most the credit but much less grief if he’d just frozen bus fares. Costs aside, does he have room to reintroduce the z2-6 daily cap? That was the worst of the rises under the Johnson years.
@WW – Also steadily rising price of rail Travelcards could start to disincentivise rail usage itself where customers have a choice of other TfL modes, and that that may be no bad thing for (rail) congestion management if they move to bus where that provides a reasonable alternative. It could be particularly counterproductive if they switch in substantial numbers to private cars however, not for journeys to and from the CAZ clearly, but certainly possible in some suburbs where there’s road capacity. The problem with a TfL only rail product is the lottery by which some people’s suburban commutes are via Underground while others, by accident of history, undertake journeys of similar length and duration on NR lines. A ‘frozen’ TfL only rail product would feel unfair to many parts of South London in particular whose local rail services just happen to be on National Rail.
The problem with the TfL fares freeze pledge is that whereas I and (presumably) most readers of this site always knew that there would be limits to the extent of what could actually be delivered, most of the public interpreted the manifesto pledge as much more wide ranging, and as such may well not be very impressed when their travel costs increase in New Year. Try telling people that the fare that they pay with their Oyster card, with multiple references to TfL on it, isn’t a “TfL fare”. When a National Rail line within London has one fare for a journey if you buy a paper ticket at the ticket office, but a different fare if you use PAYG Oyster, then try telling them that the latter isn’t a “TfL fare” when it also increases in January. At the heart of this issue the fact that the phrase “TfL fares” has been used when the correct term should have been “fares for TfL services”. From what I’ve seen, so many members of the public have been taken in by (or have misinterpreted) the pledge that there will be a lot of disappointed/angry people in January.
As it is, I think that a fares freeze for TfL services is the wrong prioritisation, the focus for as long as Oyster PAYG has existed should have been to work towards equalising TfL and non-TfL fares, thus reducing the three fare scales to just one.
@ Darryl – I think a 4 year fares freeze is wrong headed. The Mayor could have adopted a partial freeze for 1 year then allowed a RPI increase the next year. Ken did that sort of thing but he was also a bit too “bribe” orientated just before an election that made his decisions sometimes look a bit desperate. A partial freeze would not have had quite such severe impacts on TfL’s savings target and would have partly avoided what may become a very large gap between Travelcard rates vs totalling up daily PAYG TfL fares (assuming they’re uncapped). Given what has been done with the Hopper ticket and what will emerge in 2018 then I wouldn’t have frozen bus fares for 4 years either. Bus users are getting the sort of fare bargain the rest of the country can only dream of. We need to see what happens to the revenue numbers and if Hopper is generating ridership or not. That’ll take a while to emerge. I’m still concerned that this may end up seeming wonderful for passengers but disastrous for TfL when they need to start cutting services to avoid a ballooning of bus network subsidy. This then becomes disastrous for those people whose services end up being reduced. 😉
I would have much preferred to have done something with daily caps incl Z2-6. A much more effective way of saving people money and to encourage more ridership in outer areas on rail where there is often the capacity. There are other product innovations that the Mayor could have adopted as policy which would have lessened the revenue impact of giving people cheaper travel and may well have been beneficial in modal shift or lessening / spreading the peak. Some may come post 2018 when Oyster has been reconfigured and TfL can do more “clever things” with its ticketing central processor but there’s no manifesto commitment to do it.
@ Steve L – very much agree with your last paragraph. After 4 years we will be further away from that goal than ever *unless* the Mayor secures a lot of rail devolution. Even if that happens we may still have strange effects where TfL contracted services stop and DfT franchised services start in terms of the cost of travel to Zone 1. Crossrail and Thameslink in 2018 may, though, force a rethink about fares into / across Zone 1 and who pays what from where. We shall see.
Whilst we on this forum have a more educated idea of which fares levers Khan can and can’t control, when the general public listened to him say, and I quote ” Londoners won’t pay a penny more for their travel in 2020 than they do today”, then that’s what they expected him to deliver. He didn’t mention single fares, or even only TFL fares, he said all Londoners travel. He should have been far more careful about what he said, because already he is being shown to be a bare faced liar offering election promises he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep.
Fudging the number of hopper fares supposedly used to make himself look like the fare payers saviour, and now this, [SLIGHT SNIP].
Let’s try rephrasing this …..
Khan will, undoubtedly collect a huge amount of flak from Londoners, if only because of misperceptions of what he does & does not control, in terms of fares. IMHO, he raised expectations far too highly, as part of an (his) election campaign.
In the meantime, TfL appear to be struggling, whilst putting on a brave public face, to cover their financial posterior, as a result of the farebox cut in “take”.
[Rest of comment deleted because either too offensive or incomprehensible as to what was being talked about. PoP]
Obviously the Prime Minister Theresa May’s call for more responsibility from the business community was not heard by the TOCs who are only interested in maximising their profits.
“This is because the majority of regular travellers in London either begin or end their journey using a method (such as a national rail service) that is outside of TfL’s control”
Are you sure about that? Looking at overall use by mode I would think that the majority actually uses Underground, bus, tram and TfL-controlled Overground routes only.
I do agree that the majority of travellers use tickets that include travel using a method outside TfL’s control, because many Underground/bus/tram/TfLOverground-only travellers use Travelcards too. But that’s only strengthens the argument for a ‘LT Card’ – and I do think the technical/boundary issues are not insurmountable. Yes, it would exclude some Overground lines, and to prevent LT Card-holders from using certain parallel rail services it may require either additional barriers between Underground and rail sections at certain stations or occasional manned controls and stringent fines, but that would surely be doable.
But it would be an absolute declaration of war by the mayor to the DfT/UK gov, as it would make it crystal clear to passengers on a daily basis that frozen fares are possible and who is screwing then with further fares increases. I guess Khan was happy with what he has achieved, and just wasn’t prepared for all out conflict (at all? yet?).
Note that he could for example surely have asked for the Travelcard increase to be lower (by £41.2m in total) by renouncing TfL’s share of the increase.
Are you sure about that? Looking at overall use by mode I would think that the majority actually uses Underground, bus, tram and TfL-controlled Overground routes only.
I could perhaps have been more explicit, but I was deliberately factoring that the majority of regular travellers do so via a Travelcard product. So even when they’re staying within the boundaries physically, they’re still subject to non-TfL fares.
Re Anonymous,
With typically max 3% profit margin they have to maximise it else their shareholders will suggest exiting the rail business. Compare that to other FTSE 350 firms desired margins and you’ll see their shareholders are being fairly charitable. In GTR case very charitable as they are losing money on it.
I believe it cost DfT the equivalent of about 1.5% margin to have DOR run the East Coast Franchise.
