The fairly complete guide to saving money on transport within London

thelawnet

Ticketing

In general you should use a contactless pay-as-you-go payment card (debit, credit, or Google/Apple pay), which is modern and doesn’t require topping up, a payment to TFL, etc. However, for railcard holders only you may be required to buy an Oyster card. For certain situations you should buy tickets.

Weekly, monthly and annual season tickets

Monthly season tickets cost 3.84x a weekly fare, and annual cost 40x a week, or 10.4 months. Longer periods than a month but less than a year are priced at the monthly rate, not the daily or weekly rate. If you need a season ticket, then the monthly + days (priced e.g. Monday – Friday) is often cheaper than annual

Buses and trams

Buses are free for:

·       0-10 year olds

·       11-15 year olds who pay £15 for a Zip Oyster Card

·       16-17 year olds who live in London and pay £20 for a Zip Oyster card, as well as those who are 18 on 31 August and still in further (not higher) education

Buses are half price for those aged 11-15 who pay £5 for a visitor Oyster card. 16-17 year olds who live outside London can pay £20 for a Zip Oyster Card for half price fares. If you are on certain benefits you may also be able to register for half price fares.

You can also travel on buses using a bus season ticket or any travelcard. Trams require a zone 3, 4, 5, and/or 6 travelcard.

The normal bus fare is £1.75 for any number of bus trips started within 60 minutes. E.g., if you board a bus at 09:30, another at 09:50, and then the third at 10:25, you will pay £1.75. Bus trips cap on contactless/oyster after three trips, and there’s no point in trying  to buy a day pass. You also benefit from weekly capping if you make more than 14 trips in 7 days, again no point in trying to buy this manually unless you have a discount. For a month and longer duration you probably won’t save either, if you are just making one return journey each weekday.

Tube and rail

The PAYG fares are priced based on zones, time of day, and modes of travel.

For example, West Croydon (Zone 5) – Whitechapel (Zone 2) costs £3 during the peak, £2 off-peak, using Overground. West Croydon – Shoreditch High Street (Zone 1), is only half-a-mile further, but because it goes into zone 1, it costs £5.10 peak, £3.50 off-peak.

As another example, Upminster (Zone 6) – Temple (Zone 1) is £5.60 peak, £3.60 off-peak, because it is Underground-only, while Coulsdon South (Zone 6) – London Bridge Rail (Zone 1) is £7.70 peak, £4.80 off-peak because it is non-TFL rail, which is more expensive than TFL rail or underground. West Drayton (Zone 6)  - Romford (Zone 6) would also be £5.60 peak, £3.60 off-peak, because it is TFL rail but goes through all zones 1-6.

The most expensive journey involves a combination of non-TFL rail and underground, e.g., Coulsdon South – Temple is £9.40 peak, £6.40 off-peak.

All these fares as PAYG will cap at rates designed to punish the residents of outer boroughs as follows:

·       Zone 9 – £21.20

·       Zone 8 - £19.10

·       Zone 7 – £16.20

·       Zone 6 - £14.90

·       Zone 5 - £13.90

·       Zone 4 - £11.70

·       Zone 3 - £9.60

·       Zone 2 & 1 - £8.10

These are based on the highest zone visited, so the cap for zone 6 only is the same as for zones 1-6. For zones 1-6 the cap is the same peak and off-peak, while if you travel zone 7-9, there is a separate off-peak cap of £14.90.

As far as TFL is concerned, peak is 06:30-09:30 and 16:00-19:00 Monday to Friday. The exception is that journeys INTO zone 1 16:00-19:00 Monday to Friday are considered off-peak.

For journeys involving zone 1, there is a weekly cap or travelcard price which is 5x the daily cap.  Monthly seasons as mentioned are 3.84x the price so if you travel a lot the monthly may save you money over just relying on the auto (Monday-Sunday) weekly capping.

For journeys NOT involving zone 1, there will be a weekly cap/travelcard price which is more sanely priced from around £30 a day.

Note that for a daily (Monday-Friday) return underground journey, with little/no other travel PAYG is probably cheaper than seasons.

For rail journeys NOT on TFL, NOT mixed with other journeys, it will be cheaper to buy a season ticket from the rail company than to buy a travelcard. Example: Surbiton to London Terminals is £57.20 a week, which is cheaper than 1 -6 t/c at £74.20/week, though less versatile.

