Not everybody flashes through London's ticket barriers using contactless or relies on their Oyster card for Pay As You Go. Some of us buy season tickets - be that weekly, monthly or annual - and they're the people today's post is about.
Four times as many people buy weekly season tickets as buy monthly season tickets. A monthly season ticket actually costs the same as 3.84 weekly season tickets, so those who can afford to pay monthly should be saving a bit of money overall.
Eighteen times more people buy monthly season tickets as buy annual season tickets. Annual Travelcards give you 12 months travel for the price of ten and a half, so you might think TfL would sell a lot more, but an annual season ticket costs at least £1052 which isn't an amount most people have lying around spare in a bank account.
These figures are all annual totals, which disguises the fact that weekly and monthly customers are buying a lot more season tickets than annual customers. If you factor that out, then there are approximately 400,000 weekly season ticket buyers, 300,000 monthly season ticket buyers and 200,000 annual season ticket buyers.
Season
ticket
Annual
total
Change since
two years ago
Weekly
14,468,903
↓ 28%
Monthly
3,382,490
↓ 19%
Annual
184,427
↓ 13%
Londoners are buying fewer season tickets than they used to. The biggest fall is in weekly season tickets, likely because of the appeal of weekly capping for those using contactless cards. If this long-promised perk ever rolls out to Oyster card users, the rate of decrease may speed up further. Overall TfL are selling 25% fewer season tickets than two years ago.
Now for a brief diversion onto the buses...
Bus pass
Cost
Annual
total
Change since
two years ago
Weekly
£21.20
6,180,772
↓ 30%
Monthly
£81.50
483,112
↓ 30%
Annual
£848.00
2061
↓ 50%
TfL sell fewer bus passes than Travelcards, perhaps because every Travelcard includes free bus travel. They sell a lot fewer annual bus passes. Weekly bus passes still sell well, on average 120,000 a week, but numbers are still dropping away fast year on year.
Back on the trains, TfL sell 15 different zonal season tickets within London. (TfL don't sell single-zone Travelcards - the minimum is two zones)
Two-thirds of weekly season tickets include zone 1 - that's the top row of the table.
But 90% of annual season tickets include zone 1.
40% of weekly season tickets cover two zones - that's the left hand column.
But only 20% of annual season tickets cover two zones.
These are the top five best selling weekly season tickets.
Zones covered
Annual
total
Z12
3,513,398
Z123
2,944,618
Z23
1,799,061
Z234
1,389,276
Z123456
1,381,209
Between them, the top five account for 75% of all weekly season tickets sold. Over half of weekly season tickets cover only zones 1, 2 and/or 3. Note that a Z123456 season ticket is more popular than a Z1234 or a Z12345.
The remaining weekly season tickets are ordered like this: Z1234, Z2345, Z12345, Z34, Z345, Z23456, Z3456, Z45, Z456, Z56
By the time we get down to a Z56 season ticket it's only selling 75,000 a year (or 1500 a week) (or 0.5% of the overall total).
These are the top five best selling monthly season tickets.
Zones covered
Annual
total
Z12
1,003,605
Z123
724,360
Z123456
496,564
Z1234
351,034
Z23
196,120
The all zones Z123456 season ticket has jumped up to third place here, and Z1234 up to fourth.
These are the top five best selling annual season tickets.
Zones covered
Annual
total
Z123456
64,275
Z12
37,113
Z123
30,250
Z1234
21,110
Z12345
13,203
The all zones Z123456 season ticket has jumped up to first place here. An annual ticket covering the whole of London is something a lot of people like to have, maybe even some living outside London. I'm one of the 30,250.
The FoI request also includes data for season tickets covering zones 7, 8, 9 and W. These zones tend to be on the outer reaches of the Metropolitan lines, the tips of the Overground or just outside the capital on other services. W stands for Watford Junction.
These are the top five best selling TfL season tickets that go beyond zone 6. I've lumped weekly, monthly and annual together.
Zones covered
Annual
total
Z4567
11237
Z1234567
9366
Z12345678
5357
Z123456789W
5108
Z234567
4356
Top of the pile is Z4567, which is equivalent to a Rickmansworth-Wembley journey. Almost as popular is Z1234567, that's Rickmansworth to the centre of town. Z123456789, which includes City commuters from Amersham and Chesham, would have been in sixth place. But these Z7+ tickets sell in tiny numbers compared to all the tables above, because TfL don't sell many season tickets outside London.
Finally, the data also shows there are some season tickets TfL never sell. Nobody buys Z4567, Z2345678 or Z23456789 annual season tickets. In fact nobody buys any kind of Z2345678 season ticket. Nobody buys Z67, Z567 or Z6789 season tickets either. All the big money's in zones 1 to 3... or in never buying season tickets at all.