Re Christian,
“But that’s only strengthens the argument for a ‘LT Card’ ”
Unless you live in most of South London where you see no benefit from it so it is another subsidy applicable to those living mainly north of the Thames.
Anyone want bet on Bromley taking legal action again for effectively the same reason as 30+ years ago if the mayor went down that path?
Re John Bull,
Agreed as any commuter using 2 modes per journey (caveat for buses) will be using Travelcard or Oyster cap. The week day equivalent cost difference between the two is +/-5p per day max due to the rounding to the nearest 10p increment for ticket prices. If the person is going to use public transport at the weekend then they tend to go for the travelcard as the weekend travel is then a “free” bonus.
Exactly.
By way of example, my regular commute is buses -> DLR. But I still (at the moment) have a Zone 2/3 Travelcard.
Christian Schmidt
it may require either additional barriers between Underground and rail sections at certain stations …
Please, let’s not go there?
The fewer barriers & bottlenecks we have, the better.
We want single barrier-lines with as free a flow of people as possible.
What you are suggesting will increase congestion, significantly.
Which is not a good idea, I think.
The problem on the Central Line for folks in Woodford etc who can’t get on the trains is that the zone 6 fares available from Epping attract half of Essex, Suffolk, and Herts to drive to Epping and clog up the streets there. Why doesn’t the Mayor put Epping and Theydon Bois in zones 7 and 8? A small bit of his shortfall could be made up.
Does the table ‘2016 prices | 7-day travelcard’ actually contain the 2017 fares?
@John Bull
““ Looking at overall use by mode I would think that the majority actually uses Underground, bus, tram and TfL-controlled Overground routes only””
Not if you include the many regular travellers in London whose journey starts or ends in the likes of Maidenhead, Maidstone, etc, whose season ticket includes a Travelcard, as well as the benighted commuters of south London* who are actually paying for Mr Khan’s fares freeze but not benefitting from it.
*with a few exceptions like Tooting – now, I wonder who used to be Tooting’s MP?
Re Timbeau,
I was going to mention Tooting in my 1113 post as an outlier to “most of South London”. SK really needs to think outside the Northern Line bubble in S London.
Overall I don’t think this is enough to cause SK substantial issues, I suspect it will take multiple transport issues where he has made the choices and taken the decisions as well as failures in other major policy area (e.g. reduction in housing starts) before unpopularity will grow.
In 2020, after whatever fares that won’t have been increased will have completed their period of stability, there is going to be an almighty snap as the fares have to suddenly rise to the necessary level to reflect the more realistic costs. And that will clearly cause Political problems in a big way.
I’m presuming Mayor Khan is thinking of running for a second term, so I’m rather wondering how this overstretched elastic band will have its tension released.
I’ve noticed that Sadiq Khan is today using a more accurate form of words than in his manifesto:
“I’ve frozen fares on all @TfL services until 2020”.
It could still do with being updated to refer to “single fares”.
Re Alison W,
If there are fewer parliamentary seats in London post 2020 General Election there are fewer exit routes than before! Thus making a post GE leadership bid extremely hard to pull off.
With market expectations of inflation being higher than it has been in recent years the elastic band will be twisted even tighter before then.
One of the conditions for TfL to take over more rail services could be agreeing to DfT’s fare structure! Thus putting the mayor in a really interesting place but with a get out to blame DfT! A post brexit declaration of Force Majeure due to unforeseen circumstances?
SK certainly hadn’t read the DfT script on subsidy reduction on rail services.
Alison & ngh
Re. SK’s popularity on transport issues …
There’s another potential horror (IMHO) in the works at the moment, called the “ULEZ” – which could cost many tens of thousands of votes – if ( & it’s a very important if ) it is implemented as is presently being suggested.
But that may not happen, of course.
More information needed.
Greg Tingey,
Lets not go too off-topic or get too political but equally well the ULEZ could well gain many tens of thousands of votes. It would probably go down well with the medical profession and asthma sufferers etc. The consultation appeared to be positively received.
And don’t forget, (I am pretty sure) he campaigned on this issue before he became mayor so it may not be that he loses votes he will be relying on. Don’t confuse the strong views of a minority of very angry people with the idea that this translates into a lot of votes – the congestion charge being a case in point.
Re Greg,
Agree with PoP, he won’t lose many votes due to ULEZ if all the effected voters voted for other candidates last time. The problems comes from large schisms opening between different areas and groups of London as various groups feel disaffected and ignored. The question is have/will a large enough number of those who voted for him earlier this year not do the same again which also relies on there being credible other candidates next time.
Do people really believe politicians before an election? how quaint.
Khan said something that he thought would gain votes, only later engaging brain and finding out that is beyond his powers.
Unless someone discovers a magic money tree, fares will have to rise.
@ngh
Pedant moment – Tooting constituency includes Earlsfield NR and is right on the border with Tooting NR, both of which (esp Earlsfield) are political issues locally. So it ain’t all the Northern Line.
If SK does manage his 4 year fares freeze then the 2020 Mayoral Election will pose the situation of whether he promises another 4 years freeze of fares controlled by The Mayor and what his opponents offer in response.
The opening of The Elizabeth Line brings many questions re fares from outside the GL boundary and whether if this service is TFL controlled whether freeze covers sections beyond London ?
One problem the current system has is for people like myself I can only buy a z1-6 Travelcard on C2C and thus can’t buy a Travelcard to zones 7-9 surely a way to allow purchase of these tickets needs to be found given expansion of TFL services like Elizabeth Line .
Another issue is that Travelcards end at 4.30 am so with the introduction of the Night Tube surely the question as to whether a 2 day /weekend Travelcards needs to be looked at as part of the development of more 24 hour services are introduced.
@ Moosealot – thanks for pointing out the “2016” error on the Travelcard prices table. It should, of course, say “2017”.
Having double checked the prices I must confess to an error with the Z19 7 day price – it should be £85.70. If the mods / JB can open the “back door” and tweak those two numbers I’d grateful.
[Done. LBM]
@ Manofthepeople – the Mayor won’t be moving stations to more expensive zones because that would put prices up for people. Not exactly in line with his manifesto given he hasn’t got any TOC to worry about in terms of what zone those C Line stns are in. I will be unpopular for saying this but we need to stop faffing around fare zones. Every time you change something you create problems elsewhere as more people cry “unfair, why can’t we have a special deal?”. Also signalling that you’re prepared to fiddle around with zoning just gives more impetus to the many campaigns all demanding a special deal for some part of London. Wherever there is a TOC franchisee in place then you won’t get price reductions *unless* the Mayor agrees to send wheelbarrows of money to the TOC head office to “compensate” for revenue losses. The current Mayor has no flexibility to send more wheelbarrows of money scuttling to TOC HQs.
