How The Tube Map Got Its Travelcard Zones

There are 9 Fares Zones when travelling around London on Tube, Train and Bus, but how did they all come about? It all started back with the first Travelcard in 1981 ...
Here's a video I've been meaning to do for ages, I thought it was about time to see how London's Travelcard Zones had involved over time so here's the condensed history in a concise 5 minute video!
nb. There was also a product known as the 'LT Card' which London Transport brough in during the 1990's and was a Tube + Bus only ticket! It didn't effect the number of zones though.
Many thanks to Keith R, Mike W and Dave Green for additional research and images.

[@billyh88uk]

I have a London Capitalcard from the day I was born - my Dad kept it once he realised the significance of the day he was about to have!

[@DwellerUK]

West End Girls... I saw that Geoff!!!

[@mickandmj]

loved it

[@mirisch64]

But where are the East End Boys?

[@trickygoose2]

I presume the Finland Station falls within that zone!

[@LongHaulPilot]

Hi dweller

[@GustawWu]

hello dweller

[@Karlinski73]

An excellent explanation that would have taken an absolute age to put together and edit. It's only five minutes long but a lot of work has gone into that. And don't think we didn't notice the 'West End Girls' nod to the PSBs..... 😀

[@joannajennings7496]

I used to live in Theydon Bois and I can clearly remember, in about 1994, arguing with a ticket person at Waterloo Station, that Theydon Bois actually existed. Back then it was not in zone 6. It was plus A I think. Strange!

[@davidsummer8631]

For a kid growing up in London a Travelcard became like a passport to a different world

[@richardwager283]

Did you call it travel carding?

[@tristanveal7634]

aha when your a kid london feels like a whole other planet

[@davidsummer8631]

@@tristanveal7634 And its the realization that all theses new great things are only a short Journey away

[@actuallypaulstanley]

My friends and I would see how far we could get on the daily travel card from Upminster. Each weekend, we would try to get to the end of as many train lines as possible... Before the travel card, we would buy the 60p Red Bus Rover ticket and do the same.

[@thewyj]

I think TFL is one of the best things to happen to London in many decades.

[@TheMrMe1]

I don't even live in Britain but there's something I just love about the London tube. I've been to London twice, got myself an Oyster card the first time and kept it for use on my second trip. I still have it and will definitely be using it if/when I visit London again.

[@charleschuckfinley3304]

Oyster cards are rarely used now as most people use a contactless payment card instead , as it can workout cheaper than using an oyster.

[@johnsimmons5951]

@@charleschuckfinley3304 foreigners may prefer an Oyster card as they can exchange their currency into GBP In one transaction with one fee & load their Oyster card as required, whereas using a contactless card may incur a foreign currency fee each day they use their cards. Note that when a transit system posts a transaction to a credit or debit card account it is treated like a retail transaction. When TfL was building its contactless card payment system, I was responsible for the project in one of the UK retail banks.

[@TheMrMe1]

@@johnsimmons5951 Exactly! I also prefer to use my card as little as possible while travelling abroad, instead using paper currency wherever possible

[@damianknight8064]

amazed hear that oyster cards have only been around since 2003 it feels like they have been around for ever.

[@TheThejpmshow]

Wow, an example of proper collaboration between several companies to make things easier and more straightforward. And who’d have thought it, started off by Ken Livingstone!

[@grassytramtracks]

If only we did that in the rest of the country

[@frediculousbiggs1]

Capitalcard arguably saved Marylebone as well. With commuters from Harrow etc now able to travel on the Met and the quicker Chiltern lines, patronage on this route increased and finally killed any ideas of closing the mainline terminus.

[@quantisedspace7047]

Hah? I remember watching a 'reminiscences of the Marylebone lines' VHS in the early 1980s. The voice over intoned over the busy commmuter trains from the 1950s, 'Never again will Marylebone see this kind of service intensity'. Well, that worked out well, didn't it.

[@Hiddenkeymaster3]

It's so interesting to see how London, one of the oldest cities in the world can change so rapidly, especially when related to transit. As an American, I am extremely unused to seeing progress at all.

