Split Fares On The Tube Map
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- Buying split tickets for journeys on National Rail is becoming more common, but did you know that with TfL Rail there are now some places on the Tube Map where you can split your journey as well to save you money.
The example in the video is between Paddington and Reading in the peak (it also obviously works the same between Reading and Paddington in peak hours too). Out of peak hours, try splitting at West Drayton instead for cheaper fares.
Note - You've always been able to this split with paper tickets (and still can) and STAY on the same train, but if you want to do it with Contactless, you have to exit through the barriers, and go back in again!
Split fares are the ultimate expression of how messed up the British rail network is.
Split fares are just what happens when two fare systems meet. You can find similar situations in Germany.
Let's say, you want to go from Lübeck to Lüneburg via Ratzeburg, Mölln and Lauenburg.
The line from Ratzeburg to Lüneburg lies within the boundaries of HVV transport authority. Between Lübeck and Lauenburg, the Schleswig-Holstein-Tarif fares are applied and there is also a national fare system which is only applied when there is no particular other fare system available or when multiple systems clash.
So, the national fare from Lübeck to Lüneburg is €20.
However, you could also buy a ticket from Lübeck to Ratzeburg (€6,10, Schleswig-Holstein-Tarif) and another one from Ratzeburg to Lüneburg (€5,40, HVV fare) and save almost €10.
It is messy, however it is also reasonable not to apply the same fare schemes in large cities and in rural areas.
@Sandcastle • How are you going to do split ticketing on HS2 when it doesn't stop so many times?
It isn't that it is messed up it is that it is serving so many different markets at the same time.
So for example, an "InterCity" journey from London to Edinburgh tends to follow airline pricing, as that is the main alternative. But that train will also serve many smaller towns en route which would not support airline style pricing, so anomalies arise.
just be thankful that you have a rail network here in Ottawa we have a brand new LRT that Flippin broke in 3 months XD
It happens in Japan too.
For example, JR fares from Tokyo to Hachiouji costs 820 yen without splitting.
But if you buy a ticket from Tokyo to Shinjuku and another ticket from Shinjuku to Hachiouji, it costs 200+490 = 690 yen.
This is because JR lines are competing with Keio Railway, whose fare is cheaper and also runs between Shinjuku to Hachiouji, so JR decided to lower the fare between this two specific stations but not all stations.
That saving's a huge chunk of change, for quite a modest journey. You'd be happy with that saving on a much longer journey.
Once this gets around, can you imagine the chaos at Slough in the mornings as an entire train load of passengers get off, while those from the previous service all get on. Also, imagine the bemusement of any passengers on the train not aware of this anomaly wandering why so many passengers get off and on at Slough.
"December 2020 Tube Map"
Geoff give me the keys to your time machine
He's got a Tardis: Trains Are Really Dear In Slough
@@caw25sha Geoff must be one of these Timeless Children Doctors!
Gak.
Someone already got there with a Tardis joke.
I already did, in 2025. You just have to go the slow way and wait until i turn up.
@@geofftech2 So what excuse are TfL using for why Cross Purple Eliz still isn't open in 2025?
I like your cutting on the beat. It has not gone unnoticed.
“Pad Reading, or Readington Pad” ;-). Well played.
Wow, £24 for just 60 kilometers? In the Netherlands you can travel through the entire country for that price! The 450 kilometer trip from Vlissingen to Eemshaven is just €27.
Even the (which I thought of as expensive) German DB competes on this one, I used to do 100km 10€ trips semi regularly and those were just plain, instant get on the train tickets, no rebates.
UK's rail system is one of the most expensive in the world, no one can dispute it.
It does bear mentioning that this is a particular case of apples and oranges comparison though - that 60 km journey would have taken less than 30 minutes (so trade speed of 120 km/h or more, and that is considered slow on this line - best connections are 23 minutes long), as you are essentially hitching a suburban ride on what is or has to operate like a longer distance express train.
You really should compare it with prices for NS (cheap and slow) and Thalys (fast but twice the cost) trains from, e.g. Schiphol to Rotterdam - you really do pay for the speed in this case.
Lol. Welcome to Britain. We have sh!t weather and sh!t public transport.
I got London to Brighton for £2
I would love to be at Slough for today's rush hour. Watching whole trainloads getting off, running up the stairs, tapping out, then in. Down the stairs and then back on the platform! And watch the gateline staff looking bewildered!
Going out of London is quieter in the rush hour. Going in is a different story. There is a north exit to the station just by the London bound platform. It is possible to get off the train, tap out, tap back in and get back on the same train.