The only way you get rid of the “unfairness” is to scrap zones altogether and price everywhere individually. However be careful what you wish for because the DfT and TOCs will use that as an opportunity to shove up whatever “pence per km” scale people might want to reduce subsidies even further. They’ll also argue that TfL fares are too “cheap” and that TfL should pull in more money to reduce its call on public money for investment funding. That’s been the DfT / HMT mantra for years and it ain’t gonna change.
@ Alison W – I don’t expect the fares freeze to last 4 years so the elastic band will have snapped before 2020. Easy to see the DfT / HMT repeating the trick they pulled with Ken L over Crossrail. They said “we’ll pay for most of Crossrail but you have to put the fares up”. Ken L agreed – he put the fares up regularly until the Jan 2008 revision where he cut bus fares. Repeat the same scenario for Crossrail 2 and Mayor Khan. Obviously London is supposed to find 50% of the funding for CR2 but that still means a very considerable slice from central government. And that assumes that this government is even minded to fund anything new in London. Lots of political games to be played in the North by switching funding up there although the electrification programme shambles means there’s rather less scope to do anything grandiose up there very quickly. If Trans Pennine electrification and associated infills are shoved into CP7 then that’s two governments away and Hull electrification has been dropped too. We may get a hint or two tomorrow in the Autumn Statement (AS) but apparently Mr Hammond is allowing govt departments more scope to make their announcements rather than doing what Osborne did which was to shovel everything together in the AS.
Is the Mayor *really* going to stop CR2 going ahead to defend a short term fares freeze? No he isn’t. He’d be crucified by London businesses, councils, passenger groups etc and he’d be stopping the creation of tens of thousands of jobs and lots of future development. Mr Khan isn’t that short sighted.
@ Melvyn – don’t understand the point about weekend Travelcards. Ticket validity has ended at 0430 for many years now and doesn’t seem to cause any (?) issues of any great note / importance. If it did we’d have heard about it by now. It’s not as if 24 hour transport services have just been invented in London.
Clearly we must wait for the formal announcement but I expect TfL to be tied into the fares set by GWR for stations beyond West Drayton towards Reading on Crossrail. TfL can’t undermine those fares – they are prevented from doing this by a range of conditions in the Crossrail Agreement signed many years ago. Goodness knows what fares will apply into Heathrow!?
@Melvyn
“The opening of The Elizabeth Line brings many questions re fares from outside the GL boundary and whether if this service is TFL controlled whether freeze covers sections beyond London ?”
@WW [re Epping and Theydon Bois]”the Mayor won’t be moving stations to more expensive zones because that would put prices up for people.”
These are fares from outside London, and therefore outside SK’s promise to freeze fares for Londoners.
@Anon
Tooting constituency also has Balham on its boundary which, as a strikebound Southern station, also has political issues.
@ Timbeau – what? Are you seriously suggesting that no one who lives within Greater London never travels beyond Woodford on the Central Line? All the stops north of there plus a couple to the east are in Essex and not Greater London. If someone lives in Snaresbrook and works in Loughton then they’re Londoners aren’t they? Perhaps we should residency checking machines at these stations which ensure non London residents are charged a much higher fare than London residents? Our very own London version of dealing with “cheap fare tourism” (compare with the latest clap trap over passports and NHS health care).
As for Crossrail I don’t know how many times it has to be said but the bits beyond Zone 6 are locked into commitments with the DfT over fares not diverging from those of the parallel TOC or creating split ticketing opportunities. Geography only partly comes into play there but it is really avoiding dilution of TOC revenues (and potentially landing DfT with a claim from the TOC) that is the main factor for these constraints existing.
The 4 year fare freeze was promised back before Brexit and Trump, when it looked liked the economic policies of zero interest rates, low inflation and QE would continue.
The events of the last few months are likely to lead to higher inflation than Sadiq perhaps expected. How much wiggle room does he have in his manifesto promise if inflation reaches 3 or 4%?
@WW
“Are you seriously suggesting that no one who lives within Greater London never travels beyond Woodford on the Central Line? If someone lives in Snaresbrook and works in Loughton then they’re Londoners aren’t they? ”
Well, yes: but so is someone who lives in Wimbledon and works in Guildford. The most recent fare this particular Londoner paid was a return from Glasgow to Edinburgh. I doubt if anyone had an expectation that SK would protect Londoners from fares on those routes. But SK was elected on a promise of freezing fares within London – a promise he has now found he cannot keep.
Do these people not have advisors to help them avoid writing such uncashable cheques?
timbeau
My opinion is that SK couldn’t even keep the “promise” he made, when he originally made it.
I will not give opinions as to why this might be so, as it might just be defamatory (!)
Re Timbeau,
“Do these people not have advisors to help them avoid writing such uncashable cheques?”
Yes but they only hire advisers that who say “yes” not the type who say “you really probably don’t want to say that because…”
Any one remember Boris’s Mr Ranger who didn’t last too long in the first term?
My experience of the ‘advisors’ is that they are not just ‘yes’ men and women, but genuinely trying to advise well. No senior politician would want to be surrounded just by ‘yes’ people because the value of their advice would be almost nil. Problems would be exposed very quickly. At the end of the day, though, they are only there to advise and not to decide what to do. The spin on the words is usually down to others – who probably don’t have as much understanding of the issues and will make a gloss which ends up being only passingly accurate. Politicians and politics are notorious, also, for weasel wording which needs forensic examination to discover just what it might (or might not) mean.
@ ngh
Re Bromley, the mayors action already result in very different fares increases for different types of passengers, and it surely will be the case that consequently residents in some boroughs will benefit more and residents in others less. So I wouldn’t bet against Bromley (or any other borough taking action) but I’d bet that the mayor would win. That was a stinker of a decision that’s ripe for overturning.
@Greg Tingey,
Yes, what I suggest would increase passenger congestion – but that’s because more frozen fares would mean more passengers…
Re barriers, it seems to me that there is trade-off, between fewer barriers cheaper fares for more people. As I would guess that not many would be necessary, and thus there would not be significant gridlock, I’d go for cheaper fares. But this would obviously need to be modelled before any such decision is taken. And if you really want “as free a flow of people as possible” may I suggest an open system?
@ Timbeau – oh well here I am again to argue with you. TfL controls fares out to Epping. It and its predecessors have done so for decades. Those fares are subject to the fares freeze. It is as simple as that. Fares to Guildford are irrelevant as they’ve never been under TfL control and never will be (as things currently stand).