[@ThomasEgerton]

It's even more impressive when you think that a lot of the underground and railway network dates back from the 19th Century/Victorian period too. As a British person, I can't imagine not having it lol

[@jakeytrainspotting1241]

Geoff: "The computer system has capacity for 15 zones" Matt Parker: *angry 4 bit noises*

[@g30r93g]

**curses in hexadecimal**

[@jakeytrainspotting1241]

@@g30r93g thank you, that's the word

[@LukeAlfordUKsteam]

@@jakeytrainspotting1241 hi

[@jakeytrainspotting1241]

@@LukeAlfordUKsteam hi

[@katrinabryce]

Buses are Zone 0 I think?

[@panayiotisconstantinides3027]

I came across a "Tickets" booklet dating from 1987, at which time there were three zones for buses and five (1, 2, 3a, 3b, and 3c) for the Underground and British Rail. There were separate zonal maps, with all lines shown in black and the zones appearing as coloured backgrounds (light blue for zone 1, green for zone 2 and orange for zones 3a, 3b and 3c). Back then Travelcards were only valid on buses, most of the Underground (except for the Bakerloo Line north of Queens Park and the sections of the Central and Metropolitan lines outside the zonal area) and a few selected sections of British Rail lines. On the other hand, there was also the Capitalcard, which was valid on everything inside the zonal area.

[@ginganinja93]

Will always make me rage that Langley & Slough aren't in the oyster zones when they're so much closer than the Met line zones. Moved a few stops to Southall and my travel costs are literally halved!

[@ocelotsly5521]

3:31 - "But that is a story for another video." Yes please, Geoff. I imagine covering the digital transformation of the Tube might be an intimidatingly vast task, but you'd surely get a bunch of videos out of the process. I'd love to see 'em some day if you're game.

[@ayindestevens6152]

Now I suddenly have the urge to listen to West End Girls.

[@highpath4776]

You missed the change on Buses when it went from having a need for certain zones covering buses to just any zone on a travelcard equalled all zones on the buses. I had an arguement with a driver who admitted he had not read the latest red book edition or the traffic notices that morning.

[@davidf2281]

Watching this makes me wonder how I ever got around London as a teenager in the late 80s and early 90s...

[@brooklyntrainspotting8464]

Thank you so much Geoff! This video is so informative and now I know what to do when (hopefully) I can travel around London again!

[@robbiemorrison7085]

The Epping zone 6 is very similar to all stations past Woodmansterne on the tattenham corner line as chipstead to tattenham corner is all in zone 6 when it should be 7 as its Surrey

[@ianpdavis]

I am not a train geek. Honestly I'm not - but this was excellent. 👍 I used to use the Met line to Watford (pre pandemic but probably will again when its all over) but the change in zones I thought was a couple of years ago. I felt old when I realised it was more like a decade..

[@MrBannystar]

Same here, never been an anorak but I find these kind of videos on this channel fascinating. I guess I'm more of an 'infrastructure' guy.

[@brianmeadows1925]

I remember Red Ken's 30p flat fare across the entire tube network on Sundays as well. I travelled a long way on those 30p fares, as I had a friend from university who lived out near Theydon Bois and I lived in Hillingdon!

[@highpath4776]

I must have been working in Cardiff when that was on and missed it.

[@marsgal42]

Last time I was in London (2014) I ordered my Oyster Card in advance and tapped my way in from Heathrow. It was handy. A little *too* handy - I had to top it up several times. Still beats the financial fumbling of my first visit in 1985. Beats being better off dead too. :-)

[@swiper1818]

Great historical summary and explanation!

[@raphaelnikolaus0486]

Great video. And very helpful! Thanks. Looking forward to the other video about the 4-bit system.

[@PokhrajRoy.]

GEOFF IS BACK WITH ANOTHER VIDEO! Thank you for this!

[@Frankfurtdabezzzt]

I still think paying for the distance traveled instead of the zone system is better. We also have this zone system where I live and if you're unlucky and live/work at the zone edge, tickets get unreasonably expensive because you have to go to a station in the next zone. If this happens at both ends of your trip, the ticket is even more expensive. I found the system they used in Tokyo very good. There you can look up the price you need to "charge" your ticket for to reach a certain station. Or if you are unsure just buy the cheapest one and pay when leaving your destination station.