For TFL flows a season ticket is NOT available, so for example West Croydon (Z5 Overground) – Surrey Quays (Z2 Overground) is only PAYG, or 2-5 cap/tc (£40.50), but you could instead buy a ‘not via London Croydon Stations – New Cross ticket (£30.10 weekly), which would be valid for West Croydon – Surrey Quays – New Cross, as well as many other routes and subsets of the route.

Railcard Oyster discounts

The following railcards can be linked to an Oyster (not contactless payment) for 1/3 off off-peak Oyster fares:

·       16-25  (also for mature students).

·       26-30

·       Senior (60+)

·       Forces

·       Disabled

·       Annual Gold Card (requires relevant S England area annual season ticket, cheapest one may be Hatton – Lapworth at £196)

This can generally only be done at an Underground station.

These also reduce the off-peak cap, but not the peak cap. Without a railcard these are typically the same value, e.g., £14.90 for z1-6 peak and off-peak, but with the railcard the off-peak peak is reduced by 1/3. The peak cap ONLY applies if you travel during the morning (06:30-09:30) peak.

As an example a Z6<-->Z1 rail fare is £7.70 peak, £4.80 off-peak without railcard, or £3.15 off-peak with railcard.

For the following return journeys w/railcard oyster then:

·       Morning peak, afternoon peak = £7.70 + £7.70 = £15.40 = £14.90 peak 1-6 cap applies

·       Morning off-peak, afternoon peak = £3.15 + £7.70 = £10.85 = £9.80 off-peak 1-6 railcard cap applies

·       Morning peak, afternoon off-peak = £7.70 + £3.15 = £10.85 – peak cap not reached

·       Morning off-peak, afternoon off-peak = £3.15 + £3.15 = £6.30  - off-peak cap not reached

For railcard Oyster holders it can be cheaper to travel into zone 1 than avoid it, during the peak. For example, Purley –Whitechapel via Southern & Overground would cost £5.10 PAYG at 5pm, whereas to continue to Shoreditch High Steet would be charged at £4.80 with normal PAYG, and only £3.15 with the railcard Oyster discount loaded.

Railcard ticket discounts

Generally PAYG is cheaper than pre-purchased tickets, however railcards give discounts of 1/3 on tickets, which can tip the balance in their favour.

Apart from the Oysterable railcards above there are also non-Oyster railcards, which only allow discounts on specific tickets:

·       Network Railcard (SE England, valid after 10am, minimum fare £13 weekdays at all times)

·       Two Together (two people travelling after 9:30am)

·       Family & Friends (adult + child(ren) off-peak)

·       Groupsave – NOT an Oyster card, just a group discount for any group of 3 or more on ‘off peak’ tickets, or travelling after 09:30 for journeys within London (where ‘off peak’ tickets are not sold)

The rules are:

·       16-25 (& Mature student) - £12 minimum fare applies before 10am on weekdays, except during July/August

·       26-30 £12 minimum fare applies before 10am on weekdays

For travel within Z1-6 off-peak, the following fares arise:

·       £9.80 cap using Oyster + allowed railcard

·       £10 for a travelcard without minimum fare, or £12/£13 if minimum fare applies (London travelcards cannot be purchased using groupsave)

·       £14.90 for undiscounted Oyster PAYG cap

For a Z6-1 return peak-peak rail journey:

·       £11.15 if minimum fare doesn’t apply, or £12 minimum fare

·       £14.90 with PAYG peak cap

Discounted out-of-London tickets

Generally speaking, tickets between two locations within London are priced at high rates with no discount. This is intended to promote the use of PAYG/Oyster.

There is no national PAYG scheme, and tickets (which may be online or paper) from outside of London to London are often cheaper than those within London, during off-peak times.

There is no general rule about ticket times, but:

·       An ‘anytime’ day return is valid all day

·       An ‘off-peak’ day return is generally valid after 9:30am, and has NO evening restrictions

·       A ‘evening out’, ‘super off peak’, etc., will typically be restricted in both the morning and evening peaks.

Out of London ticket can be used to save money: the Z6-1 Oyster fare is £7.70 peak, £4.80 off peak, with a daily cap of £14.90. This is more expensive than a return ticket, which is priced at £16.90 from a Z6 station to Z1.

For tickets outside Z6 into London, there will generally be ‘off peak’ and even cheaper return fares, which can be used for journeys wholly within London.

