Boris has delivered on another of his pre-election promises. From the start of next year Oyster cards will be accepted on overground trains and Thames river services.At last outer London commuters can take advantage of the lower fairs that are available to Oyster users. Livingstone's policy of picking fights with the rail operators made for good headlines but didn't deliver the Oyster improvements that Londoners needed.
Even the hyper critical Chair of the Assembly's Transport Committee (Lib Dem, Caroline Pidgeon) seems impressed. “After repeated delays it is welcome that Oyster pay-as-you-go is finally being extended to all cover all National Rail services in London.” she said.
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4 comments:
this is really a good news for most of londoners and specially people in SE where there are not so many tubes.
Shame the cost of pay-as-you-go on national rail within the london zones WILL NOT be the same as the tube - we will STILL pay more to cover the same zones in the SE on the trains than others do on the tube - it'll just be paid through the oyster. So we get less service per hours on trains and still pay more, delighted.
Kirk,
I'm very pleased that national rail fares will be cheaper on PAYG than they current are, even if they are more expensive than Underground. It is worth noting that you can get a season ticket on national rail to a London terminus for a fraction (around 75%) of the price of a travelcard on the underground.
What I find more worrying is the cuts to train services from Blackheath, South London Line, Bellingham to Victoria, and Sydenham line that are coming in over the next few months and years. These changes will give priority to Kent, Surrey, and Sussex commuters rather than Londoners. It is a shame that the Mayor of London and the Tories in the GLA are not fighting for Londoner's rail services and are happy to give them away to richer commuters from the Home Counties.
Well James wrote "At last outer London commuters can take advantage of the lower fairs that are available to Oyster users" and that implies that the fares will be 'lower' along the lines of existing oyster fares - they WILL NOT. The may be lower than then current paper ticket fares (NOT YET confirmed by Southeastern but I am holding my breathe) BUT as the rail network WILL NOT allow transfer to the underground on the same trip ANY use of the underground to get to the bit of London you actually need will push you onto a second ticket and get you to the daily travel card cap faster than it would on the underground where I can move between lines on ONE ticket charge. I trvel in from Crayford every day and the difference between two PAYG on Oyster into zone 1 from zone 6 will still be £1.70 - and I will still have to pay a second fare to use any tube. It adds a payment method and very little else, in the south east we remain second class Londoners if we have to use rail.
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