Mizter T wrote:
The Rail Minister Tom Harris has announced that the National Rail (NR)
network in London is to adopt a zonal fares system. This will apply to
all rail journeys that are wholly within the London Travelcard zones
(that is zones 1 - 6).

This change, which will come into effect from January 2007, has been in
the pipeline for a long time. It paves the way for Oyster Pay-as-you-go
(PAYG) to be implemented across the whole National Rail network in
London (currently Oyster PAYG is only accepted on a limited number of
NR routes).

There will be single, return and cheap day return (CDR) tickets
available. Many have suggested that a zonal ticketing system will do
away with CDRs and will be pleased to hear they are to stay.

A full table of the fares is included in the DfT press release.

Will zonal rail tickets show origin/destination stations like they do at
present and therefore a return be A to B & back to A only? Or could I
buy a Zone 1 to 5 Rail only CDR say to go from Victoria to East Croydon
and later in the day Bromley South back to Victoria?

--
Phil Richards
London, UK
Home Page: http://www.philrichards1.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

Mizter T wrote:

The Rail Minister Tom Harris has announced that the National Rail (NR)
network in London is to adopt a zonal fares system. This will apply to
all rail journeys that are wholly within the London Travelcard zones
(that is zones 1 - 6).

(snip)

There will be single, return and cheap day return (CDR) tickets
available. Many have suggested that a zonal ticketing system will do
away with CDRs and will be pleased to hear they are to stay.

(snip)


Having digested the press release a little I've an observation and a
query.

My observation is regarding rail-only season tickets - some had
wondered about whether they had a future, but this announcement
confirms they're here to stay. This is one of the footnotes from the
DfT press release [1]:

"Operators will be required to set rail-only seasons on a similar zonal
basis from January 2010."

i.e. rail-only season ticket prices will be set on a zonal basis, but
they will remain cheaper than a Travelcard covering the same zones.

My query is whether these tickets will be issued on a point-to-point
basis - i.e. with specifically named origin and destination stations -
or issued Tube-style where only the zonal validity is printed on the
ticket. The latter allows for more flexibility for the passenger, but
would appear to be far more prone to abuse. I suspect NR tickets will
continue to issued on a point-to-point basis.

Indeed Southern already use a zonal system for setting the fares on
their routes, and they have done since January 2005. However they
continue to issue tickets with on a named point-to-point basis. (See
the FarePal page on the Southern website for more info on this [2].)


[1] DfT press release:
http://www.gnn.gov.uk/environment/fu...leaseID=235656
or via shorturl http://tinyurl.com/y8sm6v

[2] Southern FarePal
http://www.southernrailway.com/main.php?page_id=126

wrote:
I am very glad to hear they are keeping the single/return/CDR fairs for
overground journeys. It may seem silly to have two sets of fares but
why should I pay underground fares for overground journeys? I do not
get the same level of service (eg my trains start later in the morning,
finish earlier at night and are far less regular) so it seems
unreasonable for me to pay the same as someone who lives by a tube
station and gets all those benefits.

In all fairness rail and tube fares ought to be the same. Certainly most
other cities abroad where a zonal fares applies, a ride on the metro
costs the same as surface rail for the equivalent zonal journey.

Just because rail might have a worse frequency than tube ought not to
mean cheaper fares. For instance, London buses have the same (flat) fare
for routes that operate once an hour during the day time to one that
runs every few minutes day and night.

--
Phil Richards
London, UK
Home Page: http://www.philrichards1.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

Phil Richards wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
The Rail Minister Tom Harris has announced that the National Rail (NR)
network in London is to adopt a zonal fares system. This will apply to
all rail journeys that are wholly within the London Travelcard zones
(that is zones 1 - 6).

This change, which will come into effect from January 2007, has been in
the pipeline for a long time. It paves the way for Oyster Pay-as-you-go
(PAYG) to be implemented across the whole National Rail network in
London (currently Oyster PAYG is only accepted on a limited number of
NR routes).

There will be single, return and cheap day return (CDR) tickets
available. Many have suggested that a zonal ticketing system will do
away with CDRs and will be pleased to hear they are to stay.

A full table of the fares is included in the DfT press release.

Will zonal rail tickets show origin/destination stations like they do at
present and therefore a return be A to B & back to A only? Or could I
buy a Zone 1 to 5 Rail only CDR say to go from Victoria to East Croydon
and later in the day Bromley South back to Victoria?


A good, and as yet unanswered question. I reckon that tickets will
continue to be issued from and to specific named stations, because as
much of the suburban network is ungated there'd be more of an
opportunity for fraudulent re-use of tickets if they were issued merely
with their zonal validity printed on them.

