Journey History
This is one of the most useful tools on the Oyster website. It allows you to see what journeys the Oyster system thinks you’ve made, and therefore enable you to spot errors. Warning: it could also be used by a disgruntled partner to prove you hadn’t stayed late at the office. As with all things to do with Oyster, it is more complicated than it needs to be. There are actually two ways of seeing the information and both have a delay of about two days.
Display on the screen now
To be able to access this version you need to have purchased pay-as-you-go credit through the Oyster online website (including setting up auto top-up). The information displayed covers the last eight weeks, but journeys made within the last two days are not normally available. You can click on the image to see a full size version which includes two screen prints side by side.
Each line of the table corresponds to a single action, starting with the most recent. The fare column is poorly formatted. Entry results in a negative amount (the maximum fare) but the minus sign is above the amount. Exit then shows a positive amount unless you actually used the maximum fare. The price cap column does not appear to be used, even if you do trigger a daily cap. In the early part of 2010 this display often missed out chunks of journey history, but recently it seems to be more reliable.
Statement sent by email
You do not need to have purchased anything from Oyster online to be able to receive this version. From the TfL website you select “Help and contact” at the very top of the page. On the next page you select in order “Make a complaint”, “Oyster” and “Statements”. Fill in the oyster card type, card number, and security answer on the next screen and press “Continue”. Then fill in your contact details and press “Submit”. Your statement will be emailed to you within 3-5 days, but it will be complete up to the previous day, even if that was after the statement was requested. Again you can click the image to see the full size version.
Overall this layout is far superior to the online version. Each multi-leg journey is combined into one entry with the exception that pink route validators are shown underneath the relevant journey. The price cap column correctly shows when you’ve been capped and the history starts with the oldest journey which is much easier to understand. The only issue I’ve found so far is with incomplete journeys, especially where it included a double entry touch-in which was ignored by the system. Plus there is a cosmetic error where National Rail journeys are described as Tube/DLR.
This page updated 29 November 2010.
49 Responses
great info!
thank you so much! you actually saved me alot of time, effort and money. i really honestly thank you!!:-)
Note comment about chunks of journey history missing on-line. This has happened to me on at least three occasions this month. Does e-mail statement do the same?
I’ve never seen the email statement miss out journeys. I haven’t personally seen any bits missing from the instant history recently, so I’m disappointed to hear that they’re still having problems.
Noticed something weird with one of the days on my journey history… it has only recorded my bus journeys and not tube ones! Indeed still happening but not too much of a problem. Requesting an email statement now to see if it is the same!
Hi Daniel,
I’ve seen that before too. Looks like they do still have problems then. I’d expect the email statement to be fine, but do please let us know if it isn’t.
I think they’ve removed the option to get a statement by email? I’ve tried to follow your instructions above and there isn’t an option.
My online statement isn’t complete for my journey on 20 Nov – I’ve hit the daily cap, but only one portion of the journey is shown, with a total of £4, but looking at the remaining amount on my card, they’ve obviously taken £5.60, but the rest of the day’s travel isn’t shown. So they are obviously still having problems.
Hi Carole,
They have slightly changed things so that “Oyster help” takes you into a different part of the help system. I’ve amended the instructions above using a different link and you don’t even have to be logged in to use this version. Thanks for letting me know about the change.
Mike.
Hi
I ordered £15 p.a.y.g. and received an e-mail that it would be picked up at Waterloo Underground on 11/12/10. I touched in and did not receive the £15. I checked my journey history and there is no record of the journey. I travelled from Northwick Park to Uxbridge on 12/12/10, again no record!Strangely the correct fare amounts were deucted. I have made a complaint and will let you know the result.
Toneser
Hi Toneser,
Don’t forget that it takes a few days for journey history to be updated. I’ve just checked my card and it is showing bus travel on December 10th but not the train travel on or after December 11th. I must admit that this is a bit longer than I would usually expect to wait and may indicate that there are more issues with this facility. Perhaps you should check again later today, or request a statement to be emailed to you.