[@quantisedspace7047]

Yes, Zones are a bad idea nowadays, as there are so many anomalies especially with the cliff-edge effect of people who have to cross zones for a relatively local journey. There are also a lot more (than in 1980s) possibilities to take quite different routes involving different zone-crossings, different frequencies, and differing quality of interchanges. These Pink card readers, where you have to specify that you went THIS way, rather than THAT way, were the thin end of the wedge. I can see underground travel going the way of 'unlimited' broadband, with people not generally knowing how much they will spend for a particular journey, just as people can't reliably compute petrol costs accounting for diversions and delays etc.

[@Charlie-cu5hg]

As someone from woodford I’m very happy that there is finally an explanation of what’s going on on the central line.

[@jgodfrey546]

Clear & concise...brilliant!

[@grandmothersapplepie]

Anyone remember the one day bus scratch card? I remember always scratching out the wrong days. I don't know how bus drivers were able to read them with so many boxes.

[@emjayay]

*boxes*

[@mickandmj]

Thank you for explaining Capital Card. I do not think I had fully understood its existence and I guess its disappearance also shows that it was a duplicate. Was suddenly amazed at the multitude of systems since I first held a single Tube ticket. Oyster has felt like it has been so much part of London life, its hard to imagine its not even 20. Great stuff. Thank you.

[@jacquelineharrod6386]

Fascinating! Thank you.

[@donkmeister]

I always thought it was odd how places like Amersham and Epping were included in the London zones system despite not even being inside the M25. On top of that you then have other oddities that are outside the London zones despite being closer to London, the Waterloo-Shepperton line past Hampton is especially odd as you have jut a few miles of track with a race-day only station, a normal station, a halt, then the terminus, yet they're all out of zones. I always assumed Epping and Amersham were artefacts from the origins of the railways, some business tycoon or Lord insisting that the line must run close enough to his manor that he can sell houses to commuters... Never knew it was council subsidies!

[@RobWalker1]

Very cool! Thanks Geoff

[@Oniontrololol]

I remember zone 1-6 travel cards were £5 good old days

[@candyneige6609]

Nowadays, it's closer to €10.

[@redyellowpink01]

I like how you incredulously say that people had to have 1 season ticket to travel to London and then another one to travel in London like that's not what everyone in any other city still does😂

[@HSMiyamoto]

Surprise: Los Angeles Metrolink and San Diego Coaster commuter trains offer a one ticket ride on local rail and bus. This is good for every pass and ticket, including a one day round trip. On weekends, I travel 180 miles round trip to Los Angeles for just $10, including free bus and rail rides in Los Angeles and many neighboring cities. We encourage transit use here.

[@edward6206]

Great informative Video!

[@radders261]

Brilliant video!

[@mcbain23]

Great infotainment Geoffster.

[@Cletusongs]

Wow 99%. I still use paper travelcards in London to get my Network Railcard discount.

[@RJ-ge1kz]

Nice - perhaps the stats mostly reflect people in the London zones. A paper ticket often costs a lot lot more than oyster or contactless within the London zones , especially if you just want to do a single or return trip.

[@MrGreatplum]

Fantastic video, Geoff. That must have taken a long time!

[@tonywallow964]

Nicely done 👍

[@Keithbarber]

Geoff A few extra notes - as mentioned, 1981 saw the fare zones city and west end as part of the fares fair scheme, until the legal action of london borough of bromley saw the case go to the high court, ruled legal by them, bromley appealed and court of appeal ruled illegal, glc appealed to house of lords, whom declared fares fair illegal and fares doubled 1983 saw the travelcard arrive as part of a new fares reduction programme called "just the ticket" that the glc got a legal ruling on as legally valid The glc had initially wanted to include br in the fares fair scheme, but government clawbacks of a large chunk of the glc transport grant (£119m), prevented this from happening Bromley launched the action thanks to a surcharge on the rates imposed by the glc, and bromley claimed it was an illegal subsidy against the 1969 london transport act Fares fair was the launch of a series of events that led to the eventual abolition of the glc who turned London transport into a political football Capitalcard tickets were about 10-15% higher than travelcard tickets for identical zones

[@TheSpectreN8]

About 11 years ago I lived in zone 6 but worked in Watford North. I had to get a zone 1-9(w) travelcard (I assume the "w" was for Watford) then an extension from Watford Junction to Watford North. Usually the connecting St Albans "Abbey Line/Abbey Flyer" train was every 45mins/1 hour so I'd walk as it was only 30 mins. I never heard of anyone else getting a 1-9(w) travelcard. I knew some people said you could get a ticket with numbered zones and lettered a/b/c/d but I never saw one of them myself.

