Shoreditch High Street is is in Zone 1

We saw this poster at Rotherhithe Overground station the other day, and it’s always good to be reminded of what a complete lie it is.

“Please remember that fares are charged for all the zones you travel through” it says.  Which is NOT the case if you get the Overground between Clapham Junction and Highbury & Islington.

Yes – you may come through Shoreditch High Street station which is in Zone 1, but as we clarified with TfL, as they don’t know which way round the Overground ‘circle’ you travelled, they have to assume that you went via Willesden Junction – which keeps you all in Zone 2, and so you pay the lower fare.

Just something worth remembering … !

TfL have today announced their new fares for 2015, and there’s something very interesting that we weren’t expecting.

The peak all-day cap for Oyster or contactless payments is actually being reduced – so much so that there’s now no ‘peak’ and ‘off peak’ cap – there is just one capped price, and it’s cheaper than it used to be – approximately one fifth of the price of the equivalent 7 Day Travel Card to Zone 1.

So if you’re someone that only travels a few days a week e.g. a flexible or a part-time worker who never buys a 7 Day Travelcard this could mean that you will be saving a fair bit of money on your journey.

New Fares for 2015

And with the new all-day caps being so much lower than the old peak caps you can travel before 9:30am without being penalised for it as you used to. e.g. travelling in zones 1 to 3 at peak now will cost you £10.60 (vs £7.70 after 9:30am).  In 2015 this will reduce to £7.50 even if you travel before 9:30am. The TfL press release states that it estimates that ‘Over 600,000 passengers’ will benefit from paying lower fares.

There’ll also be a 5p increase on the single fare for buses – up from £1.45 to £1.50, with the daily bus cap however remaining at £4.40 – but a One Day Bus & Tram Pass (last available in 2009 when it was discontinued) will be re-introduced – it costs £5 a day and is for those who wish to travel but aren’t in possession of an Oyster card or contactless card. Tfl says the pass will be “a lightweight single use Oyster card that will not require a deposit” – we’re not quite sure if “single use Oyster card” means “use the card for one day and throw it away” (seems wasteful) or “will only be for a bus pass” though (would be more sensible).

There are though, some losers amongst the winners and those are people who travel into London off-peak from the zones further out. Download the full PDF from the website here to look at the new fares, which start on Monday 5th January 2015.

Update:

• London Reconnections has a thoroughly comprehensive report on the new fares.
• The excellent Diamond Geezer has also written his usual detailed analysis of it all too.

Commuter Club

We stumbled across a travel-related website at the weekend that we’d not seen before, and had one of those “We can’t believe no one’s done this before”, type moments – and so thought it worthy of a mention.

It’s CommuterClub, and they’re out to save you money on your Oyster card buy letting you buy an annual travel card – but at a reduced rate.

It’s always cheaper to buy an annual travelcard than it is to pay for weeklies or monthlies, but of course you have to shell out all that money in advance – something which not everyone has. There are a few large corporate companies out there that let you have a ‘season ticket loan’ that let you spread the cost of your travel from your salary – but if your workplace doesn’t do it, then this could be the thing for you instead.

You can sign up for an annual travel card, and pay back CommuterClub at a monthly rate – working out cheaper for you than if you normally buy weekly or monthly tickets.  They have a page where you can work out how much you can save depending on what zone you regularly travel in from .

You can also cancel at anytime, so you’re not committed to the whole year – and you’ll save time too never having to go back to the ticket machine or ticket office to buy another weekly every week or month, you can just go for a whole year instead!