Love the camera work of the twisting train and switching sides of view looking out the window in this.
Useful tip here Geoff!
BTW: I live near Southall, and my job is in Reading, so I can save money!
At 4:10 , this is how trains arrive in Australia
Very rushed
There's also Grays, Chafford Hundred or Ockendon which take oyster or contactless.
Split at Upminster
Or rainham if going on the line via purfleet
Good to know
If you want ockendon or chafford, and a train before isn't going there but is stopping at upminster. So easy, take it to upminster, exit the station, (then grab a snack from greggs ), go back into the station. And you can save.
Also, if you just miss the ockendon, chafford train. Get the train to upminster and then can take the 370 bus, depending on where you want to go after the train station, can be quicker , but also will be even cheaper.
The fact apps exist that show a cheaper fare using split ticketing shows how the fare system needs completely changing!
Never mind Dan's trousers... I noticed that en route you covered the Adobe logo on Dan's jacket.
Good news Geoff! I recently by chance took a ride on the first East Midlands Railway train in the new livery, and it's a lovely shade of purple
Geoff, surprised that you didn’t mention it, but if you buy paper tickets, and split the journey at Slough, then (with this conventional split ticket) you still save. Not as much, but saves the having to go through the barriers, the train just has to stop at Slough and you don’t need to get off it and catch the next train. PAD to SLO £10.30, SLO to RDG £9.90, total £20.20. By comparison a direct single is £25.90 - so £5.70 cheaper
that's ... the point of the video. now it's on the TfL Tube Map, and they encourage you to use Contactless (because you can't use Oyster), this is how you have do the split. Splitting with paper tickets (as had always been) doesn't change.
26 quid is just outrageous period
Awesome job Geoff. Please do the mentioned Gatwick split fare video 🙏🏻
Remarkable that with all the technology involved in booking tickets that it its still possible to pay more for the same journey. How is there not an app - or better something by the train companies - that removes the lottery that is travelling from A to B.
There are a few apps out there already - TrainPal, TrainSplit and others. Websites too. The train companies definitely need to sort this out, wasn't an inquiry launched a while back?
Those are some funky trousers 👍
Nope. They're disgusting
Now Geoff made this public watch them close this loophole
How would they do that exactly? If you've tagged-out you have left the system.
In the Netherlands, when to re-enter the system within 35 minutes of exiting, it is processed as continuing the same journey. So going right back in doesn't work here, unless you also use different cards.
@@sjoerd5629 damn. oh well, guess you'd have to go find a café and have a cup of tea.
Or use a different card, so you appear as a different person.
They won't bother imo, considering that there have been similar tricks on Oyster for ages and the fact that the majority of people are lazy/time constrained/won't ever pay attention to or watch a video like this. Unless you're suggesting that they'll correct it to make the through journey the same cost as or cheaper than splitting, then maybe...
With that amount of saving per journey could Slough become the most used station in the UK with the amount of commuter's that used that line?
It could throw up some interesting passenger statistics for Slough.
Waiting 30 minutes during peak hours for the next train pretty much negates any cost advantage
@@deepfriedsquirrel
The only reason Geoff waited that long was to get the next TfL Purpleliziline service. During the peak there are Purpleliziline services every 15 minutes (going by National Rail Enquiries). There are about eight trains an hour from Slough to either Reading or Paddington in the peak, the rest being GWR.
@@deepfriedsquirrel you can just get another GWR train, which is very frequent
A video about split fares would be very interesting. Or, wait, maybe a whole series :)
And also, how can you determine on which station is the best to split the fare and why.
Last time I went to Gatwick I used contactless and the reader at Gatwick gave an error message. I was told by a member of staff at the Gatwick station that my card would not cover a journey from Zone 1 to Gatwick and that I had to buy a paper ticket from East Croydon to Gatwick. It made absolutely no sense to me but I followed their directions and bought a paper ticket as I had to run for my Norwegian flight. Moral of the story, never fly Norwegian. They're terrible.
That Gatewick split ticket sounds like it might be an interesting video...especially if Dan turns the volume down on the pants... :-)
Haha most of the time I've never seen what you're filming because I'm french. But not this time ! I lived in Slough for 3 months for an internship so I've used these purple train that does Paddington-Reading. I have good memories over there ❤
It's funny that at that time (2012) slough felt so out of london and now it's on the tube map !
The fares should be more straightforward...