[@thomasNL030]

Absolutely love seeing all these super detailed old designs of the travelcards!

[@PlanetoftheDeaf]

I remember how exciting it was when the 1 day Capitalcard first came in, living just outside London on a BR line! It felt like all of London was available to me

[@quantisedspace7047]

The CapitalCard from out-of-London stations was a bit of a hack. On National Rail, the culture was that a Season Ticket was for one up and one down journey a day, whereas on LUL, it was 'all you can eat'. This caused problems when people wanted to make multiple journeys to/from Home to the London boundary. In many cases, Travelcard were retained on return to the him station, even if they could still be used (such as by making your own way into London, and continuing to use the in-London zones).

[@Xgameplayboxgames]

I love the videos good work!

[@karljoachimgoll]

What a nice, little educational film! 😄

[@Claggyt]

Worked in London City 1992-1996 and lived in Zone 4. The annual travel card was a treasured item that gave me the freedom of London at weekends.

[@malcolmmarshall4371]

Very useful info

[@MrSvenovitch]

What a headache...Thank goodness I don't have to live in London and travel through it. I just remind myself how lucky I am for that by watching these videos.

[@100SteveB]

It all got so complicated! It was so much easier when I was a kid back in the late 70's - 50p bought me an all day Red Bus Rover. Used to buy it at my local bus garage - Thornton Heath, then go and spend the day exploring London or the surrounding areas.

[@socialistsolidarity]

oh wow, interesting to see how London zones developed and all this all happened before I was born. 🤣 The earlier ticketing system must have been so frustrating to navigate around.

[@pgriffithsulster]

I remember zone 3 - my late 80s monthly card which got me from Hampton Court to Kingston on a bus was Zone three only, it would get me to Wimbledon on the bus, and I think I could get to Putney Bridge from Kingston - Zone three was great, £2.80 /week I seem to recall for a student and you could get miles. It was cheaper to bus to Putney Bridge or to Wimbledon then pick up the train into central London from there. I also had a Network SE rail card, but it was useless for getting across the capital to get up to Milton Keynes - there was a train via Clapham Junc. Which I was stuck on at Willesden Junc. for 2 hours one Friday .... Going to South Wales, I used it to get to Reading, but that was longer than going directly to Paddington and all the seats on the Cardiff train would be gone by the time the train reached Reading.

[@teenoso4069]

Got my first daily travelcard from Walthamstow Station in 1984 - never knew it existed but described what I wanted. A single fare to move around London.

[@Tyler-dh6qx]

Cool video Geoff

[@TheoHiggins]

It's odd to think I will have been one of the last secondary students to have the experience of "Sorry driver I forgot my ZIP card, here's roughly a fare's worth of shrapnel which is practically all the money I have to my name"

[@robertspano4003]

Thanks for a great summary, but can I just correct something Geoff? Ken Livingston was not elected leader of the GLC in 1981. It was Andrew McIntosh who lead Labour to victory. He was quickly deposed by Livingston in an internal Labour putsch.

[@robertspano4003]

@TheRenaissanceman65 That’s rather like saying no-one is elected Prime Minister in a General Election...technically true, who are the public voting for? Livingstone did not lead Labour to victory.

[@iankemp1131]

Good to be reminded of what a revolution the Travelcard was when it was introduced. Still hugely beneficial and hard to imagine how you could do without it. So much simpler than buying lots of individual tickets. The original FaresFair reduced single tickets from exorbitant prices to 20p, but needed huge subsidy; Travelcard was much better. The Plusbus scheme is an attempt in the same direction for other parts of the country, but nowhere else has a public transport network quite like London's.

[@AidanMmusic96]

I was very happy when Dartford got added to the zones a while ago.

