New fare system for London trains

London's overground trains will adopt zonal fares ahead of developing an Oyster pay-as-you-go ticketing system similar to the Underground, Britain's Department of Transport announced overnight (NZ time).

The new simplified structure will fall in line with Tube and Travelcard fare zones, ranging from one to six.

A zone 1 single adult single ticket will cost 1.80 ($5.13) pounds during peak time, with return tickets double that amount.

A single adult ticket for all six zones will be 4.80 pounds but a return will only be 9.20.

The new structure will streamline the current complex system of individually priced station-to-station zones.

Currently, 97,300 different station-to-station combinations exist for the city's 330 rail stations lying within the Travelcard zones.

Under the new system, this number will be reduced to just 21 zone-to-zone combinations, with a single, return and cheap day return set for each.

The rationalised structure will be launched at the beginning of next year.

The plan is to move to a 19-million-pound Oyster pay-as-you-go smart ticketing structure, to be rolled out across national rail in London during the next few years.

Rail Minister Tom Harris said the new zones "remove a barrier to the introduction of smart ticketing, bringing seamless travel for London passengers closer".

He added: "The new system is simple and sensible. It will make train fares in different parts of London consistent with each other and will use the zones that travellers are already familiar with."

Other smartcards are expected to be introduced outside London.

Brian Cooke, chairman of London Travelwatch, said: "Research shows that the complexity of fares is one of the barriers to greater use of the railway and we hope the announcement will substantially remove that barrier."

- REUTERS