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Cost optimisation draft article

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Using this guide[edit]

Most users will benefit from reading the Definitions and "For the tourist" sections. This guide is written in a way that while it provides an overview of the public transport system within London, the goal is with cost optimisation in mind. This means that we focus on how travellers and residents can save money on travel, which can be considerable in a city like London, where transport can get pretty expensive. The fare system is also rather complicated and convoluted, and we try to simplify it in this article as well.

Prices referenced in this article are likely to change; we try to minimise its use as far as possible as a result.

Note that some advanced techniques are not covered in this article.

Definitions[edit]

The Oyster card[edit]

It is a plastic reloadable card that can be used to travel across London; this includes the Tube, buses and most National Rail services within London. The exception is the Elizabeth Line from Iver to Reading, where such cards aren't valid.

Contactless[edit]

This involves paying using a contactless credit/debit card, or other options such as Apple/Google/Fitbit Pay. This method of payment can be used for all services within London, and a subset of train services near it. Other bus operators may also allow payment by contactless, but that's out of scope for this article.

The main issue is that contactless does not support discount schemes such as railcards (which we'll discuss later on); you'll need to get a paper ticket or use Oyster where permissible.

Paper ticket[edit]

Self-explanatory, this is a regular ticket on paper.

The zonal system[edit]

The zonal system is a series of regions that decide how much you pay for a trip. In general, we have

Zone 1, which commonly refers to what is called as Central London
Zones 2 - 6 - outside Central London but generally within London itself. The higher zones normally form the outskirts of London.
Zones 7 - 9 - generally outside London
Zones 10 - 16 (technically A - F, though not officially listed as such) - for specialist cases such as Gatwick Airport, Watford Junction and Shenfield. While these zones accept Oyster and contactless, they cost more. These stations are officially referred in tube maps as "Special fares apply" from a cost point of view.
There are some stations (such as Luton) which accept contactless but not Oyster; such stations are generally out of scope for this article.

When you make a trip using Oyster or contactless, you will in essence be making a trip from Zone x to Zone y and be charged the corresponding fare between those zones. You can find the cost between two particular stations by going to https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/tube-and-rail-fares/single-fare-finder, and we'll make several references to that site throughout this article.

Peak and off-peak[edit]

As the name suggests, this depends on when you enter the transport system (and crucially not exit). You'll pay a higher fare if you enter during the "peak" fare zone, which is usually

6:30 am to 9:30 am, and 4 pm to 7 pm, on weekdays only (public holidays are excluded) if you use Oyster on TfL or National Rail services
any time before 9:30 am otherwise, on weekdays only.

Capping[edit]

This means that if you pay for your trip using the same Oyster/contactless card, the total fare you'll pay for a day or week will be upper-bounded, and any further trips you make will be free. This depends on which zones you've travelled through (see above). There is a separate, lower, cap if you only use buses.

For the tourist[edit]

Reaching London[edit]

So you've reached London. For now we'll assume that you've reached Heathrow; specific information for other airports follow later.

There are three common ways to reach Central London from Heathrow:

Heathrow Express: non-stop from Heathrow to Paddington in 15 minutes
Elizabeth Line: a stopping service from Heathrow to Paddington (from where trains to Reading can be sought), Abbey Wood and Shenfield
Piccadilly Line: the slowest of the three - all the way up to Cockfosters in north-east London.

So which one would be best from a cost-optimisation point of view?

The Heathrow Express is generally overpriced. The Elizabeth Line can do what the Heathrow Express does for a substantially cheaper price, and is included in Zone 1 - 6 daily caps (while the Heathrow Express isn't, so you would have to pay for any subsequent tube journeys you make that day). The only exception is if you have an advance ticket - while those are cheap in comparison, they are valid only for a certain day, and are not compatible with schemes such as capping.
The Elizabeth Line is not cheap. However, it is included in Zone 1 - 6 daily caps, and hence is reasonable if you plan to travel a lot that day, as you'll simply hit the cap and not pay any more for the day.
If you plan to only make one or two tube journey for the day, the Piccadilly Line would be the best choice, being substantially cheaper than the other options.