[@torchris1]

When I lived in London in 1985 I lived in Willesden so there was Bakerloo in the morning then easier to take Brit Rail in the evening. You could get a combined Brit Rail & tube/bus card. It was something like £20 a month which was crazy expensive.

[@meltrain]

In 2002 I stayed at a camping near Chalfont & Latimer, so when we wanted to go to London, we needed a Travelcard for zones 1 -6 + C

[@colinbeaney7230]

Remember this growing up thanks geoff

[@johnsimmons5951]

When the zones first came out, season tickets that didn't include zone 1 were marked as north south east or west so a zone 3a ticket east couldn't be used in the other parts of London on the tube, though a 3a ticket was valid in all zone 3s on the buses.

[@LuperSoop69]

Nice one

[@tomhami]

I was hoping for a cameo of the LRT Bustubetrain vehicle!

[@SportyMabamba]

I think it was called SuperCar.. currently lurking in Acton Museum Depot I believe

[@tomhami]

@@SportyMabamba really, I thought that Roger Wright (of London bus company and Epping Ongar Railway) owned it?

[@SportyMabamba]

@@tomhami my information is from several years back when I was tangentially involved with it; I’m sure I am out of date by now :)

[@dminalba]

The SPT area has the ZoneCard which is a more complicated system with 77 zones, if your ticket has 3 zones in the G area (Glasgow) you can travel on bus, train and subway in every G area. Also if your card has over 13 zones (4 week ticket with all 77 zones is £270.40) you can travel throughout the SPT area, however it's still a complicated system compared to TfL zones so I'd like the SPT to sort out a much simpler version of the SPT Zones.

[@CalinSabau]

nice video

[@richardwager283]

Who remembers turnstiles on London buses and the punch card? Was quite young and sure it wasn’t in service for long.

[@highpath4776]

I have a few of them, the multi journey tickets came in various ways of nibbling. Country Buses had insert setrights for some routes ! Red Arrows had two turnstiles, MBS/SMS and DMS one. (plus one earlier in the 1960 on an experimental RT

[@danielhewitt2427]

I remember the old One Day Capital Card Pink.From 1 to 6 I used it when I was in my 20's. And then the Travel Card which I used it quite alot when I was helping out with my dad's Travel Agent Shop in Maidstone Kent. And taking the Money thing's to Habbie Bank in Southall west London. Day's out and taking thing's up to the Other Travel Shop in Edgware and also in Watford Geoff.

[@Sim0nTrains]

Brilliant informative video, wasn't the only one who saw 'West End Girls' as well lol

[@TIB1245L]

0:29 Nice one Geoff

[@cjayos7654]

0:47 - £8.40 for a 7 day travel card!

[@wilsonator2008]

I’ve got a travel card from January last year that cost £13.50 for a day. I’m surprised TfL haven’t considered charging less nowadays basically to try get more people on their services seeing as their income has fallen through the floor.

[@danielboulton98]

@@wilsonator2008 hardly anyone buys a travelcard these days as fare capping always works out cheaper

[@teecefamilykent]

I remember getting a child one day travel card for 80p when I was...about 11. £2.00 for adult ones.

[@sabinebogensperger1928]

I remember when I lived in London (Bounds Green) as an Au Pair in 1996/7 and a weekend travel card for all zones was like THE ticket for my friend & I, we'd go exploring in tube and bus just because we could! Might that have been around £6 or am I remembering that completely wrong?

[@wilsonator2008]

@@danielboulton98 I went to London for sightseeing and I went to Kings Cross, Wembley, Elephant and Castle, Westminster, Stratford, Ilford, Canary Wharf and Liverpool Street that day. It may seem excessive but I definitely got the most out of my ticket lol

[@kevinpepper6554]

Good video as usual. You forgot to mention that Zone 3a, b and c only applied to the underground. Buses had a single Zone 3 (and a corresponding single zone 3 pass if you only wanted bus travel) that encompassed the area occupied by 3a, b and c,. So you ended up with a situation that with a Zone 1,2,3a pass you couldn't travel by tube from a station in Zone 3a to 3c but you could catch the bus!