Probably not going to happen with it all being split up between different companies. But yeah there should be like a country wide zone system lol. Pay for the amount of zones travelled. Have a cap at a certain amount. Set peak and offpeak prices too. Have it reasonably priced and not cost £80 for a train ticket each way, renting a car and petrol seems to oftenly work out cheaper. It's all kind of a mess.
It is quite complicated, but I dont have that to worry about, I now have freedom pass
@@Keithbarber That's nice but most of us don't...
@@Keithbarber However, I'm not sure if Freedom Passes are valid beyond zone 9.
@@danielslovacek2101 I can assure you they are, I have made the journey, but reading - west drayton, they can only be used on tfl rail, NOT great western railway, nor are they valid to Windsor, Marlow or Henley on Thames branches
West drayton - paddington they can be used on ANY train
If anybody wants a copy of a map where tfl freedom passes are valid, I will happily email a pdf copy
Send to
Keithjohn.barber1969@gmail.com
Glad you mentioned Gatwick/East Croydon. That break of journey certainly makes sense. Although they realize that air passengers with luggage can’t be bothered to take advantage of the split journey. Particularly with the necessity of using either the long ramps or the lifts.....
Used Reading frequently when my cousins lived there for a number of years and I visited whilst on student duty in Milton Keynes. Always used SWT and went via Waterloo,found it cheaper (and almost never had to stand compared to the GWR services)
Love Dan's trousers :)
Can't stand them. Far too loud
Wearing them for a bet no doubt.
Just to be an arse I suspect.
That's a hell of a savings. I wonder how many folk are going to do the "barrier dance" as I am calling it.
Those trousers are magnificent!
Ummm ... No.
From what I can make out, the contactless fare at £5.60 is simply halving the peak Reading to Slough return of fare of £11.20. While the National Rail single is £9.90, which is the norm, and out dated policy of charging slightly less for a single than a return fare.
It's getting nuts now, on some fare finders I get offered returns for a single journey because it's the cheaper fare. It doesn't make sense.
Forget getting a media degree.
I think there should be degree courses for rail fares, and public transport in general.
There are examples with pink readers. I went from Tottenham Hale to Surbiton, changing at Highbury & Islington and splitting at Clapham Junction. With a railcard Oyster, total was £1 + £2.05 = £3.05 (compared to £3.75 direct). Wasn't worth the time at all, but is an example!
Cracking Video as ever. Waiting room scene is just GOLD.
Waiting for copycat video segments with inferior presenters and bang-average clothing....
@@DanLoudShirts I can tick all of those boxes.... 🤪
@@pwhitewick probably with a cross.
@@DanLoudShirts nah.... A BIG ARROW
There is an odd split I have noticed at St Pancras from Gatwick, if you go Gatwick to Highbury & Islington via St Pancras it seems to be peak in the evening around £15, if you go Gatwick St Pancras and either wait at St Pancras for a bit or touch into Kings Cross with a different card then Gatwick to Highbury & Islington is 8.60 off peak to St Pancras and a off peak tube fare from St Pancras to Highbury & Islington
"Reading in the pea" sounds like an interesting place..... I'm so fed up waiting for crossrail to finish so that I can get from Reading to central London on one train (leisure only, I'd hate to have to use the trains to commute)
Talk of fancy trousers and splits in the same video is a little unfortunate.
Geoff, I recently used an Oyster card when going to Horley which is the station before Gatwick. Newbury Park - Stratford - Canada Water (use pink card reader) - Norwood Junction - Horley. Total fare (with Railcard) £4.75. For my journey home I paid £2.20 to East Croydon, walked to West Croydon and was charged £1.00 for the rest of my journey, saving £1.55 - about a third cheaper!
You can also do it anywhere where you’re switching from a peak to an off peak service and vice versa. Eg if you are going to Watford junction against the flow that service from Euston is always off peak so splitting the journey at Euston saves you a lot of money
"Gatwick deserves its own video"
Well... We're waiting ☺
Yip. Saw it!. The perfected camera roll shot as the train came into the the platform. Well done you cheeky bugger.
Thanks Jeff on giving good advise on saving money on split fare
These anomalies should be sorted out so that the cheapest fare applies whether it is split or not.
Nicely done - always worth a handy check of splits for saving train fares. I always used to save a lot by doing Manchester to parts of Cornwall and splitting at Cheltenham Spa (always there)
The Gatwick Airport split at East Croydon's been known for some time since Oyster went there (your good friend Mike at oyster-rail.org.uk has that one covered Geoff!) - and definitely well worth making a video on that one.
