New 2015 Transport fares for London

Some good news for the workers that work in Central London as the new fares for 2015 have been unveiled. In zones 1-6 the fares have been capped and are going down to £11.70. London Transport Buses are also frozen again and capped at £4.40.

Press release from TfL

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, today set out a step change in Transport for London's (TfL's) fares for 2015, giving flexible and part-time workers, including those with unpredictable hours, access to lower fares.
The new fares reflect modern-day travel patterns and deliver on a commitment by the Mayor to the London Assembly to address the specific needs of part-time workers in the capital.Overall, TfL fares will be frozen in real terms, with an average increase of 2.5%.     

Flexible and part-time travel

London's workforce has changed.  Twenty two per cent of Londoners now work part-time, while many others have flexible working patterns and do not know how many days or hours they will work each week.  

In response the Mayor is cutting pay as you go daily caps dramatically so they become one fifth of the cost of a 7 Day Travelcard to Zone 1. This produces a much fairer commuting cost for many part-time workers and will mean that those with unpredictable working patterns can simply use pay as you go Oyster or contactless payments with the new guarantee that they will pay no more in a day than one fifth of the cost of a 7 day Travelcard ticket. Bringing daily caps in line with the cost of monthly and annual tickets would cost more than £200m per year.   

Daily fares capping allows customers using Oyster or contactless payments to make as many journeys as they need to in a single day, but caps the amount they pay for their travel at a set level. Once the total of all the fares reaches a certain amount the customer will not have to pay any more for their journeys for the rest of the day.   

The all-day cap for Zones 1-2 will be cut by £2.00 from £8.40 to £6.40; and for Zones 1-6 by over £4.00 from £15.80 to £11.70. This means that part-time workers using pay as you go will pay similar daily rates as full time commuters using a 7 day Travelcard. As an example, for someone who uses a Zone 1-2 7 day Travelcard (£32.10 in 2015) to travel 5 days a week, their travel will cost £6.42 each day - similar to the new £6.40 pay as you go daily cap for those who travel less frequently.   

The potential savings will be considerable, ranging from £200 to over £600 per year. When a 3 days a week customer travels between Zones 1-5 in 2015 they will pay a maximum of £10.90 a day, rather than the current maximum of £15.80, saving £4.90 a day, or £14.70 a week.  Over a year (for example 45 weeks) the savings are over £600.   

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: `This fares package delivers on my commitment to address the needs of flexible and part time workers. By overhauling our fares structure we will put money back into the pockets of hundreds of thousands of hardworking people who make such a vital contribution to London's economy. Freezing overall fares in real terms for next year allows us to hold down the cost of travel, while maintaining our vital programme of modernisation. This will ensure that the capital remains a competitive global city and a fantastic place to live.` 

Maximum savings possible due to the cheaper all day PAYG caps

Zones	2014 All day cap	2015 All day cap	Maximum daily saving possible	Weekly saving over 3 days travel	Yearly saving over 45 weeks
Zones 1-2	£8.40	£6.40	£2.00	£6.00	£270
Zones 1-3	£10.60	£7.50	£3.10	£9.30	£418
Zones 1-4	£10.60	£9.20	£1.40	£4.20	£189
Zones 1-5	£15.80	£10.90	£4.90	£14.70	£661
Zones 1-6	£15.80	£11.70	£4.10	£12.30	£553

TfL estimate that over 600,000 customers will pay lower fares over the course of a typical week.   

Paper One Day and annual Travelcards Part-time workers and visitors will continue to get the best value fare by using Oyster or contactless payments. 

The cost of the paper One Day Travelcard ticket will increase to help fund the new fares for part time workers. 

These customers too can benefit from the new daily caps if they switch from paper tickets to Oyster or contactless payment. 

·The all day 1-2  Day Travelcard (£9.00) will be discontinued
·The all day 1-4 Day Travelcard will increase from £11.40 to £12.00
·The off peak 1-5 Day Travelcard, bought primarily by occasional users, will increase from £8.90 to £12.00
·The all day 1-6 Day Travelcard will be frozen in price at £17.00
TfL estimate that at least 25% of existing One Day Travelcard users will transfer to pay as you go on Oyster or contactless in 2015.   

From London.gov.uk

This paper sets out Transport for London’s (TfL’s) fare change proposals to be implemented from 2 January 2015.  

The proposals will freeze TfL fares overall in real terms relative to the 2.5% annual increase in the Retail Price Index (RPI) in the benchmark month of July 2014.  

The revised changes to fares are expected to raise £98m per year for TfL, an increase of 2.5%. Travelcard season ticket prices increase by slightly less than 2.5% on average, reflecting the link with National Rail fares and the latest general guidance from the Secretary of State for Transport that no regulated NR fare should rise by more than RPI in January 2015. The bus PAYG single fare increases by 5p to 150p while the One Day Bus cap is frozen at 440p, 10p less than the cost of three single fares.  A new One Day Bus and Tram Pass is introduced priced at £5.00.  The Bus & Tram Pass season price increases by 4.0%.  

The overall increase in bus fares is 2.3%. On the Underground, PAYG single fares in London increase by 10p except for off-peak fares outside of Zone 1 which are frozen. To provide a better deal for part time workers, the all day multi-mode PAYG caps are reduced to become 20% of the 7 Day Travelcard price.  For example, the Zones 1-2 all day cap falls from £8.40 to £6.40 while the Zones 1-6 all day cap falls from £15.80 to £11.70.  

