Project Oval

Project Oval is a project led by the Department of Transport to expand contactless pay as you go ticketing to National Rail stations in the South East of England.

History

Main article: Oyster card

Main article: CPAY

PAYG ticketing in London started in January 2004 when the PAYG functionality on Oyster cards was rolled out, which was a new, faster and more convenient method to pay for transport fares in London, compared to traditional paper tickets. After it was introduced, its use gradually increased with the expansion of validity and gained the majority of market share for the payment method of transport fares.

Since 16 September 2014, contactless payment cards where offered as an alternative to Oyster cards for the payment of fares in the Oyster area, with the same method of usage and same fares charged.

Since then, contactless cards started to displace Oyster cards in the market share of payment, and the use of cash and paper tickets further declined, that cash fares on buses and trams were eventually withdrawn. Also, more and more stations around London are added into the Oyster area, and communities just outside the Oyster area call for their local stations to be included as well.

As Oyster cards are an old system which has already run into its limitation in expansion (it can only handle 15 zones), since August 2019, new stations added into the PAYG system no longer accepts Oyster card, but only contactless payment cards. The first such station was Brookmans Park, added into the contactless system on 29 August 2019, while Potters Bar and Radlett, added into the system on the same day, were the final expansion of the Oyster area.

Since then, the contactless-only area (not Oyster) were further expanded from the boundary of Oyster area, from West Drayton to Reading including all Thames branches in between, from Radlett to Luton Airport Parkway, and Potters Bar to Welwyn Garden City.

Following a consultation in 2019, the Department of Transport made a procurement to deliver contactless PAYG ticketing to circa 233 stations in the South East of England, to be delivered by 2024. The contactless system needs to be integrated with the existing CPAY system in use in and around London. The contract was awarded to Transport for London for a sum of £68.1 million.

Phase 1

On 4 July 2023, The DfT announced that phase 1 of Project Oval would inlcude the following 53 stations on the following lines by the end of the year (listed in clockwise order from the Thames estuary):

• Southeastern and Thameslink:
  • from Swanley and Knockholt to Sevenoaks: Eynsford, Shoreham, Otford, Bat & Ball, Dunton Green, Sevenoaks
• South Western Railway:
  • from Hampton to Shepperton: Kempton Park, Sunbury, Upper Halliford, Shepperton
  • from Feltham to Virginia Water and Windsor & Eton Riverside: Ashford, Staines, Egham, Virginia Water, Wraysbury, Sunnymeads, Datchet, Windsor & Eton Riverside
• Chiltern Railways:
  • from West Ruislip to High Wycombe: Denham, Denham Golf Club, Gerrards Cross, Seer Green & Jordans, Beaconsfield, High Wycombe
• London Northwestern Railway:
  • from Watford Junction to Bletchley: Kings Langley, Apsley, Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted, Tring, Cheddington, Leighton Buzzard, Bletchley
  • from Watford Junction to St Albans Abbey: Watford North, Garston, Bricket Wood, How Wood, Park Street, St Albans Abbey
• c2c:
  • The remainder of the whole network beyond Upminster and Grays: Tilbury Town, East Tilbury, Stanford-le-Hope, West Horndon, Laindon, Basildon, Pitsea, Benfleet, Leigh-on-Sea, Chalkwell, Westcliff, Southend Central, Southend East, Thorpe Bay, Shoeburyness

Phase 1 only included adult fares, but not any form of discounts, including railcard discounts. As part of the project, and unlike previous iterations of Oyster / contactless expansions, existing fares on traditional pre-purchased tickets (paper tickets, smartcard tickets and barcode e-tickets) were also simplified to match the new contactless fares to be rolled out:

• Single tickets now cost half of return tickets (unlike in the past, some singles are only slightly less than a return), with return tickets still being available.
• Super off-peak tickets (including SWR's Evening Out and Sunday Out tickets) are no longer available, with off-peak fares reduced to compensate for this.
• The time restrictions of off-peak tickets are changed to align with the peak / off-peak times in the TfL's system:
  • off-peak tickets are not valid for journeys consisting of any legs which depart between 04:30 and 09:30, or journeys consisting of any legs which depart between 16:00 and 19:00 heading out of London
    • off-peak day returns are no longer valid for travel during the evening peak when heading out of London
    • for travel starting 04:30 and 06:30, off-peak tickets are not valid, but an off-peak fare is charged if using contactless PAYG
    • off-peak day Travelcards are still valid during the evening peak

The change to the fare structure on traditional tickets took place on 3 December 2023, which resulted in a large fare hike of some existing tickets, such as about 30% for an Anytime Day Return between London Waterloo and Egham. Although discounts were not available on contactless payment yet, discount holders could still benefit from the discounted single fares in the new fare structure by buying traditional tickets.

The actual rollout of contactless payment to the new stations were delayed. It was rolled out on 30 June 2024 to the six stations on the Chiltern network, half a year later than originally promised, with the remaining 47 stations planned for 22 September. However, TfL suffered a cyberattack early September which stopped the final rollout for the 47 stations. The rollout eventually took place on 2 February 2025.

After the rollout of Phase 1, c2c has become the first non-TfL train operating company in and around London which fully accepts contactless payment on all its routes.

Phase 2

On 20 January 2025, The DfT announced that a further 49 stations would be added into the contactless system by the end of the year, in addition to the 47 phase 1 stations scheduled to go live on 2 February. The 49 new stations are on the following lines (listed in clockwise order from the Thames estuary):

• Southern and Thameslink:
  • from Upper Warlingham to East Grinstead: Woldingham, Oxted, Hurst Green, Lingfield, Dormans, East Grinstead
  • from Redhill to Reigate: Reigate
• Southern and South Western Railway:
  • from Epsom to Dorking: Ashtead, Leatherhead, Box Hill & Westhumble, Dorking
• Chiltern Railways:
  • from Amersham and High Wycombe to Aylesbury Vale Parkway: Great Missenden, Wendover, Stoke Mandeville, Aylesbury, Aylesbury Vale Parkway, Saunderton, Princes Risborough, Monks Risborough, Little Kimble
• EMR and Thameslink:
  • from Luton Airport Parkway to Harlington: Luton, Leagrave, Harlington
• Thameslink and Great Northern:
  • from Welwyn Garden City and Hertford North to Baldock: Welwyn North, Knebworth, Watton-at-Stone, Stevenage, Hitchin, Letchworth Garden City, Baldock
• Greater Anglia:
  • from Broxbourne to Stansted Airport: Roydon, Harlow Town, Harlow Mill, Sawbridgeworth, Bishop's Stortford, Stansted Mountfitchet, Stansted Airport
  • from Shenfield to Witham: Ingatestone, Chelmsford, Hatfield Peverel, Witham
  • from Shenfield to Southend Victoria: Billericay, Wickford, Rayleigh, Hockley, Rochford, Southend Airport, Prittlewell, Southend Victoria