You will never be charged extra when you are transferred. You only pay for the number you dial. This has been discussed elsewhere.

Dave wrote on Dec 21^st, 2009 at 10:04pm:

I got through just now, but further calls yield the engaged tone.  

This is interesting (not in a good way).  At the beginning of December, I sent a message to TfL by their website, asking quite simply was the rumour about tel no change true.  I had an immediate acknowledgement saying my enquiry had been passed to Customer Services.  Since then, I have heard NOTHING, in spite of numerous enquiries.   What an appalling way to treat customers, they KNOW the truth yet refuse to confirm it until the change has taken place.   As if it wasn't bad enough that you could no longer call a station direct (the only people who would be likely to know if the car park is full on weekdays), they refuse now to answer queries, they are determined to make a profit from customers who need to contact them, probably because of a communications failure by TFL (ie it's TfL's fault that the customer needs to contact them!) and they are now going to have a telephone system when you are going to be on hold forever to speak to a human!   I despair - public service in this country is DEAD.

The email you get back says:

...committed to responding to your query within 20 working days.

Two months later; still waiting.

idb wrote on Dec 22^nd, 2009 at 1:11am:
And the response:

We have made the change to the number to allow for increased capacity that is needed within the travel information service for both the existing service and the new additional automated service especially in times of increased demand such as the recent snow travel disruptions etc and other times of incidents. The 020 number will continue for a period of time (yet to be determined) in parallel to the new 0843 number.

Callers from outside the UK can call 0843 numbers and this has already proved to be the case including calls received onto the 0843 222 1234 from France, Spain, Ireland (this information has been confirmed by the number provider) however callers not able to use the service are normally prevented from doing so by the provider of the local telecoms service and its local capability and not by the number itself. Our provider has informed us of other customers who additionally have 0843 numbers and their customers that are able to call from countries including Canada, Holland, Ireland so we have been advised that the USA should be ok to call this number.

Callers from abroad can still continue to use the website Journey Planner service in order to plan journeys in advance which is of course free of charge

Long term we cannot continue to provide multiple numbers due to the fact that we would be unable to restrict those using 0207 simply to those callers from abroad and manage multiple numbers is more complex and costly

I hope this helps explain the situation.

Kind regards

Lee Hill

Customer Relations Officer
TfL Customer Relations

Absolutely disgusted, especially considering the majority of users are probably out and about at the time, therefore paying 'significantly more' on their mobile.

No doubt the revenue is needed to fill the gap left by the Metronet brown envelopes.

I tell you what, any time we spend a pound planning a journey, lets recoup this by fare dodging.

floella2 wrote on Jan 21^st, 2010 at 3:49pm:


Premium rate telephone numbers are not illegal, fare dodging is.