Twenty-one years of London Underground, Overground, and bus fares charted across every zone - from the launch of Oyster daily capping in 2005 to contactless fares in 2026. Toggle inflation and wage adjustment to see what you are really paying.
Toggle inflation on the charts above to see the real picture. Nominal price rises often mask a very different story.
A Zone 1 peak single cost £1.70 in 2005 - equivalent to £3.10 today. The current fare is £3.10. Twenty-one years of apparent fare rises have done nothing more than keep pace with inflation. Turn on inflation adjustment above and watch the line flatten out.
A Zones 1-6 peak single cost a flat £2.10 in 2005 - about £3.83 in today's money. The current fare is £5.90. That is a real-terms increase of over 50%, driven by the 2008 switch to zone-graded pricing. Toggle inflation to see how outer zones diverge from inner zones after 2008.
The Zones 1-2 daily cap was £8.40 in 2014 - about £11.97 in today's money. TfL restructured caps in 2015 and the equivalent fell to £9.12. Commuters saw their real daily maximum drop by nearly a quarter. Switch to daily caps and toggle inflation to see the dramatic step down.
Single fares were frozen 2016-2020, then rose nominally from 2021. But high inflation in 2022-2023 outpaced every increase. A Zones 1-2 peak single cost £2.90 in 2017 (about £4.00 today) versus £3.60 now. In real purchasing power, fares are cheaper under Khan than when he started.
Between 2009 and 2016, a Zones 1-2 peak single rose from £2.20 to £2.90. Adjusted for inflation, that is a 13% real-terms increase - driven by above-inflation fare hikes of roughly 8% per year in 2011 and 2012. Toggle inflation to see how the Boris years stand out as the steepest climb.
An Oyster bus fare cost 80p in 2005 - about £1.46 adjusted for inflation, or £1.48 adjusted for median wage growth. At £1.75 now, buses are genuinely more expensive under every measure: +20% by CPI, +18% by median salary, +18% by mean salary. The Hopper fare (unlimited transfers within one hour) softens this, but the headline number is clear. Cash was abolished on buses in July 2014.
Between 2011 and 2014, median wages stagnated while consumer prices kept rising. Toggle between CPI and median salary adjustment to see the difference: a Zones 1-2 peak single in 2014 comes out at £3.99 adjusted for inflation but £4.30 adjusted for wages - an 8% gap. Fares were tracking CPI, but wages were not, making the same fare harder to afford in practice.
The most expensive year for a Zones 1-2 peak single was 2015 under both CPI and wage adjustment. Rebased to today's median salary, the £2.90 fare was equivalent to £4.38 - 22% more than the £3.60 you pay today. Switch to median salary adjustment and watch the peak form around 2013-2016, then fall away as wages recovered.
The primary fares shown are Oyster and contactless pay-as-you-go (PAYG) fares. Cash single fares are included as a separate reference series on the peak and bus charts - these were always higher than PAYG and, in the case of buses, were abolished entirely in July 2014. Before zone-graded pricing was introduced in 2008-2009, Oyster PAYG had a simple two-tier structure: a Zone 1 fare and a flat cross-zone fare for any journey touching Zone 1 and at least one other zone.
Fare data has been compiled from official sources including TfL press releases, Mayoral Decision documents (MD2047 through MD3028), London City Hall fares advice PDFs, and the consolidated TfL fares advice 2008-2012 published by the Greater London Authority.
Inflation adjustment uses the ONS Consumer Price Index (CPI, 2015=100, series D7BT). Annual average CPI values are used to convert historical prices to 2026 equivalent values. The 2026 CPI value (142.5) is an estimate for the full-year annual average, projected from the latest available monthly data; this will be updated when the ONS publishes the actual 2026 annual average. The formula is: adjusted price = nominal price × (CPI 2026 ÷ CPI original year). Salary adjustments use ONS ASHE Table 1.1a (median and mean gross weekly earnings, full-time employees, Great Britain).
2005-2007: flat cross-zone fares. Before zone-graded PAYG launched in 2008, all cross-zone Oyster singles touching Zone 1 cost the same (£2.10 peak, £1.30 off-peak) regardless of how many zones you crossed. This is why zones Z1-2 through Z1-6 start at the same price.
2008: off-peak spike for outer zones. When zone-graded pricing replaced the flat-rate system in January 2008, the old flat off-peak rate did not carry over to the new structure. All zone-graded journeys were charged at the standard (peak) rate for 2008. This shows as a sharp spike in the off-peak charts for longer journeys. A new zone-graded off-peak fare - around 35% below peak - was introduced in January 2009.
2015: daily cap drop. Daily caps were restructured from One Day Travelcard prices (set high to protect paper ticket revenue) to 20% of 7-Day Travelcard prices. This caused an overnight drop - for example, the Zones 1-2 cap fell from £8.40 to £6.40.
2016-2020: flat line on singles. Most TfL single fares were frozen for five consecutive years (some minor exceptions in January 2016). Daily caps continued to rise because they are linked to Travelcard prices set by train operating companies.
Bus cash: ends mid-2014. Cash fares on London buses were abolished on 6 July 2014. The bus cash line stops at 2014 for this reason.
A Zone 1 peak single fare has risen from £1.70 in 2005 to £3.10 in 2026 - an 82% increase in nominal terms. However, adjusted for inflation, this is roughly the same in real terms. Cross-zone fares have risen more steeply: a Zones 1-6 peak single has gone from £2.10 (flat rate) to £5.90, though zone-graded pricing was only introduced in 2008.
It depends on the zone. Zone 1 fares have roughly tracked inflation since 2005. Outer zone fares have risen faster due to the introduction of zone-graded pricing. Daily caps fell dramatically in 2015 when they were restructured from One Day Travelcard prices to 20% of 7-Day Travelcard prices.
Daily capping on Oyster cards was introduced on 27 February 2005, described by TfL as a "world first". Caps were initially set at One Day Travelcard prices, later described by TfL as 50p below the equivalent Day Travelcard. In 2015 caps were restructured to 20% of 7-Day Travelcard prices, resulting in a significant reduction.
The largest percentage fare increases were in 2011 and 2012 under Boris Johnson, when fares rose approximately 8% each year. The largest structural change was in 2008-2009 when zone-graded PAYG pricing replaced the flat-rate system.
Before 2015, daily caps equalled One Day Travelcard prices. In January 2015, TfL restructured caps to 20% of the 7-Day Travelcard instead. The Zones 1-2 cap fell from £8.40 to £6.40, and the Zones 1-6 cap fell from £15.80 to £11.70.
Most TfL single fares were frozen from 2016 to 2020 (with minor exceptions in January 2016). However, daily caps continued to rise every year because they are linked to Travelcard prices set by train operating companies with mandated RPI increases. So while the fare per journey was largely frozen, the maximum daily spend still went up.
Ken Livingstone actively cut fares to drive Oyster adoption - a Zones 1-2 peak single fell from £2.10 to £2.00 in nominal terms and dropped around 12% in real terms. Boris Johnson saw the biggest real-terms fare rises, driven by the introduction of zone-graded pricing and above-inflation increases of roughly 8% per year. Sadiq Khan froze most single fares from 2016 to 2020, then was forced into RPI-linked rises from 2021. Despite nominal increases, high inflation from 2022-2023 means Khan-era fares have actually fallen around 10% in real terms.
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