For example, Hinchley Wood is the first station past Surbiton outside of Z6, and SWR price tickets Hinchley Wood - London:

·       £16.80 Anytime day return

·       £12.50 Off peak day return (valid arriving in London after 09:59, returning any time

·       £9.50 Evening out or Sunday out (valid arriving in London after 13:59, returning after 19:00)

Tickets in the reverse direction are even cheaper:

·       £16.80

·       £10.60 (valid to depart Waterloo after 08:59, return any time)

·       £8 (valid to depart Waterloo 12:01 to 15:59, and after 19:01, return any time)

These tickets can be used for any subsection of the route.

For example, the ticket Hinchley Wood – London ticket is valid to Surbiton and then via route SU:

https://data.atoc.org/routeing-maps

which means Hinchley Wood to Surbiton to Waterloo, Victoria, London Bridge, Waterloo East, Blackfriars, City Thameslink.

Since you are permitted to ‘break a journey’, which includes both ‘starting short’ and ‘finishing short’ https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/tickets-railcards-and-offers/buying-a-ticket/breaking-your-journey/

the Hinchley Wood – London ticket can be used to travel Surbiton – London. This can be substantially cheaper: e.g., the ‘Evening Out’ return from Hinchley Wood with railcard/groupsave discount is £6.25, and the ‘off-peak return’ is £8.25.

If you have a non-Oysterable railcard, then the PAYG return fare from Surbiton would be £9.60 (off-peak/off-peak PAYG) vs. £6.25 (railcard/groupsave evening out), or £12.50 (off-peak out returning during the peak) vs £8.25 with railcard.

Such tickets can be used in potentially unexpected ways, for example, there is a choice of ‘not via London’ and ‘any permitted’ tickets for Purley – Hinchley Wood. Not Via London means you would travel from Purley to Clapham Junction, and then Clapham Junction to Hinchley Wood, while ‘any permitted’ would allow you to do something like Purley – London Bridge, London Bridge – Waterloo East, Waterloo – Hinchley Wood.

For a railcard holder, the ‘off peak day return’ Purley – Hinchley Wood ‘any permitted’ costs only £9.10, and allows you to travel on trains arriving in London after 10am, and return any time.

If you simply wanted to travel from Purley to London Bridge, at say, 10am, and returning at 5pm, then this railcard ticket to Hinchley Wood would be slightly cheaper than the off-peak Oyster railcard cap of £9.80, and significantly cheaper for railcard (or groupsave) users who are ineligible for Oyster rail, who would pay £12.50.

This ticket can generally be issued from ANY station in the London zones. For example, Romford – Hinchley Wood Evening Out is £6.90 with railcard/groupsave, and is routed ✠ANY PERMITTED, which means you can use it from Romford to London, across London by Elizabeth Line and/or Overground, and then from Waterloo to Hinchley wood. Although Romford – London is priced by TFL and is cheaper for PAYG than non-TFL rail routes, £6.90 is still cheaper than two undiscounted PAYG off-peak fares  (£7.20) or a peak and an off-peak (£9.20 without Railcard Oyster, £7.95 with).

A sample list of return fares to London follows:

·       Merstham (for stations such as Coulsdon South, Croydon, etc.) Super Off Peak £11.50 (arrive London after 10:45, leave south London (i.e. Blackfriars, Cannon St, Waterloo/W E., Charing X, Victoria, London Bridge, City Thameslink) outside 16:15 to 19:15 or 16:30 to 1901 for Kings X, Moorgate, St P.)

·       Ashford Surrey Evening Out (arriving London after 13:59, return after 19:00) £11.50

·       Kempton Park ditto £10.50

·       Ashtead Evening Out £9.50 (same restrictions)

·       Radlett Super Off Peak £8.20 (weekends only)

·       West Horndon/Purfleet/Grays £12.40 (weekends only)

·       Cuffley Super Off Peak £8.40 (weekends) or £11.20 (weekdays, not valid arriving London before 10:55, and not valid to return from London 16:30 to 19:01 inclusive)

·       Potters Bar £8.20/£11.20 (same rules)

The cheapest cross-London fare appears to be from Ashtead.

For example, Ashtead to Romford Evening Out ✠ANY PERMITTED is £11.50 with the arrive after 2pm, return after 7pm restriction. To Elstree & Borehamwood it is £12.50. However in the reverse direction it is only restricted to be used after 12 noon, and there are no return restrictions. This is because it is conceptually based on a journey FROM Waterloo to Ashtead, which is considered to be going against the flow.

