Great Western Coffee Shop

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/tfl-to-raid-home-counties-passengers-to-make-40million-extra-per-year-as-it-plans-to-scrap-day-travelcards/ar-AA1a0QJJ?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d1a89b3d722145edaf77a8f4708098ba&ei=16

What a disgraceful idea. Surely the mayor should be encouraging visitors to London to use public transport by making it as easy as possible to travel in and use any mode of public transport to get around once they are there?

I agree he should and he indeed he does encourage visitors to London; however where the National Government have placed a squeeze on the funding it gives to TfL the Mayor for London cannot pass on costs to the Council Tax payers of London to subsidise the rest of the UK travel in London.   

All Local Authorities are doing similar things the Heathrow - Maidenhead No 4 bus will now terminate in Cippenham due to Slough Council reducing its subsidy, the Council cite why should they subsides travel in another Councils area which does not contribute to the costs.   I'm sure there are many other examples around the country

Yes there are.  I am writing from my home in a county with eight neighbours; the miracle is just how many issues get sorted out on without anything said in news feeds.  I have the most enormous respect for our council officers here in Wiltshire who do this work, and who work closely with the bus companies around here most of whom are really on side.     ((I could really head off topic here ...))

This comsultation was forced on Sadiq Khan by the latest Govt funding settlement as a requirement. Bear in mind its only the DAY travelcards - weekly & longer are unaffected

Of course - designed to charge the tourist and visitors more, and leave the regular user ("voter") with the current system.

This brings to mind other ticketing options in the UK which are only available to none-residents ... a regularisation and simplification of fares should also allow anyone to buy and user Britrail and Interrail tickets for use in the UK no matter where they reside.

It may not raise the revenue expected as people will change their behaviour. Not just travel into London less often, but use an alternative route to get closer on National Rail, use buses rather than tubes, be more 'creative' with their ticket buying etc. There may also be people that are buying them habitually but not getting the full value.

I'd suspect its also an attempt to shore up revenue given the drop-off in commuting.

Given that a lot of people only commute into central London one or two days per week now in the age of hybrid working and don't purchase weekly/monthly/longer tickets, it'll by no means be only tourists and visitors who are affected.

We should not forget the origin of the word Commuter, it comes from the commutation ticket used in the USA,  "a ticket issued at a reduced rate, as by a railroad or bus company, entitling the holder to travel over a given route a fixed number of times or during a specified period".
May the season ticket is the earliest form of loyalty discount?

It will also mean that TfL get 100% of the contactless/Oyster PAYG, rather than splitting it with the TOCs, which will achieve the shoring up their income aim

Surely they will still have to reimburse TOCs for those parts of the journey not on TfL services

We’ll have to see whether TfL contactless/Oyster gets approved for rail use beyond current boindaries. But yes to rail use within the current zones where reimbursement is already automatic.

Currenntly, the TOCs retain a % for each travelcard, whether or not ther is any further rail use after arriving within the zones. That won’t happen if thidms gets approved & TOCs will only receive recompense should rail be used within the zonal area

Petition here to stop it happening (and yes, it's been organised by the Tories but if it does the trick or at least creates further debate it's worthwhile)

 https://letstalk.conservatives.com/1554D67B-E3E4-ED11-A3B1-00505693FFD8#!/?deliveryName=DM22568#start-survey

Great the media team who put the petition together is up to date and current with the current rolling stock at Paddington

Makes you wonder how they could get such a critical detail wrong - undermines the whole effort.

That's simple to answer just look at the Political Party running the petition  ;D

Notwithstanding this appalling and unforgiveable oversight, I have signed the petition.........whilst indicating that I don't want any correspondence from the Conservative Party.

A wise move although can you trust them to keep that promise  ;D

I do find it a bit rich that the Conservatives are up in arms about this, it is them in power at Westminster which has cut the funding to TfL. 

The Mayor for London has to look after his Council Tax payers, the Government perhaps did not consider the full consequences when they cut the TfL budget. 

I see the petition as a Local Election canvasing tool by the Conservatives, the blue wall around London has a number of Local Elections this week which they have a big fear of the blue wall being knocked down

This consultation was a specified condition of the last settlement, so the Tories knew exactly that this would happen!

I'd be interested to see the figures behind the claim on the petition page that "Scrapping Day TravelCards could cost YOU an extra £9.30".  It will vary greatly by each person's mix of journeys, where they change to LU and so on. It's true that many people will pay more than they currently do, but the add-on to the London Terminals price isn't fixed so far as I know, and some people do buy Travelcards when it would be cheaper not to.

It's also worth noting that the proposal applies only to Day Travelcards, not weekly and longer period ones, though far fewer people are buying these now of course thanks to working from home, and TfL have refused to join in with the Flexiseason scheme which would help. They may be hoping that period Travelcards will just die a natural death.

