London Transport - Oyster Pre-Pay can be cheaper than season ticket

finallycruising

Hi - this is the first time I've posted but I've had great tips from reading other's posts. I don't know is this has been posted before, but I couldn't find any matches when I searched for 'Oyster'.

For those who don't live in or around London, well, it's of no use to you! Oyster is the electronic ticketing system being used all over the tube network and on buses. There are two ways of using it: 'charge it up' with money and pay for each single journey (pre-pay) or purchase a season ticket, which is programmed into it.

While I've always found weekly seasons to be slightly more expensive than the daily return fare for 5 days (used to be about £1 more) you do gain flexibility if you want to make the odd extra bus or tube journey.

However, in my case, a Zone 1 to 6 weekly season is now £39.50 and the daily return fare using pre-pay is £7.00 (it's £7.60 using cash). That makes a saving of £4.50 a week by not purchasing a season. That's a potential saving of £200 a year!

There's also the added advantage that you don't pay if you don't go to work, making it more cost effective to take the odd short notice day here and there.

Of course, if you also need to make a bus journey then the season will be cheaper.

I don't know if it works for all journeys, but its worth taking a look at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tickets/2005/index.asp

Quasar

Yes finallycruising, the whole idea of the oyster card is to be cheaper and encourage passengers to go for it as it is less costly to administer. In fact London Underground advertises the oyster card as being substantially cheaper.

The fare increases in January will make the gap paper ticket versus oyster even wider. Hooray!

Glad you find it useful. I do lots of surveys on the Underground and have a special pass for that, but when the time comes I will certainly go for oyster!!

Best wishes.
Q

finallycruising

Hi Quasar. I guess my point is not so much the gap between Oyster and paper tickets but the difference between Oyster PrePay and Oyster Season tickets. PrePay users get a discounted fare over the paper ticket but Oyster based season tickets are the same price as the paper equivalent.

From articles I've been reading I look forward to using the Oyster for micropayments outside the transport system and to having the chip built into a mobile phone casing, or something!

All the Best.

wigginsmum

Anyone know if Oyster will be extended to ordinary trains? I live in Walthamstow which is only 8 miles from Liverpool Street in Zone 1, but my rail system won't accept Oyster yet so I'm stuck with a paper annual season ticket.

Jules

finallycruising

According to the Transport for London blurb it can already be used on the Liverpool Street to Walthamstow Central line. See page 25 of this document:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tickets/2005/downloads/tfl-fares-2005.pdf

dag_2

Anyone know if Oyster will be extended to ordinary trains? I live in Walthamstow which is only 8 miles from Liverpool Street in Zone 1, but my rail system won't accept Oyster yet so I'm stuck with a paper annual season ticket.

You can't use pre-pay on national rail but you can use an oyster card with a season ticket on national rail, as long as it covers all the zones you're travelling in. The main benefit of putting season tickets on an oyster card rather than using paper tickets is that if you travel beyond its validity on the tube or DLR, you're only charged the oyster pre-pay rates for the zones that your season ticket doesn't cover. But this doesn't apply to national rail, and you can't put a part-used paper ticket on an oyster card either.

****

Good news is - all of the oyster pre-pay rates, both single fares and daily caps, are either staying the same or going down in 2006 - with the exception of the Zone 1-5 and 1-6 off-peak daily cap, which is going up 10p from £5.70 to £5.80.

Bad news is - seasonal bus passes are going up a lot! At the moment, a monthly bus pass is £42.30, a one-zone travelcard outside zone 1 is fractionally more expensive at £43.10, and a two-zone travelcard outside zone 1 is £50.00. However, from January, a monthly bus pass will be £51.90 (that's a jump of 22.7%) and a two-zone travelcard outside zone 1 will be £53.80. Single-zone travelcards will be withdrawn. Yep - so that means that two-zone travelcards at today's prices are cheaper than bus passes will be in January. If anyone thinks they might need a bus pass for most of next year, they would be well advised to consider getting an annual bus pass, or maybe a one- or two-zone travel card if you think occasional tube travel justifies it now before the new prices come in - even if your current monthly card hasn't expired yet.

Lugh_Chronain

I didn’t know about Pre-Pay Oyster Cards. I enquired about the differences in the prices of Oyster and Savers and was informed that the Oyster would only be cheaper if I were to make journeys off-peak. At the moment Savers are £6 x 6. Can someone verify for me how much exactly it would cost on the Oyster per journey off/on-peak?

I bought quite a few Savers because of the usual price rises in January thinking I would save a bit by doing this, but now I’m not sure if I have done the right thing. Never mind no great lose really. And considering that I may only travel on public transport every (other) week or so.

Pre-Pay Oyster Cards do sound like they are cheaper though.