As for the missing top-up, I have once had issues where a topup did not take place as advised. The system knows that you haven’t got it and will refund you if you fail to pick it up within a certain number of days (I think it’s 8). A call to the oyster helpline may reassure you if you don’t think it’s worked.
I hope this helps.
Hi Mike
Thanks for the advice.I checked today and the two journeys are still not showing.What is odd is that the return journey on 12/12/10 is showing and the final journey, I made on 13/12/10 is also showing. I have requested a statement be sent by e-mail.I was travelling with a relative on the same journey and her history online is identical to mine. I know we should get a refund but it’s very annoying not to have the credit in the first place. How would one stand if questioned about a negative balance in this situation? I am not a regular user of Oyster and use it for perhaps 9 trips of about 3/4 days to London per year.
Toneser
Hi Toneser,
It certainly looks like the missing entries gremlins are back in the journey history facility. I’ve just checked mine again and it is showing a trip I made on Tuesday, but not the ones at the weekend. It’s frustrating.
As for your other query, I cannot say for certain (and I am not a lawyer). But if you had an email saying that you should be getting a top-up and later on you could produce a bank statement showing the money being taken, then TfL wouldn’t have many legs to stand on. The bigger problem would be what would happen if you had no cash and the card wouldn’t open the gates or let you on the bus. I can only suggest that you ask the helpline what their policy is if the system breaks down like this.
Mike.
Hi Mike
I recived an e-mail with my journey history today. It does show the 2 “missing journeys”. However they are still missing when I logged on to Oyster! How long do you think it will take to get a response to my complaint?
Toneser
Hi Toneser,
I would not expect the missing journeys to ever appear on the online history. There is a bug, which TfL are aware of, but they don’t seem that concerned about it. It is disappointing and frustrating I know.
As to your complaint, I really don’t know. My personal experience when I’ve written to them is not good. If you have heard nothing after a week or so then you might consider contacting London Travelwatch.
Mike
This looks far superior to what we see online – but does it show when a weekly season ticket is loaded and those journeys are made – i.e. journeys within the paid for zones.
Hi Claudette,
Sad to say I don’t know for certain. I’ve not yet needed to add a travelcard to my Oystercard, so my personal experience of anything linked to having a stored travelcard is limited. Perhaps another site visitor might know the answer?
The info about getting email statements is great – why this useful facility is buried like this, suggests to me either obfuscation or poor design by TfL, neither is very impressive. Also, if registered and logged in, you still have to fill in all details manually, after struggling to remember your security question/answer (at least you can change this online if you’re already logged in, although yet more delay incurred).
No matter how often I order, my email statements don’t arrive. TFL tried to blame my email system, but I receive everything from everybody else, ironically even TFL! It’s just statements that don’t arrive. When I talked to them, I was told that other people had this issue and set up alternative email addresses just to receive statements! When I said that suggested a fault in their system, they denied it and retracted, saying that no-one else really had a problem, they were just suggesting an alternative!
Since then, they continue to fail to arrive, not just to my personal email account either. Even my online bog standard email address fails to get them when I tried that. (So much for the alternative).
Anyone have any ideas what is going on?
Hi Karen,
I’ve not personally experienced problems with this. Some ideas I might suggest are checking your junk/spam folders in case something has decided that you don’t want to see the message. If it is there then sometimes adding the email address used to send the statement to your address book can help. Also, it may seem obvious, but did you put the security answer in correctly? And did you type the email address in correctly? I once muddled up bits of two email addresses and used that repeatedly because the value was auto-filled by my browser and it looked right.
I hope this might help.
Hi,
In short:
yes, I did check spam and junk folders. All were empty.
The security answer was put in correctly as this was checked by customer services when I phoned to talk about it. (They contact you by email if the security answer is incorrect btw.)