The National Rail premium[edit]

So now that you've reached London, and decide to stay at Clapham Junction for the night (after all this is from a long trip!). The next day, you decide to go to South Kensington (to see the museum for example). How do you get there? Google Maps is likely to recommend one of the below options:

There is a direct bus to South Kensington (bus 345/49); fair enough, but we'll look at that later
You can take a Southern train to London Victoria, and then take the District/Circle Line westwards to South Kensington
You can take a South Western Railway train to London Waterloo, and then (using one of the many permutations - doesn't matter) use the London Underground system to reach South Kensington station
You can take the London Overground train to West Brompton, and then take the District Line to South Kensington

On the surface, the three options look similar according to the zonal system - you take a train from Zone 2 to Zone 1. However, most people are unlikely to notice that this isn't the case, and will get screwed in the price. According to the TfL fare finder (as of Jan 2023):

Costs by option
Option	Peak	Off-peak
2 or 3	5	4.4
4	3.2	2.6

Notice that there is a £1.8 difference for a single journey! So what's going on? To answer this question would involve looking at a fairly advanced concept that is likely to confuse the average tourist. An ELI5 (explain like I'm 5) answer would look something like this:

Wherever possible, always choose a TfL service within London. This includes the Tube, and also the Overground and Elizabeth Line, unless you plan to travel a lot that day.

The more advanced explanation follows below:

When you take a journey on National Rail or TfL, you'll be classed in one of the three groups: TfL only, National Rail only, or the mixed-route option, with the average prices in increasing order.
When you take Option 2 or 3, you are taking a mixed-route journey which involves travel both on non-TfL services (here Southern/South Western Railway) and TfL services (here the London Underground). This causes your journey to be shifted to a more expensive scale which is higher than what you'd pay if you travelled only on TfL services (which would be the case with option 4, as the London Overground, while technically part of the National Rail system, is a TfL service).
Of course, if you travel enough to reach the cap for a particular day/week, then the above doesn't matter; the cap does not depend on how you travel (with the exception of the bus).

Buses[edit]

Buses within London can be a cheap way to go around London:

They don't have a peak or off-peak period - it's the same fare throughout the day. The single fare is generally cheaper than the cheapest Tube fare (with some exceptions if you use a Railcard and are making a non-Zone 1 journey).
Many buses operate in the night - much more than London Underground/National Rail
They work in conjunction with rail capping - if you've already reached a cap, you don't pay any more for buses
If you only use buses, there is a separate, lower cap for a day (equivalent to three single bus journeys for a day) and week
Transfers between buses within 62 minutes are included in the price of a single bus fare.
If you have insufficient credit on an Oyster card, you can still use it for a bus (which will make the balance in the card negative). However, you will need to add credit before you use the card again - even for a transfer.

The main problem users are likely to find is speed. Buses are slow, especially in London, and some (especially within Zone 1 and in peak times) are notorious for having an average speed as little as 10 km/h. You're likely to get to your destination faster using rail services. On the other side, the slow speed makes some of these buses good for sightseeing.

Watch out - especially outside London (where some TfL buses do run), you may see buses not contracted by TfL. The above notes do not apply to these buses, as they are completely separate.

Young child discount[edit]

A 50% PAYG (pay-as-you-go, including applicable caps) discount can be set for a temporary period of time (about two weeks) for a child (up to ~16 years old) on an ordinary or visitor Oyster card, which is useful for families visiting London. This can be done by a member of staff at a London Underground station. Note that the discount is valid for both tube and bus.