Last chance to take part in the consultation................

https://busandtrainuser.com/2023/05/21/two-days-to-save-day-travelcards/#more-45130

I have commented on TfL's proposal and said that I have a National Rail Disabled Railcard. As you all know this permits me a reduced rate on both the mainline railway and the Tubes and buses in London. I don't have an Oyster card and would have to use ‘contactless’ payment for my onward journey once I have reached Paddington or Waterloo.

Although contactless payment has a daily expenditure cap it will not possible to take advantage of the reduced rate for journeys within TfL’s area as it is not possible to link my Disabled Railcard to my bank card.

This is discriminatory and disadvantageous to those with disabilities. It seems to me that the proposal is, quite possibly, illegal and TfL should abandon it.

It’s not discriminatory unless they remove the Oyster card. You would need to obtain an Oyster card and link your railcard and payment card to it.

It is the reason I have and use Oyster, so that I get my Senior Railcard discount.

I need to go & do that too for the same reason....wish me luck!

The TfL page for this (https://haveyoursay.tfl.gov.uk/travelcards) now says "Engagement closes 06 June 2023", so presumably it has been extended by two weeks.

To no great surprise the Mayor of London says that One Day Travelcards are to be scrapped, apparently Londoners are subsidising the rest of us to the tune of £40m a year.

So ticket office closing, travelcards scraped, wifi and on-board food going/gone, never ending strikes, what is the point of going by train?

What happened to net-zero and the need to reduce our CO2 usage, I guess we will have to go everywhere by electric car.

Rant over  ;D

Shouldn't make any difference though - using contactless or Oyster means you won't be worse off?

The cap on both contactless & Oyster is *more* than the add-on for a one-Day travelcard.....

Can you point to where is states this on the tfl website?

[edit] found it now, thanks!

If that was the case why scrap the Travelcard?

Also it is much harder if travelling as a family, as you get 4 paper cards one each. How do you replicate that with 2 adults and 2 children, do I need 4 debit/credit cards?

Form Didcot an off-peak return to Paddington is £37.40 and Travelcard is £39.20 - £1.80 difference that won't get many tube/bus journeys.
And if you have a railcard the difference is £1.20.

So can you please tell me how I am not going to be worse off?

In short, each traveller would need their own debit/credit card. Although children under 10 travel free on TfL, so not sure how that would work. Indeed, under the current system, why buy a Travelcard extension for an Under-10 (i.e why pay for something that is actually free) ?

Children under 10 don't need a ticket on TfL services as long as they (up to 4 of them) are accompanied by an adult who has paid his or her fare.

Presumably, that means approaching a manned gate and ask to be let through?

I would imagine that will be how it works.

The main problem with contactless bank payment remains the lack of an easy way to add a railcard discount for journeys that use national rail services for all or part of the journey.  A paper travel card ticket or Oyster card makes it possible to enable that discount.

Perhaps the long-term answer is to make railcards smart. Give them RFID and link to a bank account.

I was unaware of the exemption for under-10s when, several years ago now, I approached the barriers and asked how to get a ticket for my then 11 year old son. Couldn't see how to get it from a machine and no ticket office (or not that was open). Staff said something along the lines of 'I don't believe he's 11, he looks 10 to me, he doesn't need a ticket.' Boy was, of course, not pleased to be 'downgraded'!

That changes though ... there seem to be a lot of young people aged 16 or even 17 who downgrade themselves to 15 when travelling by train.

I get the impression that Newton Abbot has the highest proportion of 14-year-old youngsters for whom time has stood still for at least three years  ;D

Oh yes.
Frequent story on busses "Child single/return please" when clearly not a child!

The amazing quantum qualities of age: 17 on the birth certificate, 15 on the bus, 18 in the off-licence!

When the expansion of contactless/PAYG to all these 233 new stations was announced, in two phases 1 and 2, IanVisits said:

That makes it sound as if this is due by 2024 as well, but I've never found any official source for that, and I suspect it's misleading. The expansion - project Oval - was implemented as a non-competitive tender with TTL (part of TfL) and Cubic.

There is another tender still to be let called Project Proteus, which is TTL looking to re-let the contract Cubic have to run the system. This includes various back-office system changes, lurking underneath the usual jargon and initials. And one of those is:

That's about Oyster, and so has nothing to do with adding a railcard to a contactless account. But it might, perhaps, have caused a bit of confusion in reporting. But this Project Proteus would also be a likely place to put the database link to support railcards in PAYG accounts, though as I say it's not actually mentioned. Proteus is to be let in 2024 for "full-service delivery in August 2026", and more new bits to follow after that.

According to the Evening Stanard it has been saved.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/one-day-travelcard-saved-transport-for-london-tfl-trains-fares-b1115574.html (https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/one-day-travelcard-saved-transport-for-london-tfl-trains-fares-b1115574.html)

It will apparently rise in price (I am not surprised), if the rise is 'small' then this has to be good news and good news about the railways is in short supply at the moment.

I reckon the add-on will be raised to at least £6.40

The Standard report has been updated to an "increase by a one-off levy of about three per cent next March, in addition to the annual fares rise".

3% of what though? The current add-on, or the current overall price? (which'll take the increase to about 11%)