The off-peak caps are withdrawn. To fund these reductions and to encourage switching to Oyster and contactless, the Off-Peak Zones 1-6 Travelcard increases from £8.90 to £12.00 while the all day Travelcard range is simplified.   

The All Day Zones 1-2 Travelcard is withdrawn. The All Day Zones 1-4 Travelcard increases from £11.40 to £12.00.  The All Day Zones 1 to 6 Travelcard is frozen at £17.00. The reductions in the PAYG caps and increases in the one day Travelcards are projected to break even.

This is the table of the new price caps for Pay as you Go Oyster and Contactless.

	All day caps			Off-peak caps(1)
	2014	2015	Change	2014
1-2	£8.40	£6.40	-23.8%	£7.00
1-3	£10.60	£7.50	-29.2%	-
1-4	£10.60	£9.20	-13.2%	£7.70
1-5	£15.80	£10.90	-31.0%	-
1-6	£15.80	£11.70	-25.9%	£8.50

(1)    Off Peak caps withdrawn in 2015

This means that everyone would be capped on to the same daily price cap, but the bad news is anyone that usually travels after 9:30 would have to pay the full price cap. Price caps are less than the day Travelcard as TFL are encouraging Travelcard users to use Oyster or Contactless bank cards.

Prices for Day Travelcards.

	Day Travelcards
	2014	2015
All day 1-2	£9.00	withdrawn
All day 1-4	£11.40	£12.00
All day 1-6	£17.00	£17.00
Off-peak 1-6	£8.90	£12.00

The 1-2 all-day Travelcard will be withdrawn by next year. The 1-6 all day Travelcard is frozen at £17.00 for another year which will leave the Zone 1-6 Off Peak Travelcard to rise at £12.00. So you would be better off using an Oyster or Contactless bank card if you want to pay less when travelling from zone 1-6.

Fares for London Transport Buses

	2014	2015	Increase
PAYG - single	£1.45	£1.50	3.4%
PAYG - daily cap	£4.40	£4.40	-
Bus cash single	withdrawn
7 Day Bus &Tram Pass	£20.20	£21.00	4.0%
1 Day Bus &Tram Pass	-	£5.00	-
Tram cash single	£2.40	£2.50	4.2%

So we can see a minor change with rising fares with the PAYG single going up by 5 pence, but the daily cap for buses remains at £4.40 again. There are no cash fares on London Buses since they were withdrawn on 7^th July 2014. I would have thought by removing cash fares it would have lowered the cost of the PAYG single fare.

What TFL have brought back is the 1 day bus pass which is priced at £5.00 for infrequent visitors and tourists to London; it can only be purchased at the station or ticket shop as they won’t be available directly from the London Bus drivers.

My Conclusion

Bear in mind that as these fares are introduced to the public they are the proposals and won't be in force until 2015. TFL are the ones introducing the new fares and the changes will have to be approved by the Mayor of London as it states on the “Proposal for January 2015 fares” document.

But it’s good news for London Bus users as they won't see their daily fare cap going up, but the single PAYG fare will rise by 5 pence from £1.45 to £1.50.

However, the fact remains that if people want lower fares then Londoners will have to pay higher taxes in order for TFL to have the required income to run the system.

What TFL have forgot to mention is the discount prices for those people who use a Travelcard off peak in Zones 1-6.  They also neglected to inform us about the weekly caps on the Oyster card as it's currently on Contactless bank cards. In order for the weekly caps to work on Oyster they need to do away with the weekly Travelcard on Oyster.

Also, TFL should have implemented a weekend (Saturday, Sunday and bank holiday single days) price cap below £10 which would benefit users from zones 5 and 6 going to Central London for a day trip and for general leisure use.

According to the TFL Budget 2014/2015 document, 40% of their income out of the £10.9 billion budget, comes from fares. 61% of the budget is spent on running the system, whilst 39% of the budget is spent on improving and upgrading the system, which includes over £220 million spent for 600 New Routemasters for 2016.

So regardless, the fares go up and the usage for the London Transport services go up.

Also, you may be interested to see the fare structure from 2003 via Archive’s Wayback Machine.

https://web.archive.org/web/20031207163507/http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/ftt_home.shtml

And fares from 1997 when London Regional Transport was around.

https://web.archive.org/web/19970804081253/http://www.londontransport.co.uk/system/faresind.html

Also the public transport fare rises is not a London problem, it’s an International problem.

New York City,USA - MTA fare-hike plans to raise 30-dayMetroCard to $116.50 - NY Daily News

Los Angeles, USA – MTA fare increase – Los Angeles Times

Massachuetts, USA – MBTA Fare change adopted

Beijing, China - Public Hearing for Beijing Bus, SubwayFare Hikes

Ireland - Many public transport fares to rise fromSaturday - RTÉ News

The main purpose of having a transport system in London is to enable people to travel. 

Do you think TFL's new lower fares are unfair?  Why not let me know via the comments below my article and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest at:  @CLondoner92

Sources:

http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor-assembly/mayor/mayoral-decisions/MD1418

http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/MD1418%202015%20Fares%20for%20submission%20%28signed%29%20PDF.pdf

http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Annex%202%20Fares%20proposal%20for%202015_0.pdf

http://www.londontransport.co.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2014/november/fares-announcement-blank

http://www.londontransport.co.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/tfl-budget-2014-2015-final.pdf