Using paper tickets[edit]

TfL posters discourage the use of paper tickets within London, and for a good reason. Fares are designed in such a way that it generally costs substantially more to buy a paper ticket compared with using a Oyster or contactless card. This holds true even for children (see the Young Child discount above instead). Similarly, don't get a paper travelcard either. There are a couple of cases where it is a good idea to use a paper ticket however:

If you want to explore the London Underground system for fun, or spend time admiring the station architecture. If you enter the system using Oyster or contactless, there is a time limit by which you must complete the journey and exit the system, or you'll be penalised. While the extra charge can be refunded by calling TfL, it can be an hassle to have to do this multiple times, and hence it may be better to get a paper day travelcard (which gives you unlimited travel within the zones on the ticket for a day).
If all of the below are true: you have a railcard that provides off-peak discount only (such as the 16-25 railcard) and you want to travel during the evening peak period and you want to make a mixed-mode TfL + National Rail journey and you do not intend to reach the cap. The reason is that National Rail defines the peak period to be anytime before 9:30 am, and nothing more. This means that if you use Oyster or contactless during the 4 - 7 pm period, you'll be charged with a peak fare. If you use a paper ticket however, it is defined as off-peak, and the 33% discount that a railcard provides will kick in as a result (note that there is no separate off-peak discount on a regular National Rail paper ticket unlike Oyster), bringing the cost down compared to a undiscounted peak TfL fare. In some cases it may be possible to do this with the morning peak period, depending on the railcard (as most railcards enforce a lower-bound on the fare otherwise).
If you want to make one, and only one, TfL journey (or only for a day), and cannot use contactless (due to the £7 charge for an Oyster card).

Now, what happens if you need to travel outside London? Things get tricky there, particularly if you use a railcard. Let's illustrate with an example - suppose you want to go from Paddington to Reading. You have a couple of choices:

You can use contactless. This is £26 during peak periods (as defined by TfL), and £11.6 off-peak
You can get a off-peak National Rail ticket for £22.6 (which is valid on the TfL evening peak, but not morning). A peak ticket costs £27.6.

On the face of it, it looks like contactless is a good choice. But what happens if you have a railcard providing a 30% discount for instance? Then the cost drops to £14.90 and £18.2 for an off-peak and peak ticket respectively - contactless is cheaper for off-peak TfL, but costlier for a peak ticket. Recall that you can't use a railcard using contactless.

What happens if you want to make a return journey?

If you use contactless, a return journey is simply twice a single, so £23.2 and £52 respectively
If you do not have a railcard and want to make a return journey on the same day, the off-peak and peak costs are £26.7 and £52.1. Notice that the return leg is effectively free if you're on an off-peak ticket, but contactless still beats a paper ticket in this case.
If you do not have a railcard and want to return on a different day (up to a month), the off-peak cost is £32. Again, contactless beats paper.
However, if you do have a railcard, the costs drops to £14.95 for a off-peak return. This beats contactless.

To add on to that, if you want to make multiple journeys in a week, contactless has capping (but not a paper ticket).

The TLDR of this is that

Contactless is often better, but you should compare the costs with a paper ticket before deciding to buy, particularly if you have a railcard.
The London fare system can be rather complex and confusing to the uninitiated, and it would not be feasible to discuss every single peculiarity in this article.

Eurorail and Britrail[edit]

This is a scheme available only to non-UK residents, where they can get discounts on train travel. This section discusses how they can be used within London; a full discussion of these two schemes is out of scope for this article.

If you have a Eurorail/Britrail pass (or Rovers/Rangers) that is valid within England, you

cannot use it on the London Underground
cannot use it on London Buses or Trams
can use it on the London Overground
can use it on the Elizabeth Line
can use it on any other National Rail service (such as Thameslink)

Note in particular the overlap between TfL and National Rail services. London Overground and Elizabeth Lines are part of TfL, but they are also part of the National Rail system. This means that schemes part of either TfL (such as capping and Oyster) and National Rail (such as Eurorail) are valid on both - which means that Eurorail/Britrail passes can be used on these two services. This can cause confusion with TfL staff unfamiliar with this scheme, so you may need to gently point this scheme to them.

