Have a look at:

http://www.southernrailway.com/about...?1117705776259

and tell me whether or not this means Southern are moving over to zonal
fares in Greater London. If not, I'm very confused by why it should
exist.

Southern have already implemented a zonal fares policy within London,
which is aimed at integrating rail fares within the TfL fares regime.

Rupert Candy wrote:
Have a look at:

http://www.southernrailway.com/about...?1117705776259

and tell me whether or not this means Southern are moving over to zonal
fares in Greater London. If not, I'm very confused by why it should
exist.

Most interesting. It definitely looks like they have a zonal fares
structure now - one question is, since when? It appears that like zonal
fares have been in place, unnoticed, since the new January fares came
in (I've just checked my personal notes of my local fares and they're
the same as quoted on the Fare Pal).

Another point to mention is that the Southern zonal fares are not the
same as their Tube counterparts (they're actually cheaper), and the
Southern tickets are still issued on a point-to-point basis, so there's
no integration with Tube fares (i.e. Southern zonal fares are only for
use on National Rail, not for a joint rail & tube journey).

AIUI TfL ultimately wants zonal fares for all National Rail journeys
within Greater London (alongside implementation of Oyster Pre-Pay on
NR), but as to whether these zonal fares are a co-ordinated move with
TfL or a unilateral move by Southern in anticipation of such a future,
I don't know.

What is interesting is the propect that, if and when NR fares in London
go zonal, if there is a price difference between Tube and NR fares.
There would be some logic to this, given the higher maintenance costs
of the Underground and the more frequent service provided, compared to
many NR routes.

Mizter T wrote:
Rupert Candy wrote:
Have a look at:

http://www.southernrailway.com/about...?1117705776259

and tell me whether or not this means Southern are moving over to zonal
fares in Greater London. If not, I'm very confused by why it should
exist.

Most interesting. It definitely looks like they have a zonal fares
structure now - one question is, since when? It appears that like zonal
fares have been in place, unnoticed, since the new January fares came
in (I've just checked my personal notes of my local fares and they're
the same as quoted on the Fare Pal).

Another point to mention is that the Southern zonal fares are not the
same as their Tube counterparts (they're actually cheaper), and the
Southern tickets are still issued on a point-to-point basis, so there's
no integration with Tube fares (i.e. Southern zonal fares are only for
use on National Rail, not for a joint rail & tube journey).

AIUI TfL ultimately wants zonal fares for all National Rail journeys
within Greater London (alongside implementation of Oyster Pre-Pay on
NR), but as to whether these zonal fares are a co-ordinated move with
TfL or a unilateral move by Southern in anticipation of such a future,
I don't know.

What is interesting is the propect that, if and when NR fares in London
go zonal, if there is a price difference between Tube and NR fares.
There would be some logic to this, given the higher maintenance costs
of the Underground and the more frequent service provided, compared to
many NR routes.

I would be happy to see zonal fares on NR; I would be most displeased
to see parity with LU rip-off rates. So let's hope they do maintain
the difference (and the Railcard discounts).