On Oct 20, 4:35 pm, martin j wrote:
Hi there.
Coming up to Travelcard renewal time and this year since my journey
has pretty neatly settled down to zone 3 south London to Canary Wharf,
via Crystal Palace and Canada Water, I don't think I need Zone 1 as it's
only about 1 week a month that I have to travel that way and only on the
inbound journey.
Is it going to be cheaper to drop Zone 1 and pay the difference via Oyster
PAYG 1 week a month for only the inbound journey's?


Assuming you're talking about an *annual* Travelcard...

An annual zones 1-3 is GBP 1,288
An annual zones 2&3 is GBP 832

So a difference of GBP 456.

How much a zone 1 single costs depends on whether it's at the TfL rate
(Tube, DLR, some NR journeys) or at the NR rate - you can see which rate
applies to which lines he
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/tickets/national-rail-map.pdf

Travelling from say Crystal Palace to London Bridge directly, you'd pay the
NR rate which is currently GBP2.00 peak, or GBP1.50 off-peak. The TfL rate
is GBP1.90 both peak and off-peak.

So, *assuming* you'd be paying the NR rate, that'd be GBP10 for your
one-week-a-month journey - so it all depends on how many weeks (you think)
you'd be doing that in the coming year, if say it was 48 weeks then that's
GBP480 which is more than the difference of GBP456, if however it's only 35
weeks (GBP350) then that's a different matter.

The other factor to bear in mind is that the PAYG fares (both TfL and NR
rate) will rise in the January fares change - for a zone 1 journey, the NR
rate will rise to GBP2.20 peak / GBP1.60 off-peak, the TfL rate will rise to
GBP2.00 both peak and off-peak [1].

The last thing to consider is how many forays into zone 1 you (might) make
for leisure purposes, and whether that might tip the balance.

The calculus is different for weekly and monthly seasons when compared to
annuals - the 12 'free' weeks you get (pay for 40 weeks, get 52) does
rather slide the scale in favour of annuals. If however you were buying
monthlies, then it'd clearly be better value to buy a zones 2&3 monthly (at
GBP79.90) and pay the GBP10-a-month extra using PAYG compared to buying a
zones 1-3 monthly (at GBP123.70).

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[1] See the fares table on page 10:
http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/MD886%20January%202012%20fares%20revision%20PDF.pd f