With a railcard or groupsave the price is only £7.55 for Romford – Ashtead, which you could simply use to travel from Romford to London and back again, after 12 noon. This is cheaper than the undiscounted PAYG return fare of £9.60, or £12.50

Break of journey vs Oyster trip pricing

Oyster is priced 'per trip', and you will be charged two fares to for example travel from Purley to London Bridge, exit the station and then resume your journey to Charing Cross. At peak times this would cost £7.70 for the first trip + £3.30 for the second. Although single rail tickets (as distinct from PAYG journeys) are deliberately expensive, the £8.60 rail ticket from Purley to London Terminals would clearly be a better purchase than Oyster PAYG, since it would NOT be swallowed by the gates at London Bridge, and could still legitimately be used to continue to Charing Cross.

It would be necessary to consider the whole day's journeys - for example, if you were coming back in the peak, you'd be best off with the daily cap of £14.90, but if you were coming back off-peak then a combination of single paper ticket at £8.60 and PAYG off-peak (£4.80) would be cheaper.

For journeys involving few zones, but several stops a return ticket can also be cheaper.

For example, to travel from Caterham (Zone 6) to Purley (Zone 6) to East Croydon (Zone 5),  and back to Caterham, a simple return ticket costs £6.40, while the PAYG fares would be:

* £2.80 peak £2.50 off-peak (Z6->6)
* £3.20 peak £2.80 off-peak (Z6->5)

This means you'd pay somewhere between £9.20 (all peak) and £8.10 (off-peak) using PAYG/Oyster, but only £6.40 with the paper ticket, which can be used to break down the journey into any number of stops along the way (you cannot use a Caterham - East Croydon ticket to go to Victoria, for example).

Reducing costs by limiting modes

For those using non-TFL rail it will be significantly cheaper to walk (or scoot, ride, etc.) from a rail station to your final destination than take a tube journey. E.g., rather than travelling from East Croydon to Victoria and then take the underground to Embankment, it's cheaper to take the train to London Bridge and then from London Bridge to Charing Cross.

thelawnet

Checking fares

To check fares use the http://brfares.com/ website. It shows conditions for tickets. It is not an official site.

TFL's fare finder is accurate for PAYG fares https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/tube-and-rail-fares/single-fare-finder

For caps, travelcard prices etc. see the pdfs here https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/tube-and-rail-fares

Hire bicycles

Currently the cheapest bike hire options are the pedal-power Boris Bikes at £20/month or £120/year for unlimited rides.

For electric bikes the dockless Forest bikes charge £8 for 170 minutes of riding over 5 days (you can watch some ads to earn 3 minutes extra per day). This is cheaper and quicker than public transport and much more convenient than the Boris Bikes, although the cheapest option is obviously to walk, and if you can do your commute with one mode, it MAY be cheaper to do that, although that is not necessarily the case - for example to commute from Purley to Sloane Square is a 21 minute walk from Victoria, or a expensive rail + tube journey via Blackfriars. These journeys would tend to reach the  cap of £14.90 per day, and £74.40 a week, but by getting off at Clapham Junction (Zone 2) instead  you'd pay no more than £50.90 per week, and if you were happy to use Boris Bikes it would cost around £2.60/week for that, or for Forest e-bikes £8/week. The bike + rail to z2 journey would be significantly faster and cheaper than the pure rail journey.

MilesT6060842

Break of journey

Need to be a little bit cautious about break of journey, for day tickets. 

Check the specific rules for your specific ticket (or planned ticket) on the National Rail website (brfares website can help identify before purchase).

• "Advances" never allow breaks.  If you want to stop short close to the end then travel onwards and buy a ticket back can legally save money; or split the ticket at your planned break point. 
  There are some routes on the Great Eastern Main line where "advance to beyond" and local ticket back works very well, and this kind of pricing hack is rarely found by split ticketing websites
• Some discounted tickets only allow break on the Return leg, not the outbound.
• Anytimes generally allow break of journey (on a single or both ways on a return).
  

Bikes

The dockless bikes can be a bit hit and miss for availability.  On the other hand, the London Santander bikes have very fixed limits to where docks are available (costs a small fortune to get a new dock, which must be contiguous with existing network, TfL only pay a small %, local council needs to fund the bulk from own funds and/or S106 developer money).  Occasionally you will find the docks full when you want to finish, use the dock display to get a 10min extension to find an empty dock, you can extend 3 times in one journey I think.