And yes, the email address was correct because they also checked that too when I called.
As I said, they told me other people were having the same problem and set up different email addresses to find a system that would receive the email statements. When I said it sounded like a problem with TFL’s system if the emails were not getting through to other people as well, they said they didn’t say anybody else had an actual problem as such, just that they weren’t receiving emails and happened to find a work round was to set up another address! (Presumably they were phoning customer services to tell them this because they had no problem at all.)
Most of these problems date back to Spring last year. My latest attempt was this month.
I have since received a statement to my main email address this month. Nothing has arrived at all as yet at the second email account I also tried as a back-up, a bog standard free online address.
Who knows what’s going on? Maybe they have attended somewhat to last year’s problem. I believe there were many teething troubles around rolling out the system to include London overground trains. Perhaps it was to do with that. Who knows?
Hmmm. That’s a puzzle. Trying to think logically, is there an email address linked to the card when it was registered? Is that the email address you are giving? It shouldn’t matter, but just a thought. Otherwise I really can’t see what else could be wrong. I’ll try and request a statement to a different address to my usual one and see what happens.
Hi Mike
I refer to my previous posts in December. I complained about my Oyster card not being credited and also missing journeys. I have now had a reply. Customer Services state this was due to problems at Waterloo. They do not state if these have been resolved. I have been told that a cheque for £10 will be sent to me “gesture of goodwill”. Shows a complaint is worth making.
Thanks for letting us know, Toneser. A good result all round.
@Claudette Baxter
Yes, if you have a Travelcard loaded on your Oyster the PDF’d email statements do show your journey history. The first page of the statement shows what tickets, if any, are loaded e.g.
Tickets
Start Date End Date Ticket Type Period Zonal Validity
16/Nov/10 22/Nov/10 Travelcard 7 Day Zones 1 – 6
and the ‘Notes’ column as shown in the screenshots (in the original blog post) will show the ticket details.
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Regarding the ‘price cap’ column on the online Journey History, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
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Personally I prefer the online journey list as you can use it to work out why you have been charged what you have for a multi leg journey which you can’t on the PDF’d email version.
How I wish for an ‘Export to spreadsheet’ feature……
Simon
Thanks for the info, Simon. I agree about the usefulness of the online history for working out how a journey has been priced, I just wish they would sort out the formatting. And yes, an export to spreadsheet function would be very useful.
Things seem to be quite behind on the online history at the moment (unless it’s just me). I have been making journeys daily for the last few days and the last day visible (as of 1115 Sunday) is last Tuesday….
If your card balance on the summary screen is different to the ending balance on the history then it does look like it’s behind. You may find that the missing history will remain missing. If you request a statement by email the journeys should be there.
I have done just that, Mike. My theory – it stopped working after the Gold Card discount (IoW trick) was added….
@Karen,
I’ve finally remembered to use a different email address to order my latest statement to see if it works. I’ve had a response, but not the one I was hoping for. They’ve decided to update the email address on my account to be the new one, and the statement wasn’t actually attached yet. So, I think we can assume that using a different address is not the cause of your problem.
First a big Thank you for Your site and to be honest Transport for London should be funding you as the Oyster site is complete rubbish .
Who would ever think of looking under Complaints to find a area where its possible to request a Journey History ? but you have to wonder why they don’t allow everyone to see this online who has registered their PAYG card without having to buy a online credit – I live one hour away from my nearest tube station so I buy my top ups from a shop.
I don’t travel on the tube much so its very difficult to predict a time when I will next make a journey just to collect a credit that I can do fifty yards away at my local shop so its very frustrating that this rule is in place as they could easily allow everyone to see it.
Anyway thanks for letting us know about the e-mail option – why they don’t have that link on the actual account page is a big mystery.
