The way tube journeys are priced could be changing

There’s rumblings of some changes to how you are charged when travelling on the tube in London. Mayor Sadiq Khan has confirmed that TfL is thinking about introducing a new ‘dynamic pricing’ system which would rise and fall depending on the day of the week.

The post pandemic work routine now means that a lot of people favour staying at home on Mondays and Fridays, resulting in quieter tubes and TfL making less money on those days. The aim of dynamic pricing is to make up for the reduced revenue on those days that people are working from home. How? Surge pricing on days that people are commuting. That means that Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are likely to be a bit more expensive when you tap. Currently, tube riders are at just under 90% of the levels they were pre-pandemic. TfL is also hoping that by changing how they charge people, they’ll start to entice more people to travel on the quieter days.

The good news is that it’s unlikely that dynamic pricing will be rolled out in 2024. It would have to be implemented by 3rd March (which- watch out- is when the annual fares for National Rail will increase by 4.9%) and there isn’t enough time to get the system in order by then. But we are still waiting to hear from Khan if tube and bus fares will rise with the rail fares…