When is off peak london tubes

On Friday and Saturday nights only Underground trains run through the night. For lines that operate a night service see the Night Tube map linked below or on the right-menu. You can treat this network as just another Underground line. Not in the centre of London, but in the suburbs you will find a train network called the Overground which can also be thought of as being part of the Underground for ticketing purposes.

Commuter trains into the suburbs are very confusing for the visitor. You can still use Oysters and Travelcards on these but those lines run by the national railways only give free travel to children under 5. In the north and east of London most of these services are now run by TfL Rail or the Overground so free travel is available to children under 11, but to the south and west of London, services are still dominated by national railways companies.

The Tube and rail map usefully shows which railway stations are in which travel zones. Travel zones are the basis for fare charges on London's railways and Underground system. Introduction has been on a phased basis. The Night Tube will offer a hour service on Fridays and Saturdays.

Standard off-peak fares are levied for travelling on the Night Tube using Oyster and Contactless cards. Travelcards are valid from the first day of issue using the date printed on the card , and for journeys starting before 4. For example, if you buy a 1-day Travelcard at 11am on Friday, you can use it until 4. Night Tube map - current lines operated.

The London public transport system is divided up into zones that radiate from the centre. Nearly all the hotels and the main sights are in Zone 1. Heathrow Airport is in Zone 6 and the furthest zone out is Zone 9. The majority of visitors will only travel in the two most central zones 1 and 2. The Underground Map link above has the stations and their zones marked.

Some stations, such as Turnham Green, are in two zones. You use whichever zone for these stations is most beneficial in working out your fare. You can see from the table below there is big financial incentive not to purchase individual tickets and use an Oyster card or Contactless payment card. The other main way of paying is purchasing a Travelcard , which is a pass giving you unlimited travel for a set time period.

The cost goes up with the coverage of zones required. The more zones you require the more expensive the Travelcard. As you can see from the above fare structure the authorities do not want you to buy single tickets, they want you to purchase one of the three payment options, Oyster cards, Contactless payment cards or Travelcards.

The Oyster card is a permanent reusable electronic ticket which is topped up from time to time by its owner. Londoners also have their season tickets loaded onto Oyster cards as well and there are passes for one weekly and monthly durations. All can be loaded onto the one electronic Oyster card. Contactless cards are standard credit or debit cards that support the contactless payment technology, the total cost of all the journeys that you make in one day is calculated at the end of the day and a single charge is made to your Contactless payment card account.

Unlike the Oyster card the contactless facility has a 7-day cap as well as the Oyster daily cap used by Oyster.

You can use Oyster cards on all of London's public transport, not just the Underground, but buses, overground, DLR, suburban rail services and some river services. Travelcards are another alternatives. Travelcards are valid on the same modes of transport but are unlimited travel passes for a fixed flat fee. Travelcards are available for 1 and 7 days, 1 month and 1 year durations. You can purchase and subsequently top up Oyster cards and Travelcards from Underground stations and a wide variety of other outlets throughout London including neighbourhood stores, but not Contactless payment cards.

If you reside in London and are of pensionable age you can get a Freedom pass giving free travel. You can apply online or get a form from your local Post Office. Anybody with an English National Concessionary bus pass can use that on London's red buses too and travel free of charge. You have to ask a member of staff to load the concession on to a standard Oyster card note, not a Visitor Oyster card at an Underground station after showing your Seniors Card.

If you have a Senior Railcard you can also buy a 1 day off-peak zone Travelcard at the discount applied. This is a very complex subject and is covered in detail in the table below. This will be cheaper than buying an individual ticket between the last station covered by your Travelcard and your destination.

If your destination is still within the Oyster area, make sure you put sufficient Pay As You Go credit on your Oyster card before you travel. Also make sure that you touch in at the start of your journey, and touch out at the end even though these parts of your journey might be covered by your Travelcard, to avoid a maximum fare, a penalty fare or prosecution. Please remember, when buying an Oyster product you must touch your card twice — once to show what type of card you have before you select what you want to add to your card, and once again when you have paid, to ensure that it loads the product you have purchased correctly.

If you see a pink card reader when changing trains, touch your card on it to pay the right fare. There are pink card readers at some Tube and London Overground stations. Oyster is designed for simple journeys, usually with a gap between each one. So it might be better to use a Travelcard if you want to make lots of rail journeys one after the other without a gap between each one, especially if you arrive at one station and depart from a different one nearby.

This is because many nearby stations are linked by out of station interchanges which join journeys together and could mean that you exceed the maximum time allowed for a journey between two points. The maximum journey time allowed depends on the distance involved and the frequency of trains.

The easiest way to pay is by setting up Auto Pay. Exemptions and discounts are available too. Many drivers have to pay both charges to drive into London. The zone now covers all areas inside the North and South Circular Roads. Most vehicles, including cars and vans, need to meet the ULEZ emissions standards or their drivers must pay a daily charge to drive within the zone. Check your vehicle and its charge. Want to know the latest information from London TravelWatch and be part of a growing online community of transport users?

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Working in partnership with Transport Focus. The main exception to this rule is when you travel to zone 1 from zones between 4pm and 7pm Monday—Friday — the off-peak single fare is taken. The off-peak single fare is taken from your card at all other times including all-day Saturday and Sunday. All single journeys on the Night Tube are off-peak fares. For example, if you have a zone weekly Travelcard and want to go to Richmond in zone 4, you need to pay for travel in zones You need to pay the fare for all zones you travel through , not the zones of the stations you enter and exit.