From January 4th, all bus fares are going up. (see
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/common/downloa...es-revised.pdf)

The cash fares in outer london are going up 30p (approximately 43%) to
£1. This is despite the fact that the supposed carrot to make us stop
paying cash, the availability of prepaid cards won't in fact be
available for months to come on the buses.

So you will have to buy saver tickets to keep paying the same prices
as before (except that the savers have also gone up, from 70p to 65p).
Anyone who uses saver tickets should stock up now, as the old ones are
cheaper and will continue to be valid next year.

Next, the one-day bus pass is now £2.50, which is not nearly so
attractive a price point (for people who take three buses in a day, it
is now cheaper to pay with saver tickets (which have got higher admin
costs for TFL), and if you take four buses, the difference is pretty
marginal (30p)). This doesn't seem to be a justifiable change, and I
predict that sales of these passes will decline considerably.

The zoning system has been scrapped, so for people like me who used to
buy a zone 4 bus pass, covering the whole of outer london (tube zones
4 - 6), will now have to buy a pass to cover the whole of London, even
if they only travel ina part of it. The cost of the new pass is
higher than the old one, and based on the cost of 1-4 travel, not on
single zone travel.

So this supposed simplifcation is simplifying to make things more
expensive.

So my monthly zone 4 bus pass, which costs me £28.80 will now cost
£36.50, or £92.40 extra over a year, which is a pretty big increase on
a total cost (before) of only £345. For weekly single zone bus pass
holders the increase is £104.

However, according to TFL, all old-style single zone passes will be
valid after January 4th until their expiry, and, since the zones have
now been scrapped, *they will be valid over the whole of London*.

So if you currently buy bus passes, I recommend buying a single zone
annual pass before January 4th. On January 4th it will be
automatically 'upgraded' to a 1-4 pass, and you will have saved money
as well - (single zone pass now £300/year - new pass £380). Remember
that all bus passes are fully refundable, so even if you only use it
for two weeks, they are obliged to refund the unused portion.