Doing East Croydon-Gatwick off peak (as I did a few months back for a flight) for what's now £3.30 doesn't need a massive balance, but leaving Gatwick to come back you still need the maximum Oyster/Contactless fare for Gatwick Express to Victoria (ie: £19.80), even if not boarding that train or going that far. Always worth noting they seem to have staff on the gateline for that reason to explain it.
0:33 December 2020 tube map? Instead of 2019 map? I spot that!
Achyut Chaudhary back to the future,i Guess
Yay thameslink on the map
This video proves that time is money.
In Hong Kong you can do this on the MTR to save a little bit when going to the border stations with mainland China but you have to wait a minute or so before re entering the barriers.
Maybe TfL should set up those pink Oyster pads at those split point stations, and if someone touched their contactless on those pads it automatically count as a split journey. Fast trains on the other hand would just speed through those split points.
GWR charge waaayy too much for that journey, imagine not knowing about this trick and getting a slower tf rail service only to be charged the same fare as fast services, they need to sort this out when the tunnels open.
exactly. basically any TOC is cheaper than GWR and EMR
0:30 “December 2020 tube map”
This man’s living in the future.
Slough, ISP's favorite station! This is interesting, nice tip
More great advice from Geoff!
Four questions:
1) Why can I never seem to find deals on split tickets? There are certain journeys I make regularly, but never seem to get a deal. Can you do us a split ticketing video, please?
2) I bought a Gold Card, and it's saved me a fare [sic] bit in London. However, it only seems to work in the rest of the zone if I take REALLY slow trains. Is there a way around this?
3) When are you doing your Tyne & Wear Metro video?
4) Do you ever look at disused stations/lines? Southeast Wales has a glut of them!
CrossElizPurpLineRail has to be a T-Shirt. Good Merchandising Idea, Geoff!
Duly noted. The merchandising team are on it!
DanLoudShirts 👏🏽
When will you do the complicated Gatport Airwick video, please ?
0:11 "I'm on a TfL Rail Cross-Eliz-Purp rail train.. Right?" _checks in 1/4 of a second to see if he actually got in the correct train, or if he even got into a train at all, 'cause you never know what can happen_ ... "Yes!"
26 pounds for Reading to Paddington (55km)! On the Shanghai metro, you get charged 10 CNY (1.12 GBP) for a 63km end-to-end journey on line 9.
China isn't rich its poor fares
This works for a lot of stations in the recently-added oyster extension zone with special fares/zones 6+ (exc. Met) so like East Croydon, Upminster, etc... though fare splitting is the epitome of the problematic British train fares 😔
Love the bench outtakes of the two of you. 😜
That is so awesome. I hope GWR does not stop this now you mentioned it. Nice pants BTW
You can split fares on Overground from Euston to Watford Junction too. Off peak oyster PAYG fare is £5.80, but splitting at Willesden Junction cost £4.20(2.40+1.80).
that dude got some cool trousers.....
I disagree most vehemently
Whilst it may be true that GWR sets the fares west of West Drayton, that in itself would stop an Oyster card being used to pay a GWR fare. The real reason is the designers of the Oyster fares structure did not make enough area codes.
Clever method to save a lot of money!!! 👍
Dan's trousers are awesome! And do Gatwick next!
You need your eyes tested.
This reminds me a lot of plane fare manipulation in the USA. You can pay $300 for a Boston-Atlanta journey, or $150 for a Boston-Atlanta-Miami journey. By adding a new destination, and using the same connection airport, the fare changes.
I didn't realise the oyster app also tracked contactless, this is so useful thanks Geoff!
0:57 guy is fastest reader ever
Hes just looking at the pictures
Josh Liddell looking for the comics
Man I always forget how expensive the trains are for commuters. When I go to Reading it's 14 pounds return (off-peak with 16-25 railcard), compared to 48 quid return full price.
Thanks that is very helpful as me and my son nearly went to reading but will do next time . Great video 👍
It's also cheaper to go anywhere up the east anglian line from Stratford than it is from Shenfield, eventhough Shenfield is closer
Thanks for letting me know OP I can get to from reading for around a tenner from Zone 6ish
Although it isn't a split fare, if you do a split journey into Central London, it can sometimes be cheaper. Certain Southeastern journeys stopping at New Cross, then on overground to Whitechapel (tapping out and back in at Whitechapel), then taking the underground into Zone 1 are cheaper then going into zone 1 and then taking the underground.
