Those Tfl fare rises in handy chart form

By Mike Pollitt
9 November 2011, 10:35

Yesterday Londonist performed a valuable service and dug out the last decade’s worth of Tfl fares so we could see how much the bastards have raised them. To Londonist’s data, we can now add some context in the shape of this sexy graph, which plots the average annual increase in a peak time Oyster card journey from zones 1-4 against the average annual increase in weekly earnings.

What does it show? What we already knew, that in the last few years fare rises have outstripped earnings rises. Considerably. Result: low and medium earners spending more money on getting places, and having less money to spend on doing stuff and buying things.

Sources: Fare data from Tfl via Londonist.
Average weekly earnings from the ONS. I’ve used the regular pay index. I’m not a statistician, so if anyone can educate me as to a better measure to use I will be all ears.