Mary Reid: Season tickets set to rise by £400 unless zone boundaries are changed

Mary Reid | 17 November 2007 | 20:50

Season tickets set to rise by £400 unless zone boundaries are changed

Back in January Ken Livingstone introduced a new way of pricing train fares in London. Fares used to be calculated on the distance between stations; now it is based on which zones the start and finish stations are in.

Now that may sound much simpler, but it is fair only if the zones boundaries are consistent.

Kingston, Surbiton and the two Chessington Stations are in Zone 6. All the London termini are in Zone 1. But 23 of the stations in the cheaper Zone 5 are further away from their London terminus than Kingston and Surbiton are from Waterloo.

Tickets from Kingston, Surbiton and Chessington to Waterloo went up by 35% in January. Edward Davey and Susan Kramer have been campaigning against zonal pricing for some time.

But by doing some very detailed research (including some Freedom of Information requests) they have now uncovered an even greater threat. From 2010 season tickets will also be priced zonally. This will mean an increase of £400 for an annual season ticket from all four stations.

You can read all about this, including the legal challange that Edward and Susan are mounting, over on Edward Davey's website.

While you are there do sign the petition.

For completeness: Norbiton, Berrylands and Tolworth are in Zone 5, New Malden and Malden Manor are in Zone 4. You can download a zone map from TfL's site.

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St Mark of Surbiton

on 19 November 2007 at 10:08

I am afraid that this posting is very inaccurate.
There is no point blaming Ken Livingstone because it was not him that introduced these zones. The zones already existed - they have existed for decades. The move to zonal charging was done by Network Rail, TOC's and the ruddy Government, so that they could move to using Oyster PAYG sometime in 2009. PAYG will not work unless the heavy rail system adopts zonal charges as TfL does - although, as I say, TfL did not introduce zonal charges, it was done a long time ago.
I believe commuters in Surbiton should pay more than those in Berrylands. They get a far superior service and should pay for it. The issue is not about zones but about the overall level of fares.
I see that the MP lost the previous campaign to scrap the moving of of peak fares to after 11.00.
If you want to campaign on something then campaign to get me a seat in the mornings.

Mary Reid

on 19 November 2007 at 15:48

0star(s) awarded

I don't usually post anonymous comments, please let us know who you are in future.
I'll certainly check out the points you make. In the meantime it is worth mentioning that Lib Dem campaigning has ensured that the Eurostar terminal at Waterloo will be used for suburban train services, instead of being converted into a shopping mall. Maybe that will provide extra capacity for a more frequent train service and hence more seats.

Tim Leunig

on 19 November 2007 at 16:09

It is perfectly reasonable to argue that those travelling from Surbiton should pay more than those travelling from Berrylands, since the journey is longer. But that is an argument against zonal pricing as a whole. Given that we have zonal pricing (and it is in the franchise document, so it would be illegal for SWT not to use zonal pricing), the question is which zone Surbiton should be in. Should it be in zone 5, with Berrylands, or zone 6 with Hampton Court? The average zone 5 station is 11.8 miles from London, the average zone 6 station is over 14.5 miles away. Surbiton is 12 miles away - so the logical zone for Surbiton is 5, not 6. Stations get rezoned from time to time - nearby Stoneleigh was rezoned from 6 to 5 at the start of the year, for example.
Sadly the rolling stock are also specified in the franchise, so there is unlikely to be much change. The new platforms will hopefully reduce congestion at Waterloo, holding out the opportunity for faster trains and fewer delays when things go wrong.

Frank George

on 19 November 2007 at 21:24

But Waterloo is a red herring. Nothing has been done and no decision has been made and any services that were sent from the Eurostar platforms WOULD NOT come to Kingston or Surbiton because of the infratsructure costs of getting those platforms to service those suburban lines - you would need a flyover! The only way of increasing capacity is to increase train lengths and as Tim says that is unlikely to happen.
You really should speak to people in the industry before you make these claims.
Suburban train services should not be judged on distance anyway. Do we let the Underground or the bus run charge according to distance? These are suburban services and therefore zoning is a perfectly logical way to charge.
The issue is the level of fares, not zoning.