As the article above requotes what I said many months ago here about the fares freeze never being feasible because of DfT control and sign off of some parts of the fare structure I don’t really need to be told about the validity or otherwise of the Mayor’s “promise”. I tweeted the Mayor and others many times during the campaign asking about the validity of the claim. None of the tweets were replied to. If that didn’t tell me something I don’t know what would. Given I’m followed on Twitter by a range of interesting people some of whom have direct access to the Mayor and high levels of awareness of transport issues that just made it all the more obvious that the “promise” could never be fulfilled. Unfortunately I don’t have a Twitter following the size of Justin Beiber so my little questions to the Mayor never got to a wide audience of voters. Still I’m not here to do the work of the Mayor’s political opponents. If they could have been bothered to do a tiny bit of research they could readily have undermined this policy through targeted questioning and whipping up media interest. I am sure that the Mayor and his team completely understood the limits of what they could do. They chose to make an all embracing promise during the campaign that was then immediately “clarified” once he was elected. All politicians do it so why should anyone be surprised? When we get to the next Mayoral election let’s hope everyone’s a bit more savvy when it comes to TfL’s finances and the role of fares policy. I expect housing will be the big problem for the Mayor – almost impossible for him to achieve what he said in this area within 4 years and with a worsening economic backdrop. He will almost certainly struggle to defend whatever he achieves in the context of his promises because the problems are enormous and many outside of his control.
Curious effect on opening this thread …
Because of the colouration of SK’s “special” oyster-holder in the header-picture ( Red on a cyan background ) …
You sometimes get the impression that the large figure “2” is GREEN for a moment.
It’s an artefact of our R-G-B/C-M-Y vision system, of course
@WW
I think we are in agreement that SK’s promise was not deliverable, whether phrased as a freeze on fares for Londoners or just on TfL services (and I think both formulations were used) .
To answer Melvyn’s original question, “The opening of The Elizabeth Line brings many questions re fares from outside the GL boundary and whether if this service is TFL controlled whether freeze covers sections beyond London ?” The answer is “almost certainly not”, because, as you point out, they are tied into GWR’s fares structure and thus DfT-regulated.
As for “Manofthepeople’s” suggestion of rezoning the outer reaches of the Central Line, hitting Essex commuters who have no votes* might be tempting to a cash-strapped mayor desperate to balance the books and already having form for retrospectively editing what he has promised.
* and, granted, a much smaller number of contraflow commuters from within the GLA area.
That’s the trouble with politicians’ promises: it has been said that it was unfortunate that Ken Livingstone did not keep his promise to retain the Routemasters, and equally unfortunate that Boris Johnson did keep his promise to eliminate the bendybuses.
Khan’s main opponent for Mayor has already kept one promise: to resign as MP if he was elected mayor, or if the Government approved Heathrow. As the latter has now come to pass, it remains to be seen if principles alone are enough to win him his seat back, notwithstanding that most of his constituents didn’t see eye to eye with him on Brexit.
@ Timbeau – well looks like another promise has been broken. Tom Edwards of the BBC is reporting that the government thinks rail devolution doesn’t work and wants “joint working”. How you can have two “masters” jointly “working” a rail franchise is beyond me. Clearly the DfT don’t want to relinquish control of parts of the SE England franchises but are happy, presumably, for TfL to fork out cash for improvements and then take the credit for spending someone else’s cash.
So that’s another policy initiative in tatters for the Mayor. To be fair he said he’d fight to secure it rather than say he could definitely implement it. Cue the Mayor poking the government with a big stick every time anything goes wrong on a rail franchise in S London from now on. I trust you will be writing to your MP and the DfT to express your outrage at not having TfL controlled fares. 😉
And what billionnaire Zac Goldsmith does or does not do over Heathrow is of zero consequence. He can afford to take these highfalutin positions of “principle” because it’s ultimately no issue to him if he’s a MP or not. I hope he loses the contest for his seat although I doubt he will given he’s effectively the Tory Party candidate and the majority was massive at the 2015 election.
@ww
I don’t actually have an MP at present, but several former MPs, as well as my MLA, have tried to do something about it, and on the anomalous zoning in my area.
The massive majority at the last election was largely part of the nationwide backlash against the Liberal Democrats. Post Brexit, things may be very different.
The constituency is also unusual in that it spans parts of two boroughs, one LD controlled and one Tory.
My mistake, both councils have changed hands in recent years, and were indeed one of each when ZG became MP, but they are currently both Tory.
“The opening of The Elizabeth Line brings many questions re fares”
Can we agree that there is one unresolved question on this. That being – what fare will apply for the journey via Liz Line (using infrastructure owned by Heathrow airport, not National Rail) into the stations at Terminal 2/3 and 4.
@ Island Dweller – I can think of four things that are not resolved in the context of Crossrail’s fares.
1. As you say the fares that will apply into Heathrow Airport.
2. The fares that will apply west of West Drayton to Reading and if Oyster is extended onto the linking branches.
3. Whether there will be any equalisation of fares regardless of route / operator from Abbey Wood / Woolwich into Zone 1.
4. How travel into / across Zone 1 (including to / from Thameslink via Farringdon) will be charged. Will there be an add on fare or not?
Those are the things I can think of / have seen mentioned elsewhere. I suspect there are others but I’ve not expended a lot of brain power on the detail.
@ngh, Christian Schmidt: It is worth bearing in mind that while the political argument in the Fares Fair case was over whether Bromley ratepayers should subsidise out-of-borough services, the actual legal argument the case addressed was over whether London Transport could run a long-term deficit. The court ruled they couldn’t, but this is moot now because TfL operates under different legislation.
Re desirability of resurrecting the LT Card. If I have read the small-print on my 60+ Oyster Card correctly, its validity is restricted to TfL-operated rail services outside Zone 6. In other words, I can travel to Watford Junction for free, so long as I ride in an Overground train via Watford High Street (or, should I live so long, a Met line train via the Croxley Link!). Presumably there is some revenue-protection strategy already in place [barriers? ‘grippers’?] to dissuade me and other oldies from simply staying on London Midland fast services from Euston at Harrow & Wealdstone. Or do the operators regard the potential for revenue-diversion by a few 60+ free-riders as de minimis? Other than the problem that the ‘general public’ may be less compliant, I can’t see a technical objection to TfL offering a ‘paid-for’ version of the ‘slightly more than Greater London’ 60+ Oyster Card, with the same TfL-only validity beyond Zone 6, at a price it deems appropriate. Presumably all the relevant entry/exit gates are set up to recognize the ‘free’ version already.
Belsize Parker: I think you may have missed the point of the suggested introduction of an LT card. I think it was mentioned here as something whose price could be (at least in theory) frozen by the Mayor without necessitating enormous payments to Train Operating Companies (TOCs) as compensation for their loss of revenue.