It's similar to a pink reader, but the actual pink reader at Whitechapel won't work ... It also takes a little longer, but I had to at one point when services to a particular station were so slow, it was worth it.
December 2020? Geoff's in the future!!
january 2020
Geoff I looked it up by splitting at East Croydon and using the pink reader at West Brompton gets me to Uxbridge from Gatwick for like '£1.35 odd cheaper with my railcard discount on my oyster off peak not sure about peak as usually avoid them times.
Well done, thanks for this, you and your channel are awesome
Quick question will contactless be accepted on a fast GWR service and the South Western Railway service to Waterloo?
Yes and no respectively. GWR are also only accepting contactless on the GW Main Line right now; Thames Valley branches outside the zones (Windsor, Henley, Marlow) are not covered.
Fast GWR, yes. SWR have their own contactless cards, but you can't use Mastercard / Visa or Amex.
Katrina Bryce Well, more equivalent to Oyster than a contactless card, but that depends on whether you load a ticket onto an SWR touch smartcard or use their Tap2Go service, which is essentially SWR’s version of Oyster PAYG but money is taken directly out of your bank account.
with contactless, you can use gwr from paddington to reading, but not swr from waterloo
This video has saved my life
What a lovely station building at Slough.
Here`s one for you,although not London Swindon to Didcot off peak £17, Swindon to Oxford changing at Didcot ( same train from Swindon ) £8.05
Everyone talking about how much 26 quid is but they don't realise that an anytime return is almost double whereas usually the off peak return is 10p more than the single
3:52 What I would've given for you two to have swapped clothes for one of those frame jumps 😂🌺
A good tip thanks Geoff. I hope they dont close this loophole.
Pretty sure there are more people living in Reading travelling to London in morning peak times than those living in London and travelling to Reading.
If you did your test the other way round, Reading -> Paddington, pretty sure that it will add other variables to your equation. How much time will you have to wait for next train at Slough, are you likely to get on the immediate next train if they are busy, will you get standing room only or will you get seat etc. Then you have to think of how much your time and comfort is worth and if the savings you get with split fare is better than that.
Slower gwr trains from reading to paddington takes an hr, plus if you include waiting for another train on split that 1hr 30min to get to london!! The fast gwr train takes you to ldn in 25 mins.
I see that this train passed the elbow test...and now I know how Slough is pronounced! I've only ever seen it written in books. (It could have easily been Sluff or Sloo) :D
Eton College is pronounced "South Slough Academy"
Dan's trousers are epic they deserve to be a future Moquette although maybe the wrong colour for TFL rail I still think they're awesome
I think you need your eyes tested Paul!
Camera cuts at @3:30 scream 90's television chic.
I love it.
It is also cheaper to split at twyford in the peak for reading to Paddington on normal tickets
liking the new music choice
Rah, they are some serious trousers
Seriously awful, yes.
Those trousers are a statement good lord 😂 They made me jump
Damn it...Just realised I could split my 0700 RDG to PAD at Slough and save £5 every time without even getting off the train... bonkers! As a part time shift worker, I find train pricing incredibly annoying. At least I've saved £100s with my Network Card.
Great video. East Croydon would be good as it's one that I'm always having to stop to when going to Gatwick Airport. Even though it's known as London Gatwick Airport, it isn't within the zones 1-6 (so it's not in London 😅) meaning the Freedom Passes aren't included. This often means that I have to do a quick stop at East Croydon to tap in again with my phone.
What a mess. I don't understand why the UK doesn't mandate one national ticketing system. Here in the Netherlands I have one public transport card which lets me travel on almost everything, no matter the company. Every train in the country, every bus, every tram, every metro, with just a few small exceptions that I have never encountered.
£25 is a ridiculous price for that distance. The same distance, Sydney Central to Lapstone on contactless in peak is the equivalent of £3.50.
I'm surprised you finished at Costa when there's a Pret just outside the station ;)
For April 1st, you should make a Least Used Station video but with an abandoned station presented as if it were running
GBP50 for a return trip of 65km, wow. Whilst Sydney has an inferior rail service, the maximum you pay is the equivalent of GBP8 per day or GBP25 per week. That covers roughly 200km around Sydney.
You can do this also if you are going from Windsor and Eton centre to Bristol Temple Mead. If you split the ticket at Slough, you can save upto 60 pounds.
That's insane! Wow! We just have 2 hour and daily fares - No peak or off peak on the Melbourne metropolitan system. There are peak and off peak for the country networks though.