Welcome
January 2nd 2010 was the day that Oyster became accepted on almost all National Rail services in Greater London, making cashless pay-as-you-go a reality London-wide. It should now be really simple, but in reality it is about as complicated as it could possibly be. There are three different fares structures depending on whether your route accepted Oyster before November 2009 or not, and if not whether your journey mixes National Rail and TfL rail and includes zone 1; while children sometimes travel free and sometimes have to pay.
This site has been set up to try and explain how the system works in an alternative fashion to the official TfL site. It also exposes the alternative approach that families can take where Oyster is not the cheapest option. Plus I will highlight areas where the system is not working and list improvements that I feel need to be made.
The pages listed in the left sidebar allow you to navigate through the main information areas of the site. Below this introduction is a latest news blog, which includes my own personal diary of experiences using Oyster cards with my family. Please feel free to add comments to both blog posts and pages, especially if you spot something you think might be wrong.
This page updated 13 February 2021.