If that were to work, it would have to be restricted to TfL-run trains everywhere, not just outside Zone 6. The 60+ card (is it a Freedom Pass?) is valid on many TOC-operated services (such as the LM fast services to Harrow and Waldstein that you mention, Fenchurch Street to Upminster and many others), so an LT card with the same validity would not, sadly, not meet the freezability criterion at all. And the number of extra gates, or extra grippers, which would be necessary within zones 1-6 to enforce the TfL-only restriction, is quite unfeasible.
@ Belsize Parker – I can’t be 100% certain but the 60+Pass is most likely encoded as a “Pass” rather than as a season ticket. This is a complete different “beast” within the ticketing system and has different checking logic etc. I wonder how much product flexibility there is in Oyster *and* the Contactless “black box” to add new season ticket style tickets. It was obviously done back in ancient times when most things were on mag stripe tickets but gates on NR didn’t exist back then. If you were to introduce a “LT card” product then you need to migrate not only TfL’s card reading devices but also those of a number of TOCs because many operate gates where interavailability / TfL fares apply so would need to accept the “LT Card” but most of their gates would have to reject the ticket. For example it would have to work gates at Wimbledon and Richmond but not at Twickenham or Vauxhall NR. You’d also have to modify TfL (and some TOC) ticket machines and “Oyster Ticket Stop” machines to sell the product. I’m not suggesting it’s impossible only that a lot of work would have to be done to allow its introduction and that’s aside from the wider commercial ramifications for all parties.
Goodness knows what you do with the contactless “black box” – perhaps add some new caps but also new journey checking and calculation logic to pull out TfL only journeys and then calculate the running total and also set to one side any “non TfL” journeys. There’d have to be some additional cross checking between a TfL only cap and the Travelcard to see if any non TfL trips were charged on top of the “LT Card” cap as the combined total was less than the relevant Travelcard cap. Again almost certainly not impossible to do but a bit more involved.
@Belsize Parker: when it comes to travelling to Watford Junction, the solution is simple: time. If the system notices that you managed to get from Euston to Watford Junction in 20 minutes, I presume it will know you could not possibly have travelled on an Overground train. Same rules would presumably apply e.g. between Shenfield and London.
@WW: Devolution suddenly isn’t working? In the context of a Tory government devolving power to a Labour-controlled TfL? Of course they’ll say that wouldn’t work. What else would you expect?
With regard to the fares freeze, it is worth pointing out that SK has implemented other – relatively sensible – policies aimed at cutting costs in order to finance the freeze. One of these policies was to get rid of the operatives (for want of a better word) standing on rear platforms of Neo-Routemasters. Whilst I do – of course – feel sorry for the poor souls who lost their jobs as a result of a game of political football; I understand this has reduced costs per mile on these routes by about 1/3. Furthermore, I’d like to draw everyone’s attention to the forthcoming West End bus routes review (thanks to diamondgeezer for publicising), which will slash plenty of largely pointless bus miles, which currently see near-empty buses sitting in endless traffic jams while their potential passengers prefer to walk or cycle:
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/buses/west-end-bus-changes/consult_view/
Lastly, on the issue of fares increases on national rail: pretty much every TOC signed a subsidy/premium profile with the DfT when taking on the franchise, and they are expected to deliver it alongside a profit margin for their shareholders. As such, they are in a bind. They will not increase fares over and above what the DfT tells them as that will be illegal; and they will not increase fares by anything less than what the DfT tells them, as that would lead to them failing to deliver their premiums. There is thus no one else to blame for the fares increases on national rail except the DfT.
@straphan
Indeed the fare increases are at the instigation of DfT. The problem is that Khan’s manifesto claimed he could control something that is not actually in the power of the mayor.
Not that he has a monopoly on writing political cheques that can’t be cashed.£350m for the NHS? Walls built at Mexico’s expense?
@ Straphan – I know I am “Dr Cynical” on here but I think you’ve outdone me with your devolution comment. Obviously I understand the political issue here but naive idiot that I am I actually expected the government to stand behind its commitment re London rail devolution. I suspect if Mr McLoughlin was still at the DfT we wouldn’t be having the issues we’ve seemingly got. He’d have stood by the commitment he made. We’re now in December and the DfT are now in the danger zone for having to start the procurement process for South Eastern so something has to give very soon – they decide what they’re doing or they extend S Eastern’s franchise a bit more to give themselves a little more decision time.
I predicted the removal of the customer assistants on NB4Ls a long time ago. They should never have been employed in the first place nor should the bus have been bought but that’s water under the bridge. I am afraid I wholly disagree with you about TfL’s bus proposals. I also don’t agree with your “wasted mileage” issues. We are heading for a complete disaster with Central London’s buses and I feel we will rue the day when the abject mismanagement of the road network, roadworks and bus services was allowed to take hold. I know who I hold responsible and I also know who will join them unless there are some fundamental policy changes. Yes there are issues that need fixing but this is not the way to do it. I will leave it there because this isn’t the place to conduct a massive debate about the minutiae of the bus network.
@WW – Your personal thoughts on the NBfL are well aired and mine were similar when they were first introduced. However, do please give them another go, especially since opening windows on the upper deck are becoming commonplace. I never thought I’d say this but I have grown rather fond of them, even on the busy routes out of Camberwell Garage. Goodness, they have long runs in my neck of the woods when they sound just as silent and run just as smoothly and with similar performance characteristics as trolleybuses! The drivers have got used to them, so the driving is not so erratic as previously, whilst my ‘normal’ friends who also use them express positive views about them without any prompting from me.
By all means concentrate on roadworks and apparent mismanagement of the road/cycle network and I’ll be with you on that. Forcing an NBfL or any bus for that matter around unnaturally sharp-radiussed, acute-angled curves at junctions where there used to be a natural curve into the road concerned is just one clear example. Visit St. George’s Circus into London Road towards Elephant & Castle, and outside the E&C Bakerloo Line entrance from the new, Great Northern Curve (aka former Northern roundabout) into what is now a constricted bus only lane of said London Road for just two examples of forcing bus drivers to make extra efforts to negotiate what ought to be smooth entries onto the road concerned but is now formed as the best part of a tight circle before regaining the original path. (Google street view hasn’t caught up yet but you can see how it used to be.)
On devolution, on the TOC side at least south of the River, doubts were expressed to me months ago that anything would happen – and they were rather hoping that it wouldn’t!
@timbeau: You’re quite right that his pledge wasn’t realistic, but it was easy enough to place the blame for it not being fully implemented at the door of the ‘other’ party…
I also wonder how much of an impact the bringing in line of rail fares south of the Thames would have. After all, everyone travelling in the peak will typically have a zonal travelcard. I suppose this will stimulate the demand in the off-peak somewhat, but I doubt the TOCs will financially be better off overall.