[@grassytramtracks]

He did put that on a little pop-up on the screen

[@airfoxtrot2006]

Very cool 😎

[@Kloooosss]

3:30 16 zones! #JusticeForZero

[@TheNixie1972]

Yes, his discussed this in a video with Matt Parker. Zone 0000 should be fine.

[@Kloooosss]

@@TheNixie1972 I know, that's why I wrote that comment...

[@crazyt1483]

Yes but I think people will find 1,2,3...14,15,0 a bit confusing and in the event of manual entry could cause problems for staff

[@Kloooosss]

@@crazyt1483 The zone doesn't have to match the number in the system, almost all programming languages start counting from 0, even though people count from 1. It's just that they can store 16 zones in 4 bits, but they use only 15 numbers, because they don't include 0

[@crazyt1483]

@@Kloooosss I just have the feeling that at some point zone 16 being 0 will break and someone is going to end up getting charged for a 16 to 1 journey or if they make zone 1 into 0 and shuttle the rest of the zones relative there will just be that 1 station 10 year behind that is still in its old zone

[@tomfisher6845]

Geoff you should do a Nimby Rails Lets Play to see how you would improve the UK rail network

[@anthonylloyd6094]

I had a fad during my early teenage years of just spending a whole Saturday travelling around the network with my purple, chunky cardboard type Capital Card... One such journey was from Richmond all the way to North Woolwich on the North London Line.

[@joewarren8442]

Ahhh yes I remember in 2008 the ticket Gard's asking for my Oyster card which I diddnt have traveling between Euston and Liverpool Street on my national rail ticket. Oh the joys and fun I had with them 🤣

[@RedfishUK1964]

I remember borrowing my Dad's South Woodford to Victoria Season ticket in 1980ish to go to the West End. They didn't have photo cards then - spent the whole time worrying about losing it as it cost £300!!!!

[@HenrysAdventures]

Any idea why Caterham is in Zone 6 when its in Surrey not Greater London? As it be for a similar reason to the Central Line Stations in Essex being in Zone 6.

[@highpath4776]

Its pretty close to the Croydon border. Possibly done to deter car usage in Croydon.

[@timothymallinson4183]

Can you do a video explaining how the four bit system limits the underground to 15 zones? I can’t find anything online about this and it sounds so interesting!

[@roderickmain9697]

Fascinating. You'd think someone without a bit of Software Engineering skill (sorry, Ive retired) would use a whole byte for the zone identifier and that would give you up to 256 zones (or maybe 255 if you want to reserve zero or 255 for something special). Make it a whole 16 bit word and you are up to 65536 zones. That would cover a few areas ;-))

[@frostycola42]

this is a good video

[@nickmendes5458]

When I was a schoolkid in the 1960s and staying with my sister during the holidays I used to travel the length and breadth of London with my nephew using Red Rovers (or occasionally Green Rovers).

[@highpath4776]

Gold Rovers used to be quite pricey, whish i had used them to travel around the suburbs more. Graduated fares on green buses were odd, they didnt have the same steps as the red ones, sometimes cheaper per stage, sometimes more expensive.

[@HSMiyamoto]

Believe it or not, any (Los Angeles) Metrolink ticket provides free access to the L.A Metro rail and bus, as well as many other bus lines. A one-way is good for just a couple hours, but a round trip is good all day. On weekends, just $10 all day on Metrolink. Also, there are no real zone charges except for express buses. I think that is a more passenger friendly system than what London has.

[@TheWolfHowling]

Some a similar note, could you make a video on how Oyster works on the UK National Rail network in and around London? The fact that you can take intercity trains around London like it was a bus or metro is slightly 🤯

[@llwyde1104]

That was a trip down memory lane...for historic interest I suppose the Red Rover, Green Rover etc could have been mentioned...

[@Ben-xe8ps]

Remember those from my childhood. Red rover - red busses only. Twin rover - red busses and tubes. Green rover - green (London Country) busses only. Golden rover - green (London Country) busses and Green Line coaches. The rovers allowed one day unlimited travel after 0930 for the red and twin rovers. Not sure if the time restriction applied to the green and golden rovers or not. Red and twin rovers had to be purchased from an office and were a card like ticket. Green and golden rovers purchased on the bus and a normal conductor/driver issued ticket.

