Despite the Mayor stating that there would be no impact with the withdrawal of Day Travelcards, as stated in the Mayor\u2019s Question Time response above, there would in fact be a number of impacts to many passenger groups: <\/p>\n

Customers travelling in a single day can use pay as you go (PAYG) on TlL services, if they have a contactless or Oyster card. TfL claim that the cap process available with PAYG will mean that overall cost is no higher. But Oyster and contactless are not the same. Contactless is useful for adult fares, whereas Oyster can have all sorts of discounts \u2013 Railcard and various discounts for disadvantaged Londoners applied to them \u2013 see below. However, Oyster cards cost \u00a37 to buy, which can be a lot on a fixed income.<\/p>\n

Customers could buy paper single\/return tickets to travel on TfL services. Note that such tickets are much more expensive than Oyster\/contactless fares on the Tube, and can be more expensive on National Rail. One Day Bus & Tram (combined) Passes are available for \u00a36.00.<\/p>\n

Customers travelling from outside London would have to pay for their journey to a London train station and then use PAYG or buy paper tickets to travel on TfL services. This will increase cost unless they break their journeys, with consequent delay, at a boundary station.<\/p>\n

For child tickets, customers travelling from outside London could apply in advance for a Zip card or get the Young Visitor discount set on an Oyster card. Both of these options give discounted PAYG fares. More on this later.<\/p>\n

Although customers who use a National Railcard to buy a discounted Day Travelcard would no longer be able to do so, they would still be able to add their Railcard to a registered Oyster card to get the same discounted day travel.<\/p>\n

Essentially, the affected are those who don\u2019t have bank cards, children from outside London who will need to purchase a suitable Oyster card, and those whose bank cards won\u2019t co-operate with the contactless system, like some foreign visitors. London Travelwatch pointed out much of this in its input to the consultation \u2013 summarised below. All these points and consultation feedback were subsequently covered in the Mayor\u2019s Decision document\u2019s equality statement, but no mitigations were proposed by TfL other than those fare channels which have a cost.<\/p>\n

Moreover the Mayoral Decision ignores all this, as it states:<\/p>\n

\u201cTfL is effectively under-funded by the Travelcard Agreement at a total cost of approximately \u00a340m a year. As a result, this proposal is estimated to generate approximately \u00a340m per year for TfL, which will form part of the additional revenue mandated by Government for TfL to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, it seems curious that TfL has managed to find just \u00a39m to ensure that period (ie non-day and weekend) Travelcards are retained. It is stated that some 15m Day Travelcards are sold each year at a \u2018loss\u2019 of \u00a340m. Period Travelcards attract discounts and it seems unlikely that there are significantly fewer of these than Day Travelcards, so do all the \u2018losses\u2019 add up?<\/p>\n