After a long campaign, I was delighted to open Oyster at Radlett station this summer. It was a pleasure to welcome the Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps MP, to the station for the ceremony and I enjoyed the chance to join the driver in the cab for the first journey into London! 

As readers know all too well, delivering Oyster has not been easy. We faced significant obstacles, infuriating delays but always kept up the pressure on Govia, TfL and the Department for Transport to honour this commitment.  

Now it’s in place, Oyster will allow passengers to travel much more easily by train and will give people greater flexibility over how they pay for their travel. I appreciate many people though are concerned about the fare caps in place under the new system.  

Individual rail fares using the Oyster and contactless system will be cheaper than their paper counter-parts. However, regular passengers will find that their standard season ticket continues to be the cheapest option as these are already heavily discounted compared to the daily rate. I do understand concerns about fares and now that we have Oyster established, I will continue to press for better fares for people in Radlett. 

Passengers deserve, a modern, reliable and affordable service. We have made real progress in delivering this in the past few years, with the improvements to Thameslink, and the compensation I secured after the timetable chaos last Summer. 

Oyster is another step in the right direction but of course there is more work to do. As always, if readers have any thoughts and concerns they want to raise with me as their local MP, don’t hesitate to get in touch.