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by the way I also found your Out of Station Interchange page very useful as I was completely unaware that when I arrived at Victoria underground I was being timed as in other years I was not counting the time – I work at music festivals and the coaches leave from Clapham Junction so in the summer this is a reguler journey for me and up to now I would meet others in my Crew at Victoria and then catch the train – we were all standing there not knowing that it was costing us money – in future we will be racing up the stair and grab the first train to Clapham Junction.
Thanks again you are a star.
Can you make sense of this extract from an emailed TFL journey history? These are the final four lines of a busy day and I was already capped at £8.00 with a £2.80 balance. Note the out-of-sequence clock times! Other journeys were truncated into single line entries (eg “10:14 – 11:01 Tube/DLR Enfield Chase – Euston LU”). However, my final journey was broken out as follows:
Date Time Activity Journey Notes Fare Total Capped Credit Balance
16/May/11 16:47 Incomplete Tube/DLR Chingford 6.50 14.50 N 0.00 -3.70
16/May/11 16:47 – 17:54 Tube/DLR Chingford – Enfield Chase -6.50 8.00 Y 0.00 2.80
16/May/11 17:05
Walthamstow Central 0.00 8.00 0.00 0.00
This journey was in three legs, NR-Tube-NR, from Chingford to Enfield Chase via Walthamstow Central and Highbury & Islington.
At Walthamstow C, I was busy looking for signs to the Victoria Line and so I didn’t see any card readers on exiting NR, but TBH I wouldn’t have known what to do even if I had seen them. Your OSI table shows an OSI at WmC, so I guess this was my mistake(?). I entered the Victoria Line gate line at WmC immediately. At H&I, I steered well clear of the card readers and my balance correctly returned to +£2.80 on exiting at Enfield Chase. Then there’s the curious stray entry at the end with a blank “activity”, which is actually my earlier interchange at WmC!
It’s interesting that a fairly clued-up-on-Oyster person still failed to notice the exit readers at WmC, apparently incurring an incomplete journey as a result. On this occasion it sorted itself out, but those standalone card readers are confusing when you do see them and easy to miss when you don’t!
Any thoughts? Feel free to truncate this posting (or to reply privately). Thanks!
Hi Dave,
It’s a fallback system to avoid un-necessary overcharges. The validators on the NR station at Whalthamstow are obviously optional, and some people may well miss them, as you found out. On the tube side the gates are compulsory so they have a special setting which says if you are already touched in within maximum journey time then just open the gate and continue the journey as if no touches had occured at that station. It would be good if the journey statement could merge all three entries, but as you say, the important thing is that the charge is correct. The odd standalone line at Walthamstow is also what appears if you touch on a pink route validator in the middle of a journey.
I agree that sometimes the standalone validators can be confusing, and in some places they need better signage.
A few points from my recent experience of journey history:
I recently had to get my child (14) a new 11-16 Oystercard. (Rant: I had to pay twice for these. I paid £5 for the first U14 card shortly before Ken made them free and U14 became 11-16; I was assured this would be replaced for free when she was 14; but then Boris started charging for child Oystercards and I had to pay the PO £10 for the second card. There was no record of the assurance given by the Helpline and TFL refused to refund the second charge. But that’s another story!)
With the old U14 card, issued in 2007, a full journey history was available, including all the free bus journeys. But with the new 11-16 card, the free bus travel is set up as a season ticket (valid for 3 years!) and the free bus journeys DO NOT appear in the history. I queried this with the Helpline but they were unaware of this change of treatment for child cards. So they sent me an email statement, which DID INCLUDE all the free journeys. Presumably this would apply to all Oyster season tickets, so this info may be of use to others who want a full to see a full history?
The Helpline-generated email statement appears to be identical to the version that we-in-the-know can request online via the very obscure links that you have publicised (above). But the Helpline statement arrived in just a few hours rather than several days when I request it online. Very strange as they appear to be from the same system. But if you want a statement quickly, ask the Helpline.
Interestingly, Helpline staff were adamant that I could NOT get these emailed statements online by myself: even they are unaware of those very obscure links, buried under complaints!