Also: some Eurorail/Britrail passes are flexible, which means that you need to activate a day's pass before using it. Using this scheme is not a good idea unless you plan to travel outside London (or cannot use it in any other way), as capping will almost always be cheaper.

If you plan to use this scheme in conjunction with Oyster or contactless, you must touch out before using the pass.

Note that reservations are not usually available (or required) for trains within London.

Using other airports[edit]

Gatwick: The Gatwick Express is rather expensive and unnecessary. Use regular Southern services that go to Victoria (in Central London). You can open-jaw at East Croydon (i.e, get off the train, pass through the validator and enter the system again through another train) to get a significant cost saving, through that may be difficult if you have luggage.
Stansted: you must buy a regular (paper) ticket; neither contactless nor Oyster would work.
Luton: you must either get a paper ticket or use contactless.

First class[edit]

First class on National Rail within London is useless; don't bother. You're paying for (mostly) a piece of cloth. In fact, there are a couple of ways you can use "first class" without paying extra:

If the train conductor announces that the train is "declassified" (usually when the train is crowded)
On Thameslink trains, the "first class" on the rear of the train is automatically declassified. Quoting from the website, "Where first class is available, this can be found at the very front of the train. The first class compartment at the rear of Thameslink trains is always declassified."

Note that Oyster or contactless cards provide only standard-class travel.

For longer-time visitors or residents[edit]

Bypassing Zone 1[edit]

If you use the Tube or the National Rail system, there is a significantly higher cost if you go through Zone 1 in any way (this includes entering, exiting or passing through). The last of the three is not obvious and can cause some confusion.

What exactly does passing through mean? It means that your journey must not go through a Zone 1 station at all when you're making your trip. And given that there are multiple ways to go from one station to another, how do they enforce it? By the use of pink route validators (see right). The TfL fare finder is a good way of determining whether you need to (and where) use the pink route validator for a non-Zone 1 journey.

Are there exceptions to this rule? Rare. But there's at least one:

(Clapham Junction - Shepherd's Bush) to Highbury and Islington (and beyond): this works because the default route goes through Willesden Junction, but it would be illogical to force people to get off and use the validator given that one wouldn't be changing trains! The workaround would be to go all the way to West Brompton; do not touch the pink route validator there. Then take a District line train to Victoria, and then use the Victoria line to all the way to Highbury and Islington. This can result in a significant time saving, given how frequent (and quick) the Victoria line trains are, zipping through Zone 1. You cannot use Shepherd's Bush as a changeover point however, as this involves exiting the station formally (to enter the Central Line). Kensington Olympia is an acceptable alternative, through District Line trains are uncommon outside of weekends, and trains do not generally go directly to Victoria (forcing you to change at Earl's Court). If you're going beyond Highbury and Islington (on the Victoria line), you must get off and use the pink route validator on the London Overground side of the station before getting back.
Clapham Junction to Highbury and Islington can also be done by the anticlockwise loop (i.e, going through Surrey Quays) despite passing through a Zone 1 station; this works because the two directions cannot be distinguished by the system. This does not provide a noticeable time saying, however. This does not work for other stations along that loop.

Railcards or the 18+ Oyster?[edit]

This is a dilemma usually faced by students studying in London. On the surface, there are two options:

You can get a 18+ Student Oyster card, which provides a 30% discount on weekly or longer travelcards. Importantly, there are no discounts for pay-as-you-go travel, and the automated daily/weekly capping that comes along with that doesn't get a discount either.
You can get a 16-25 Railcard and attach it to an ordinary Oyster card. This provides a 33% discount on pay-as-you-go off-peak travel. The automated daily/weekly capping also gets a discount for off-peak travel.

The short answer is "in most cases the latter, but it depends on your exact situation". The longer answer comes below.