@WW: Afraid that’s a product of my upbringing – I come from a country where the last time politicians put their political differences aside to do ‘the right thing’ was in 1989…
There is an easy way to tell whether this is a genuine policy U-turn on devolution or just a political ploy to scupper SK’s election pledges. The DfT was planning to devolve rail services in the West Mids and the North of England. If these two schemes also run into trouble, then we will know this was just a policy shift.
Regarding changes to bus routes: I too would love to have a proper discussion on the matter, as this will be probably the most significant change to the bus network since I moved to London 9 years ago. Hopefully LR will facilitate this?
@Straphan
“probably the most significant change to the bus network since I moved to London 9 years ago”
I moved to London 40 years ago, – lots of incremental changes in that time, but I can’t recall such a significant change as this. Probably the biggest change since the reshaping plan of the mid sixties.
“I also wonder how much of an impact the bringing in line of rail fares south of the Thames would have. After all, everyone travelling in the peak will typically have a zonal travelcard.”
Like many commuters south of the river, I do not have a zonal Travelcard but a point to point season. Harmonisation of fares would be welcome – particularly abolition of the penalty for changing from TOC to LUL at the termini* – but the main reason I want TfL to run the services is accountability.
*that alone would reduce the crowding at Vauxhall, which gets a disproportionate number of people changing there because being a boundary station you can game the system by changing there rather than at Clapham Junction or Waterloo – not that those stations are sleepy backwaters either!
@timbeau: With regard to Vauxhall: it would definitely help relieve crowding on the Victoria line if SWT passengers went to Waterloo and used the Bakerloo line to access the West End. However, even if there was no financial disincentive to do so, getting to Oxford Circus would still be faster via Vauxhall and the Victoria Line – especially given how long it takes to battle your way past the crowds from the low numbered platforms at Waterloo to the Northern/Bakerloo ticket hall.
I have it on good authority that Grayling is opposed to devolution as a concept for political/personal reasons and has very strong views on what he wants the rail network to look like (he is a big fan of private vertically-integrated routes rather than the current model).
However, the fact no announcement has been made probably means a lot is going on behind the scenes: after all, devolution of services to TfL is popular across London and (largely) neighbouring counties; it has the backing of many Tory councilors and MPs in outer SE London and Kent, plus business is a big supporter. Furthermore, the GTR/Southern debacle has turned toxic and its DfT and the private operators getting blame. A U-turn would create an necessary political headache for the government at a time the other side of the city is still reeling from Heathrow. Oh and there is Brexit…
@WW and Straphan
I’ve used buses on-and-off for the past decade across central London, mostly the West End and am familiar with a number fo routes. I have no doubt there is vast oversupply of buses across zone 1 and this needs tackling to improve bus performance if nothing else. Bus walls are common place and there are far too many services operating with low occupancy rates during peak periods. Slimming down the number of routes on major corridors may allow individual services to run a higher frequencies, benefitting the majority of passengers who on the whole want to go beyond zone 1 (there are a few routes where frequencies are 10mins at best). My main fear is that overhaul is really all about Oxford Street and not about developing a more efficient network in central London.
@Straphan
“getting to Oxford Circus would still be faster via Vauxhall and the Victoria Line – especially given how long it takes to battle your way past the crowds from the low numbered platforms at Waterloo to the Northern/Bakerloo ticket hall.”
The subway is an easier and more direct route than the concourse, and usually not as crowded.
But the platform extension plan has missed a trick. The extended platforms will reach almost all the way to Westminster Bridge Road, and will be closer to Lambeth North Tube station than to Waterloo. A second concourse at that end would not only relieve congestion on the existing concourse and distribute people better along the trains, but would shorten the walk from train to office for many of the movers and shakers in the Palace of Westminster and Whitehall. As it is, the extra length of the ten car trains is likely to be largely wasted, as SWT do not announce the trains far enough ahead of departure for people to even walk the length of the existing eight cars!
@timbeau: Purely in terms of journey time, changing at Vauxhall will be faster. Looking at the TfL and National Rail journey planners, the journey time on the Victoria Line from Vauxhall to Oxford Circus is 7 minutes. Various SWT schedules show a journey time of between 4 and 6 minutes just from Vauxhall to Waterloo, with an additional 6 minutes on the Bakerloo line from Waterloo to Oxford Circus. Even if you made interchange at Waterloo instantaneous, it will still be significantly faster to change at Vauxhall if you’re going from SWT-land towards the West End.
Am in full agreement with you w.r.t. a southern concourse at Waterloo – building it will be the only way for Waterloo to cope with any significant increases in passenger numbers over and above what is there today.
@Straphan
Journey time is not the only factor – the narrow island platform 7/8, served by all trains on the main line inners, gets dangerously overcrowded in the evening peaks, and the stairs serving it, although recently duplicated, cannot cope with the surges of commuters.
And the interchange at Vauxhall is itself hardly instantaneous, especially to/from platforms 7/8. Added to that is the low likelihood of actually getting on the first Victoria Line train – whereas the Bakerloo and many Northern Line trains arrive at Waterloo almost empty, having started only one or two stops back along the line.
@timbeau: I would have thought crowding on the Victoria Line only reaches that level where you can’t get on the first available train at Victoria rather than Vauxhall.
Interchanging at Vauxhall is by no means comfortable or instantaneous, but still takes up less time than at Waterloo.
straphan,
When actually experiencing Vauxhall tube station in the morning rush hour I was a bit shocked by how busy it was. You may be just about able to get on the first train – or could about a year ago – but I would say that notably:
1) The northbound platform at Pimlico in the morning peak period was deserted. I presumed this was because locals know they won’t get on.
11) Using Victoria northbound in the morning peak it does appear that the train arrives full. It also departs just as full so the only chance of getting on is if you replace someone who has got off.
III) If the train wasn’t full at Pimlico (hence full departing Vauxhall) you would get people doubling back to there from Victoria to get on. This doesn’t happen because you gain nothing by doing so.
@PoP: When I last checked Victoria in the AM peak it was still possible for some people to get on a northbound Victoria Line train. This would suggest to me that at least the vast majority of people at Vauxhall can get the first available train.
When I lived in Pimlico in 2009/10 there were typically no more than 10 people on the northbound platform at the height of the peak. And in those days it was very much possible to board the first northbound train that came. I don’t think there has been much change in terms of new housing around there since. Hence the fact that Pimlico looks ‘deserted’ today has less to do with available capacity on the Victoria line and more to do with where the locals work (Westminster area).
@ Graham F – I am very familiar with the insanities of TfL’s gyratory works in many places in London. Far too many instances of low capacity junctions, narrow lanes, limited “holding” capacity on bus only turns etc etc. Who designs this rubbish I do not know. All that happens is that bus travel gets slower and slower and no one seems to care.
