IT IS more than £200 cheaper to travel from Gatwick into London than it is from Horley.
Frustrated rail users made the discrepancy one of the major issues put to Southern Railway officials at the annual Reigate, Redhill & District Railway Users' Association (RRDR) meeting last Thursday.
Commuters demanded answers over why travel cards and season tickets from Gatwick Airport to London were often cheaper than those bought from stations geographically nearer to the capital.
An adult standard class season ticket from Horley to London zones 1-6, for example, costs £3,856, while the same ticket from Gatwick Airport is priced at £3,616.
This is a £240 difference between two stations, which are separated by a rail travel time of three minutes.
Alex Foulds, commercial director for Southern, called Gatwick an "anomaly" and said that its fares had not gone up in a similar way to other stations because it needed to have an "unusual" and "competitive" pricing structure.
Later in the meeting, an RRDR member said: "Redhill and our area do not seem to have a fair fees system. We seem to pay more than everyone else.
"Can't we just have a structure that the further out we are the more we pay?"
But Mr Foulds said: "In order to contribute to the Government, it is not possible to put fares down.
"Because of the way the system is there are anomalies."
He agreed it was a wider problem for the industry, adding: "There is a fares simplification project going on.
"If you had a blank sheet of paper you would not start where we are.
"You cannot expect the individual train companies to address it."
However, Southern representatives at the meeting accepted that purchasing a season ticket from Gatwick to London would allow passengers to get on at any of the stations along that line.
The Mirror contacted Southern for further explanation about why the anomalies exist, but the firm declined to give further details.
