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Old October 20th 11, 07:53 PM posted to uk.transport.london
David Jackman[_2_] David Jackman[_2_] is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Dec 2007
Posts: 72
Default Zones 1, 2 and 3 or just 2 and 3 and PAYG

"Mizter T" wrote in
:


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.


The annual travelcard is also a Network Gold Card, which you can now
register on your Oyster card to get 1/3 off off-peak fares. So the off-
peak fares are currently £1.00 for NR and £1.25 for Tfl, once you have
registered your Gold Card (this may happen automatically if your annual
season is issued on Oyster).

(Off-peak for these purposes is usually journies starting before 06.30,
09.30 to 16.00 and after 19.00. These times are different from the
discounts "after 10:00" that apply to a paper tickets issued with a Gold
Card.)


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/defau...anuary%202012%

20
fares%20revision%20PDF.pdf