Applications for Zip Oyster cards that give children and teenagers free or discounted fares in London have reopened.
This means that the full range of concessionary fares offered by Transport for London is available, after it suspended applications for new cards following a cyber attack on September 1.
The reopening of the Zip card for passengers aged five to 10, 11-15 and 16-17 will come as a huge relief to thousands of parents.
TfL has continued to accept expired Zip cards – but children and teenagers who have lost their card may have had to pay full fares.
Zip cards offer free bus travel and half-price Tube and train travel in the capital to children aged 11-15 and students aged 16-17.
Children under 11 travelling with an adult do not need to have a 5-10 Zip card.
TfL says that children can continue to travel until December 31 with an expired Zip card.
But it is advising parents to apply for new cards for their children “as soon as possible” to ensure their application is processed by the end of the year.
Expired Zip cards will not be accepted from January 1, 2025.
Applications for the 18+ student Oyster card, the 60+ Oyster, the 18+ Student, Apprentice and 18-25 Care Leavers cards reopened earlier this month.
More than 40,000 photocards have been dispatched since TfL’s online systems reopened.
This includes more than 30,000 18+ Student photocards, more than 10,000 60+ London Oyster photocards and nearly 600 Apprentice photocards.
TfL’s photocard website had been unavailable since September 1 as TfL shut down many of its online systems in a bid to limit the damage caused by the cyber attack.
London mayor Sadiq Khan has admitted that a “big number” of Londoners have been left out of pocket as a result of being unable to access concessionary fares.
TfL will shortly write to affected photocard customers to advise how to claim for any additional travel costs incurred while the photocard website was unavailable
The cyber attack meant passengers who use Contactless cards were unable to access their journey history, correct incomplete journeys or apply for refunds.
TfL says it can now process refunds for journeys made using Oyster cards – including those where customers received maximum fares for not touching in or out correctly.
It hopes refunds for Contactless journeys will be restored “shortly”.
Shashi Verma, chief technology officer at TfL said: “We’re pleased that we can now accept photocard applications for all concessions managed by TfL and will be working hard to process these as quickly as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience that this has caused our customers.
“Following the recent highly sophisticated cyber security incident, we have been working to restore systems which we had to take offline as part of our mitigations.
“We are now able to start processing refunds for those requiring refunds for journeys made using Oyster or paper tickets.
“We hope to shortly contact all new photocard customers who those who were impacted by not being able to apply for their new photocard, as well as continue work to allow us to begin processing refunds for contactless journeys, and for customers to be able to see their full journey history again.”