This is of course to the inconvenience of passenger flexibility.
However when Oyster PAYG is eventually rolled out across the whole NR
network in London then that will provide that flexibilty - e.g. for the
Victoria - East Croydon then Bromley South - Victoria journey you speak
of.

Mizter T wrote:

This change, which will come into effect from January 2007, has been in
the pipeline for a long time.

This is a bit short public notice to actually introduce it isn't it?

I know its been in the pipe for some time, but I would have thought a
step change like this would have been subject to a longer notice
period. Or has there been one - *public* notice period I mean, as in
displayed at stations - in which case I missed it if there has.

Don't get me wrong, I'm in favour, it should have been brought in in
1907 not 2007 - and there were probably a lesser number of train
companies then. No doubt someone will go and count them now.

--
Nick

On 19 Oct 2006 09:12:52 -0700, "Mizter T" wrote:

Full DfT press release via the Government News Network:
http://www.gnn.gov.uk/environment/fu...leaseID=235656
or via shorturl http://tinyurl.com/y8sm6v

"There are over 330 rail stations within the Travelcard zones, and at
present each of 97,300 different station-to-station combinations has
its own set of fares."

Does this add up?

330 stations can come in 54285 combinations, or 108570 permuations
(which may be more appropriate as the fares may not be the same in
both directions(?)) .

If there were 441 stations there would be 97020 combinations, while
442 stations would give 97461, but 442 is a lot more than the wording
"over 330" would suggest.

312 stations would give 97032 permuations, 313 stations 97656, but
even assuming there are appropriate numbers of stations treated as
groups for ticketing, this isn't 97300 - though 97032 could lead to a
typo.

Obviously many of these fares will be the same amount, as no fare will
be GBP900, so they aren't deleting ones of the same amount from the
total.

So what am I failing to see? Perhaps an effect of the zonal fares
already in place, so (say) Waddon, West Croydon and Carshalton
Beeches (etc) don't have their own sets of fares?

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

On Thu, 19 Oct 2006 18:19:43 +0100, Phil Richards wrote:

I am very glad to hear they are keeping the single/return/CDR fairs for
overground journeys. It may seem silly to have two sets of fares but
why should I pay underground fares for overground journeys? I do not
get the same level of service (eg my trains start later in the morning,
finish earlier at night and are far less regular) so it seems
unreasonable for me to pay the same as someone who lives by a tube
station and gets all those benefits.

In all fairness rail and tube fares ought to be the same.

And what's particularly unfair is that a journey involving a Rail line
followed by a Tube line costs more than one involving a Rail line
followed by a Rail line, or a Tube line followed by a Tube line.

On 19 Oct 2006 11:26:03 -0700, D7666 wrote:

This change, which will come into effect from January 2007, has been in
the pipeline for a long time.

This is a bit short public notice to actually introduce it isn't it?

I know its been in the pipe for some time, but I would have thought a
step change like this would have been subject to a longer notice
period. Or has there been one - *public* notice period I mean, as in
displayed at stations - in which case I missed it if there has.

In fairness, what action are you going to take as a result of the
announcement that takes more than 12 weeks? Move house?

On 19 Oct 2006 09:44:28 -0700, Mizter T wrote:

As you rightly point out, a Z1-6 Train/Tube CDR will apparently cost
£9.60 - which seems utterly bizarre. An off-peak Day Travelcard will
obviously be cheaper. I can't see the logic of creating such a fare if
it's never going to be issued.

Some of the CDRs could, with Railcard/Privilege discounts, be brought
down to below the price of a Travelcard, which has a £4.80 minimum (at
least for Railcards - I don't know much about Priv). So a few might
end up being issued (although this probably still doesn't apply to the
£9.60 ones).

Will zonal rail tickets show origin/destination stations like they do at
present and therefore a return be A to B & back to A only? Or could I
buy a Zone 1 to 5 Rail only CDR say to go from Victoria to East Croydon
and later in the day Bromley South back to Victoria?

www.nationalrail.co.uk confirms that although zonal tickets will be
issued they will still be point to point and I quote "We are
considering whether in future we could make buying tickets in London
simpler still by offering tickets to specific zonal destinations.
However at present this is not practical." Surely it's easy to make
pratical if the tube can. Basically the system will simplify fares
without the zonal travel flexibility and so in the short term just
means fare raises of untold proportions for most people...a real "win"
for everyone! If this was a truly zonal system this would have been
great.