Pay As You Go tickets

Pay As You Go smart ticketing, without the passenger needing to buy a physical ticket, could become the norm for commuting into London.

The Department for Transport has launched a public consultation for a Pay As You Go (PAYG) zone around the capital.

PAYG automatically charges the fare for the journey, without the customer needing a ticket. It reduces queues, speeds up journeys and applies the most appropriate fare. The contactless system has proved hugely popular on Transport for London services, where it is used by hundreds of thousands of people each day.

“Moving to PAYG has the potential to offer a fairer way of commuting by rail. It also gives us the opportunity to make the amount that you pay better reflect the amount that you travel,” the consultation states.

“Our evidence suggests that people are working more flexibly than they used to, and commuting less often. We want more people to travel by rail, and PAYG might help to encourage them.”

Passengers would no longer need to research the complex pattern of peak, off-peak, super off-peak, anytime or advance fares. The DfT says passengers who choose to travel less or at quieter times of the day should still see a financial benefit in doing so.

Extending PAYG travel would require a simplification of the fares structure, something that passenger groups have long called for.

It would also require a system of capping, to produce a maximum amount a passenger could pay over a day or a week when making the same journey multiple times. The DfT admits: “We have not at this point decided upon the best way to proceed.”

Although the consultation acknowledges a £150 million project for Transport for the North to deliver PAYG across train, bus and tram systems, the focus is entirely on London suburbs.

A map published with the document shows the existing contactless/Oyster boundary in blue, with the wider proposed area in orange. The outer limits are set at Tunbridge Wells, Guildford, Reading, Aylesbury, Stevenage and Witham. Journey times from these stations are broadly 30-45 minutes from central London, although Reading via Wokingham takes more than an hour.

This means that major commuting towns with large passenger flows well within an hour’s travel would be excluded from contactless PAYG. Examples include Basingstoke, Milton Keynes, Bedford and Colchester.

The DfT acknowledges that PAYG is most appropriate for shorterdistance, lower-value journeys, with the greatest benefits in dense urban networks. Banks limit contactless payments to £30.

A number of train operators are already committed to rolling out PAYG as part of their franchise agreements. Passengers to benefit would include those from Reading, Luton Airport Parkway and Welwyn Garden City. However, these systems are unable to integrate with Transport for London’s operation, meaning passengers continuing by Tube or buses would still need a different ticket.

Rail Minister Andrew Jones said: “Within London, if you are a parttime commuter, you will usually pay less than a full-time commuter. Outside of London, your best fare can often be the same as a full-time season ticket, meaning you may feel you are paying for two or three days of travel you didn’t really need. Our ambition is to have a fairer, more logical fares and ticketing system, and this consultation starts that process.”

Anthony Smith, chief executive of watchdog Transport Focus, said: “At a stroke, millions of passenger journeys could become simpler and quicker. Assuming it is backed up by robust technology, then trust in this new system will soon build. Passengers will want to know how their spend is affected. Some prices may go up as well as some coming down.”

The consultation recognises that there are many historical inconsistencies - prices can differ significantly between routes, and do not increase evenly along a single route. For example, the cost per mile on Great Western services between Reading and Paddington can be greater than on equivalent journeys to Waterloo on South Western Railway.

The DfT states: “Since passenger fares are crucial for funding the day-to-day running of the railway, any changes to the way rail fares are priced need to be broadly cost neutral to the taxpayer, so that overall the level of ticket revenue will be similar to today.”

The consultation runs until May 1. The document is available at https://www.gov.uk/ dft#consultations and comments should be sent to Railpayasyougo@ dft.gov.uk