Thanks Dave,
I do think they should make full journey history on child cards more readily available for parents. It can be a useful pointer to all sorts of issues that might be going on in a childs life.
Yes, the emailed statement does include all journeys when a season ticket is on the card. I have received statements via the helpline before, though I don’t remember them arriving same day. Interestingly, it was a knowledgeable helpline assistant who explained how I could generate them myself, online.
Finally, have you tried writing to Boris about the charge for the 11-16 card. It does seem that you just managed to miss the boat on the free cards. It’s quite likely that those at the top are unaware of the inequality of the various decisions on charging.
I didn’t quite get the statement on the SAME day: I requested it by phone one evening and received it at 9:05 the following morning – about 15h later. That’s still several days quicker than online requests!
I’m afraid I didn’t complain to Boris – I’d had enough and felt like it wasn’t worth fighting any more. Perhaps I’ll reconsider following your prompt!
I see. Perhaps the helpdesk generated requests get priority, perhaps because no-one has to check the security answer first.
I don’t know if people have noticed that the journey history online is so much better in their new option.
It includes the DATE/TIME in one column, the JOURNEY/ACTION in the next the ACTUAL COST in the third and the BALANCE in the last column. It goes week by week and you can download a copy to save as a word file. Would be great to have an option to email this statement to me.
Hi John,
I’ll be re-writing this page shortly once I have made some journeys that can demonstrate features of the new journey history. As for email, just follow the instructions to get a statement by email. It looks fairly similar.
Journey History online still not displaying 2 bus journeys made last Friday September 9th yet the PAYG balance on the card overview appears correct. I cannot find any explanation on TFL website. Anybody else having similar issues?
Hi Christine,
Yes, I am also missing rail journeys, sometimes only half the journeys for one day appears.
We discovered an issue on Monday this week that was preventing some data for journeys made between 3rd and 7th Septmember from being displayed. This has been scheduled for correction this evening. However, this means that today’s data upload will be deferred until tomorrow.
I am looking into the data for 9th Septemeber now to see if there was a problem there.
In response to feedback received from the initial launch last month, we have also now introduced the option to view/print journey history for the past four or eight weeks.
Thanks for the update. My missing journeys were from the 6th and 7th. It would be good to know if you’d nailed the problem with missing data because that has been an ongoing intermittant problem for over a year now.
The 4-week and all-data views are big improvements for low to medium users so thanks for sorting that out.
I’m missing all my journeys from September 9th, coincidentally my first day using Oyster PAYG in a few years, and a day on which I think I was overcharged.
Hi Darren,
It does look like there was a problem on the 9th as well. Unfortunately I didn’t travel that day so I can’t confirm or deny it. If you request a statement, either on the phone or from the website, it gets it’s data via a different method and the missing stuff will be on there. The helpdesk should also be able to explain what you’ve been charged on that day, so you can find out if you really were overcharged or not.
I have my IOW Gold card added to my PAYG oyster so I quite often have a look at the journey history and yeah sure enough my went funny on the 5th September and it hasn’t reloaded the information online yet. I can tell when there is an issue as the request a statement line can often take a good 10 mins to answer the phone. I tried filling in the form but I have never received a statement by filling in the form.
Hi Richard,
I think that the missing information for 5th September will probably never appear now. As to the email problem, try emailing the helpdesk about it. They may be able to work out what is going wrong.
For info, I requested a statement after my last visit to London (Sep 1st) and it only arrived a few days ago. So it may still be on its way…
Alan
Hi Mike
I requested 3 statements (for my family’s Oystercards) using the online form: they still haven’t arrived 7-8 days later. From other comments, it appears there may have been problems with this system since September. Do you know anything further?
No, I don’t know anything further. There definitely seems to be a problem sometimes. I’d phone the helpdesk and when you get through to the agent make sure that you explain that you’ve asked for an email statement online and it hasn’t arrived.
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