As mentioned above, the student Oyster card provides a discount on travelcards. This means that you'll need to be hitting the weekly cap for the benefit to take effect. In many cases, depending on how you travel (particularly if you can travel off-peak), you won't be hitting the daily/weekly limit. As a result, the 18+ Student Oyster card is unlikely to provide value in these cases, especially if you don't commute that often. There are exceptions however:

The 18+ Student Oyster card provides a discount on the Bus and Tram travelcard. If you use buses regularly, it can be the case that you'll get a discount if you hit (or are close to) the bus cap limit. The Railcard does not provide discounts on buses (though they still count towards the discounted caps, depending on when you travel)
If you need to use National Rail, you may well be running into the National Rail premium issue (see above) and can easily hit the daily/weekly cap (especially if you need to travel peak).

It is also important to note that the two schemes are not mutually exclusive; getting a railcard in general is a good idea if you need to travel outside London (as the savings can quickly add up).

The next question that arises would be if you chose to get a Student Oyster card. You'll need to load a travelcard - do not get a yearly travelcard. The added discount (compared to buying monthly or even weekly travelcards) is small, and that would be easily offset by the fact that most would not be commuting to university during summer vacations. Cancelling a travelcard is generally punitive, as it is done by computing the expected cost of (undiscounted) tickets up to the point you cancel - irrespective of how you used the card. Remember that even weekly travelcards are eligible for the 30% discount.

Boundary tickets[edit]

This is a special type of ticket that can be used if you already have a season ticket and want to go to a place that is not covered within the zones of your season ticket. There are two aspects to this:

If the season ticket is on an Oyster card, the process is automatic and seamless. Suppose you have a Zone 1 - 4 pass, and you make a trip from Zone 2 to Zone 6. You'll be charged only for the Zone 5 to Zone 6 portion, whether you use National Rail or a TfL service.
If you need to use a paper ticket (either because your season ticket is not on Oyster, or because you're travelling outside London), it gets complicated. First, look up the fares via a specialist site such as https://www.brfares.com/ - boundary zone tickets should show up there. You can use railcards as appropriate. Then, you'll need to either go to a physical ticket office, or use the automated ticket machines (this depends by the operator; don't expect this to be available outside London).
This can also be used by Freedom Pass users (for those users, get a BZ6 - destination name ticket). Make sure that the entire journey is valid - you cannot use this to bypass the 9/9:30 am rule.

The benefit of boundary tickets is that they work like a discounted peak/off-peak ticket, providing flexibility compared to an Advance ticket. Note though that a point-to-point Advance ticket may well be cheaper than a boundary zone ticket, but you'll lose flexibility that way.

If your season ticket is on an Oyster card and you buy a paper boundary-zone ticket, you can enter the system with one mode and exit with the other (i.e, enter using Oyster and exit using the paper ticket). Remember that you do not have to touch in or out on an Oyster card that is loaded with a season ticket.

Freedom passes[edit]

This provide a way for eligible London residents to get free travel across London, with some restrictions (particularly relating to use of National Rail services)

The Freedom Pass provides free travel after 9 am (anytime on weekends and public holidays). All TfL services can be used without any further restriction. National Rail services within London can normally be used after 9:30 am (with some exceptions where the 9 am limit applies instead) - see https://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/services/freedom-pass/using-pass/freedom-pass-travel-map
The 60+ Oyster photocard is similar to the above; however, it has a further restriction in that Elizabeth line services cannot be used west of West Drayton. See https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/free-and-discounted-travel/60-plus-oyster-photocard
The Disabled Persons' Freedom Pass is similar to a Freedom Pass. However, it is meant to be used by people meeting a narrow criteria (this includes hearing loss and wheelchair users). It does not have the 9 am restriction on TfL and related National Rail services, though retains the 9:30 am rule otherwise.

What happens if you are a resident from elsewhere in England and are visiting London? If you have a ENCTS (English Concessionary Travel Scheme) card, you are entitled to free travel on London buses only after 9 am. These cards don't work on the card-readers installed in buses, so you'll have to show your pass to the driver. The converse is also true - Freedom Pass users can access buses elsewhere in England for free.