@ Straphan – I doubt an article would get us very far unless someone at LR Towers has access to the right person at Surface Transport. At present it’s impossible to discern with any certainty what the actual policy objectives are and whether TfL are actually in control of them. My guess is that they are not in control of policy because there are too many key stakeholders involved in certain areas like air quality and Oxford St pedestrianisation. Other than the Hopper ticket and “cleaner” buses the Mayor has no manifesto commitments on buses so there’s no real policy framework there either.
I could write an article but I doubt I could be objective enough and it would be far too speculative for Mr B to allow into the wild. We are also not privy to certain other elements of the “big picture” like Crossrail related Z1 changes (I’m certain there’s more to come) nor what happens elsewhere *if* savings are channelled to improve routes in Southall, East London and SE London (all Crossrail related) plus whatever is required for the NHS related bus changes (a plan was promised for “Autumn”). Val Shawcross is due to speak to the Assembly T’port Cttee in early 2017 and the Cttee has something on buses pencilled in on their work programme for next year.
@ Anon** – the reason there is a perceived oversupply is because there is no coherent policy about road capacity and a user hierarchy. The latter was scrapped by Boris and we are reaping the rewards (ahem!) of conflicting policies on roads, traffic lights, gyratories, private hire / taxis, cycling, walking and buses. It’s an utter shambles and it’s no wonder people have given up. I’ve now pretty much given up on travelling to Zone 1 and my bus use when in Z1 is negligible. Partly because the service is chaotic and partly because I won’t use the ever present NB4Ls. Instead of trying to make things work TfL is simply ripping the network up because that’s the easier and cheaper option. I think it’s a disaster in the making and possibly irrecoverable which will do no one any good in the long run.
straphan,
@PoP: When I last checked Victoria in the AM peak it was still possible for some people to get on a northbound Victoria Line train. This would suggest to me that at least the vast majority of people at Vauxhall can get the first available train.
How do you work that one out? I can’t see that the two are related at all.
In the AM peak people can get on at Victoria because other people get off. A substantial number – surprisingly so.
If the trains are full on arrival at Victoria (and they are) then it could be that there were just enough spaces for all the people arriving at Vauxhall to get the first train. Far more likely is that at least some of them couldn’t get the first train.
My very limited experience and Timbeau’s daily experience first hand suggests that you can’t always get on the first northbound train at Vauxhall.
straphan,
Very conveniently I got sent a link from which I could extract this graph.
As you can see entries only slightly exceed exits for most of the morning peak – and I am pretty sure that is down to a variation on the Circle and District lines and not the Victoria Line.
Note that for a short while exits actually exceed entrances.
Thanks PoP; as a stacked bar, it would really bring out the peakiness of the crucial 30min at Victoria.
@PoP: Thanks and fair enough – it would appear things have changed significantly since I last used that stretch of the Vic on a regular basis.
straphan,
It has changed a lot in the past few years and it really surprised me.
Further back, I remember visiting Vauxhall tube station as a schoolboy on opening day in 1971 and I more or less had the place to myself.
I suspect the variability of being able to get on a northbound service at Vauxhall or Victoria is probably due to variability in arrivals at Brixton from Southeastern which creates a bulge of couple of hundred pax at 15 minute intervals (combined with steady stream of bus arrivals). Then at Stockwell add the maximum gap between a Northern arrival and a Victoria Line departure for maximum passengers waiting to board (cross platform interchange) to create a very well loaded arrival at Vauxhall so not everyone can board the first service…
e.g. the 0725, 0743, 0757 etc. Brixton departure are likely to be the problem ones.
The silver bullet for several of these issues is CR2.
In terms of the devolution debate, I think we may have received our answer today: Chris Grayling would indeed appear to be a bigger fan of alliancing than he is of devolution:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38212467
DfT’s Written Statement on its ‘Rail Update’ includes this crumb for TfL: “I will also be inviting Transport for London (TfL) to be more closely involved in developing the next South Eastern franchise, through seconding a TfL representative to the franchise specification team.”
WMS here: http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2016-12-06/HCWS322/
A-mous
Yeah, so it looks like it won’t be the SE inners given to TfL, they’ll be expected to have 3-way “alliance” with whoever gets the SER franchise & NR.
I beleive the phrase “buggers muddle” covers it quite adequately?
Funny when at the same time he wants to hand the whole Varsity line over to a single private company….
I wonder if that includes rolling stock and if Chiltern/London Midland have been consulted?
The new organisation may not be private. All the WMS says is: “I am going to establish East West Rail as a new and separate organisation, to accelerate the permissions needed to reopen the route, and to secure private sector involvement to design, build and operate the route as an integrated organisation.”
“Reopen the route” and DBO implies that the it won’t be taking on the existing so not impinging on current Chiltern/LM.
To me it appears he wants the alliancing structure replicated throughout the country. I am not terribly surprised he is not a fan of devolution. Chris Grayling is the standing MP for Epsom and Ewell, and I suspect he wouldn’t be terribly keen on handing over rail services through his constituency to a Labour Mayor of London, who was a key Remain campaigner to boot…
I can already see Marsham Street furiously printing copies of the GB network map, and sending someone out to the nearest Ryman’s to panic buy all the crayons in the shop, so that the SoS can spend his Christmas break drawing franchise/alliance/whateveryoucallit boundaries.
Now imagine a scenario, where he decides that TSGN is too big and not fit for purpose, and that it should be split between Thameslink and Southern. This would most likely mean Southern enters an alliance with NR Sussex Route; East Mids and East Coast with the London North Eastern Route; Southeastern with Kent Route. And Thameslink? Thameslink will be lined up alongside all the ‘orphan’ franchises like Transpennine Express and CrossCountry, and will be expected to deliver 24tph through the core day-in day-out without anyone in Network Rail genuinely giving a toss.
Contrary to Greg Tingey, I’d say ‘buggers muddle’ is a perfect example of that very British art of subtle understatement…
(P.S. – where does this leave TfL fares on the National Rail network? I take it there will be no further convergence?)
What a surprise SE London gets shafted. Poor roads, poor trains, and worse just about everything.
So that’s many more years of higher fares, worse services, worse trains and inefficiency.
Lots of people fare evade in that area. I don’t blame them at all now. Why should they pay more than most of London and have no alternatives in many cases? Anyway, with the DfT specifying we know stations will remain unstaffed much of the time so why not.
straphan
Chris Grayling is the standing MP for Epsom and Ewell
Yes, but what do his electorate think? Do they really want a mix of Southern/SWT as at present, or would they prefer TfL rail?
Your predictions for Thameslink 3000 look unpleasantly prescient, I’m afraid.
