On Jun 18, 7:23*pm, MIG wrote:

On 18 June, 17:31, Mizter T wrote:

On Jun 18, 5:00*pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
Agreed - that is a *monumentally stupid* example.

A far better example would have been Balham (zone 3) to Victoria (zone
1). The Tube PAYG fare is £2.70/peak, £2.20/off-peak. A single rail
fare is £3.10 (within the London zones, all rail fares are conform to
the same fare scale and are all priced zonally, albeit issued on a
point-to-point basis).

But that isn't the full story, as it is only true when comparing single
fares. If (like most pax I imagine) you are clever enough to buy a 'rail'
standard return at £5.30 or off peak return at £4.10 it is less than the
equivalent two PAYG singles. *I don't recall anything in the media that has
looked at that level of detail, it's more normal for them to go off on one
about the £4.00 cash fare (as in the BBC article above)...

Agreed - I kept the example simple and so didn't mention return fares
(I recall posters on 'one'/NXEA advertising their 'increased
acceptance' of Oyster PAYG specifically pointing out that a CDR could
nonetheless be cheaper).

The return fare situation can be complicated further by the existence
of capping too - and there remains the question of how combined LU+NR
journeys would be priced.

Given the relationship between the current caps and the equivalent
travelcard, it's hard to see how there could be a higher cap that
didn't take it over the price of the travelcard.

Though I didn't suggest there would or could be a higher cap above the
cost of a Travelcard - in fact I'm in agreement that there couldn't
possibly be a higher cap that was more costly than the equivalent Day
Travelcard, as any such thing would be completely nonsensical.

In out recent discussion here I outlined a couple of possible
scenarios - either...
(a) that there are two capping levels - that is a TfL cap and then a
more expensive TfL+NR cap which is the same price as the equivalent
Day Travelcard,
(b) or there is a single capping level, which is either marginally
cheaper (i.e. 50p less) than the equivalent Day Travelcard, or is
priced the same as the equivalent Day Travelcard.

Paul C replied, the gist of his response was that option (b) was the
only sensible choice as otherwise things would simply be too
complicated for the punter. I absolutely agree with this analysis -
the question is thus whether the capping level is a bit cheaper or the
same price as the equivalent Day Travelcards. I think TfL would
obviously like to keep that marginal price advantage as it's something
of a a sales pitch for Oyster PAYG - but the flip-side is whether that
would leave TfL out of pocket when it comes to the formula for
settling payments with the TOCs, or whether the TOCs would be willing
to go along with a marginally cheaper cap too (bearing in mind that
Oyster isn't 'their baby', so they care less about its success).


Or maybe the cap could remain the same, even though singles cost more,
to compensate for the loss of returns?

See above. I don't see any fundamental change in the capping levels -
they've always been tied to the price of their quasi-equivalent Day
Travelcards (initially the same price, but very soon after - the
second year of PAYG perhaps - the 50p differential was introduced).


Before Oyster came along, I always found it odd that an NR journey
could cost so much more than an LU journey while a travelcard was
valid on both.

Just in general? (In which case, yes I agree that the Day Travelcard -
the off-peak variety at least- has always offered fairly good value.)

Of course pre-2007, there was no pan-London zonal fare structure for
NR journeys - different TOCs priced journeys of similar distances
quite differently.


(I think I will stick to travelcards wherever possible.)

If capping on Oyster PAYG means that you'll never pay more than the
equivalent Day Travelcard (or possibly 50p less), could pay less if
you don't reach the caps, and lets you do things like travel in the
peak and add the peak fare on top of an off-peak cap, I can't see the
downside.

(OK, OK - there's the 'big brother' element that some people might get
concerned about, and the potential for having ones journey time out if
one is just interested in 'track bashing', photographing,
trainspotting or whatever instead of making an A-to-B journey - but
for the normal traveller these considerations aren't significant.)