In past years there have been discounts available (25%) on the annual London Santander bike pass (please don't call the docked hire bikes B**** bikes, especially since it was not originally B**** idea, he just took the credit as the scheme was opened when he was Mayor).  Sometimes in Sept, or in November for Black Friday.  Keep your eyes open for this if you think the Santander bikes would work for you.  There was recently a "flash sale" for a few days on monthly passes (one month only).

Weekly London zonal tickets--Citymapper Pass. (Citymapper Pass no longer available)

The citymapper pass might work well if you need some weeks but not others in quick succession (worth checking).  Has been offered in the past at a slight discount to TfL weekly cap cost, and the higher priced version bundles various other transport options (bikes, scooters, car credit) for multi-modal journeys.  You can pause the pass for up to 5 weeks (it still works as a PAYG contactless card for travel while paused, with usage settled to another payment card linked to the account), but beyond that Citymapper pass costs £1 pw to keep the card.

Daily fare capping/PAYG pricing

Sometimes the PAYG capping process will seem to give strange results for complex (longer) routes, to charge best price.  This is because the calculation will look at options such as "apply a zonal cap and then charge the remaining 1-2 journeys out of zone using zonal extensions", e.g. 2-3 zone cap and an extension for starting/finishing in say zone 4.  oysterfares.com website forum can be used to help untangle these (with the site owner putting in reports to TfL of charging anonymalies).  Sometimes the final fare charged has to wait for the nightly realculation run (which picks up on "best value" rule and will do an zone plus extension type of calculation).  The furthest reaches of contactless card (not Oyster) validity has a number of potentials for odd calculations (leaving aside the situation that a Freedom pass is valid for travel to stations from West Drayton to Reading on the Eliz line only, but an regular Oyster card is not).

Also, walking between two nearby stations (or distant gatelines within certain stations) can sometimes be handled as a "out of station interchange" (OSI) and become one linked trip, not two, which can impact your expectations of a capping calculation if you aren't aware of that.  There is a spreadsheet of all OSI on the TfL website (just search for out of station interchange).  Many OSI are not marked on the tube maps & vice versa, there are a couple of nearby stations that are marked as "within 10 min walk" (the short version of the usual rule for an OSI) but aren't OSI (which is naughty).  You can contact TfL to ask to have an OSI added--and sometimes they do, and some are added temporarily if there are works which disrupt a route.

thelawnet

I believe Citymapper has been shut down.

Regarding my post above, I was able to provide a reasonable saving on a trip from Purley to London and back again with stops:

this was an off-peak journey Purley - London Bridge - Charing Cross after 12 noon, returning London Bridge - Sydenham, Sydenham - Croydon, Croydon - Purley. during evening peak, a set of trips that would reach the £14.90 cap with PAYG/Oyster, but is reduced to £11.50 with an 'Evening Out' ✠ANY PERMITTED ticket from Purley to Esher.

thelawnet

I should mention also that if you are an Oyster Railcard holder it is often cheaper to combine tickets with PAYG. E.g. Purley - Sydenham with Railcard costs

£6.05 return railcard ticket after 10am
£3.40 single Railcard ticket after 10am

£4.40 peak PAYG 
£2.15 off peak PAYG single with railcard

For a journey at 6pm returning at 8pm therefore, the best option is to pay £5.55 for a single ticket plus PAYG 

thelawnet

With regards to bicycles, in some cases you might be making a longer commute.

For example, a half-hour ride each way from Zone 2 (or similar) would come to 300 minutes a week (possibly more if you go on weekends as well).

This comes to £12/week using Forest's 250 minute plan (plus the daily 10 free minutes), equivalent to £52/month, a bit more expensive than shorter journeys which you could manage under the £8/week option.

This is less than half the price of a Z1-2 Travelcard. Using Boris Bikes, it comes to £10/month (if you buy an annual pass) for unlimited unpowered bikes, however the £1/time ebike fee on top of that would add £10/week, still making the Boris bikes uncompetitive for ebike options.

However, given the 25% discount available on annual Boris Bike subscriptions for many groups (students, NHS, etc.), to just £90/year, it may well be worth combining the two. Note that you should be able to share subscriptions to these various apps, though this may well be against the terms of service.