@straphan: Wasn’t there a Network Rail SWT alliance that evaporated suddenly? 😉
It’s already been tried, in Grayling’s own constituency, SWT and NR’s Wessex route being responsible for two of the eight stations in the Ep&Ew constituency*)
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/news/europe/single-view/view/south-west-trains-network-rail-deep-alliance-to-end.html
Note also that, despite being outside Greater London, six of those eight stations are Oysterised, one of them even managing to sneak into Zone 5. Now, I wonder how that happened?
*To head off the pedants: Southern manage the two stations served by both companies, which are covered by a different NR division. The eponymous borough is considerably smaller than the parliamentary constituency, and only includes four stations.
@Southern Heights: As far as I recall the issue with the SW Alliance was that the agreement between Stagecoach and NR was that they would split Schedule 4 and Schedule 8 payments (NR compensation to TOCs for planned engineering work and unplanned delays, respectively) 50-50. This became unpalatable to Government once Network Rail was formally nationalised, as suddenly its income (with respect to Schedule 8 payments) would depend on the performance of a private TOC.
Not sure if the DfT has now changed its mind on this issue. I also don’t know what the exact agreement with NR is in the other ‘deep’ alliance – with Abellio ScotRail.
Is the key point the one at the end of the Railway Gazette article? i.e. “The deep alliance in Scotland will remain, as the current ScotRail franchise was designed from the start to incorporate its managerial and financial structures. In contrast, the NR-SWT alliance had been overlaid on a previously-signed franchise agreement.”
So alliances from the start of the next franchises i.e. Southeastern and East Midlands (South West too soon or has one – not sure) but not overlaid on existing Franchise Agreements?
LR article on the NR issues and changes to future franchising structures, investment funding, devolution will be emerging in a few days so if we can hang fire on the comments till then…
A-Mous
New Franchises only, that have yet to be tendered, the SW franchise bids were in few weeks ago so far too late there.
Re Staphan,
S4 +S8, certainly part of the issues but the feedback loops were even more complex than that and there were other issues too. Best to start an alliance at the start…
Wasn’t sure where to post this comment – thought this article might be the most appropriate place.
Context. Rail replacement services. Whenever I’ve used a rail replacement bus service in the past it has been effectively free. Of course it shouldn’t be – the notices say passengers must have a valid ticket or oyster – but I have never ever know these to be checked. Therefore, (as a PAYG contactless card user) I am never charged.
Yesterday I encountered two “firsts”. Firsts for me, no doubt if this has been happening for ages and I’ve failed to notice, others will let me know. By way of context, the DLR had weekend engineering and was running bus replacement on various routes including from the City to Canary Wharf.
Innovation (1). At the bus stops that the DLR rail replacement bus services were using, the rail replacement services were shown on the “countdown” indicator, in addition to the normal tfl buses. (I’ve put a photo of the countdown indicator at the Limehouse stop into the flickr photo pool).
Innovation (2). Although the rail replacement bus that turned out was a clapped out old thing, it did have an oyster reader, and passengers were asked to beep in as they boarded.
I’ve checked my tfl on line account today to see if the journey was charged.
My usage of the rail replacement bus is shown with correct time of entry as a journey on route 559. (So far as I can tell, there isn’t a normal tfl bus route 559). The fare was zero. I presume once tfl are confident they are correctly collecting the data they’ll start charging. It’ll need some clever calculations to ensure that journeys that are part bus and part DLR still come to the same fare as if the journey had been entirely DLR. (In case anyone is wondering, this was my first journey of the day, so the zero fare on my account was not a “free” second bus journey).
Might bring in a small amount of (desperately needed) fare income soon.
@IslandDweller: Or they might use it purely as data to work out if offering a rail replacement bus is actually required and quietly drop them if not. e.g. if they largely shadow existing routes.
The last rail replacement bus I took was from Bromley South to Orpington (admittedly not a TfL rail replacement). It had all of four passengers two of whom got off at Petts Wood Now the 208 bus follows essentially the same route (minus Bickley) and at around 6 p.m. on a Sunday really isn’t that much slower…
@ Island Dweller – most TfL funded rail replacement services (RRS) have an “internal route number” where the service is run with I-Bus equipped vehicles. On some big RRS jobs clearly not every bus is so equipped so the benefit via Countdown would be limited. However smaller scale RRS like the ones for the GOBLIN should show up on Countdown / via apps or London Vehicle Finder website.
The DLR “touch in” on the bus is indeed a trial and it’s just started so you haven’t missed anything AFAIK. The trial does not involve charging people at this stage. I do, however, suspect you may be correct that charging will emerge in future. To be honest this is no bad thing really given the DLR is paralleled by other bus services and I’d not be shocked if a proportion of people are happy to use the “free” DLR bus rather than fork out £1.50 on their usual bus.
The technology already exists to cater for DLR – RRS – DLR journeys because you can configure the 1st stage exit and 3rd stage entry to “join” (a bit like an OSI) so a full journey charge is made. For DLR you can substitute Tube, Overground or Rail within the Oyster area. Obviously a lot of the DLR is in zones 2 and 3 so pretty much a flat fare and, at weekends, no different from the bus fare for a conventional single trip. Therefore charging a flat fare on entry to the RRS broadly works. Even where a RRS ran into Zone 1 TfL may be happy to shoulder a marginal loss if it means they are still getting £1.50 out of people. It will be interesting to see how all this develops and how far it gets extended. Might give some people a bit of a fright. 😉
We are now back at that time of year when the Mayor quietly releases his Direction to TfL on fares.
No massive shocks or surprises. Here’s a very quick summary.
– no change to bus and tram fares or daily caps
– no change to Hopper ticket pricing. No confirmed date, other than “in 2018”, for next stage of unlimited rides in 1 hour.
– no change to tube, overground, DLR fares where TfL solely set the fares.
– some Overground and TfL fares do change at the fare extremities like Cheshunt and Shenfield because TfL must increase them to reflect TOC fare increases.
– the special West Anglia stns to Liv St (NR) PAYG fare goes up 10p
– TOC PAYG and cash fares go up by an average of 3.5% – just under the permitted RPI increase of 3.6%
– Travelcard, PAYG daily / 7 day caps all go up because the TOCs have insisted they go up. The TfL documents only mention this about 500 times in 9 pages. x_x 8D
– The “Zone 1” add on fare remains unchanged but in place so people from South London using TOCs into Zone 1 and changing to the tube continue to pay for the privilege.
– All TfL concessions are maintained.
– TfL modes go get some revenue uplift courtesy of apportionment of the higher Travelcard prices. TfL are also estimating a small revenue uplift courtesy of the fares freeze generating more travel. However the uplift is very small.
Links to official documents below.
TfL fares advice to Mayor
Signed Mayoral Direction on Fares
Come, come now, Walthamstow Writer, don’t exaggerate.
The 8½ page Fares Advice document contains a mere 17 references to the insistence of TOCs forcing certain increases. That is only two per page.