[@llwyde1104]

@@Ben-xe8ps fantastic stuff.. I had only remembered a few of those... I once waited at Turnpike Lane with the green line ticket for the bus to Addlestone...it came bang on time...and drove straight past, didn't stop. Disgraceful.

[@robertbutlin3708]

An interesting question is why? How did the tube’s fares people persuade the management to move from the point to point system that had existed in one way or another since the tube began? (And yes I know the Central London Railway was originally a flat fare).

[@guyr.6053]

Geoff, is there any app-based payment system for daily travel in the greater london area? If so, is that intelligible with the oyster system?

[@katrinabryce]

Apple Pay or Google Pay will work.

[@timrollpickering]

Wasn't there a product in the 1990s called the LT card that was basically the old London Transport only Travelcard under a name that was clearer about what it does? (I was a teenager at school in London at the time and vaguely recall it generated excess small print on the Bakerloo Line train diagrams and other leaflets that provided reading material when commuting but as I was living firmly in National Rail territory it wasn't something I ever saw at the ticket offices.

[@PhilMakesThings]

Maybe I'm mis-rememebering, but didn't underground tickets used to be yellow with a magnetic strip on the back for the automatic barriers - this was in the 80s...

[@ianrazey8412]

Yes. I remember the yellow tickets.

[@garymcewan868]

You should do SPT's Zonecard. That's got 77 different zones and is very complicated and very costly if you purchase the wrong zone area.

[@HRHolm-bi6zu]

Whatever happened to the 'Central Tube Rover' day pass for the Tube? I would use it in my travels around London in the mid-late 1970s. It was so convenient and inexpensive, & gave access to all the central London tube lines/stations and their respective nearby attractions. I surmise it is long gone now, but is there a day pass for zone 1 that replaced it? Don't tell me, it's just available by using a smartphone, no more heavy-paper stock ticket I suppose---would that be correct? So much simpler back in the paper ticket days. Are all of them gone now? Is ticketing completely electronic/contactless. i.e., no cash payments in any manner?? I would have a hard time dealing with that.

[@Chris-nq9nb]

That concession to those of us from beyond Woodford partly makes up for not being included in the GLA! But are you sure Buckhurst Hill should be beyond zone 6? It's only a 10-15 minute jog.

[@quantisedspace7047]

Does it make sense to have Zones these days, as an all-encompassing thing, potentially going out to a Zone 15. When Travelcards first came out, if you didn't have Zone 1 on it, you could only travel within the Zones that you did have, but only within the same 'sector' (roughly N W S E, with no overlaps AFAICT), so travelling between say Ealing Common (?) and Uxbridge (?) was not allowed, even though you could do it all without going through Zone 1. Point being that as one gets further out from London, the lines tend to start losing the 'radial' characteristic. Traveling between say Amersham and Watford would involve a Zonal crossing, which would make no sense for a place so far from London. Any Zonal system would likely be centred on Watford (in this example), so what does one do when a simple local orbital route in one network is seen as a Zone-crossing radial route in another ?

[@teecefamilykent]

Did the Ongar branch of the central line also have lettered designated areas too?

[@sihollett]

Wikipedia says that Debden and Theydon Bois were zone A, and Epping zone B until January 1997 when they moved to zone 6, so presumably they were if those ancillary zones were done pre-1994.

[@xsaTrainboss]

Wow I Did Not Know All of that

[@andyhutchinson987]

I don't bother with twitter so dropping this here in case you haven't seen it yet. Check out Nimby Rail on Steam. As one of the guys on You Tube said in a review video, you could probably build the whole of the London Underground network with it, with proper schedules and train numbers. He's using in to build the East Coast mainline at the minute with every junction. Check out one of the explanation videos, better than me trying to explain. I'm probably going to have a go at building the Tyne and Wear Metro for starters. One of the guys is going from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. which shows the levels of the Sim.

[@Slay-vx4lu]

Can I just ask, can you get a travelcard for tourists (for zone 1-4), on the Oyster card? When me and my whole family went to London 2 years ago, we already had 1 Oyster card, from when me and my mom went there, when I was little. Our dad insisted to use paper tickets and he didn't even want to try to get the travelcard pass on the electronic card. Sorry if this was too complicated.