I draw your attention to the Two Together Railcard Terms and Conditions
Considering the discount given for using the Railcard, I think five hours of non-use each weekday is quite fair.
I can see that if the Railcard discount were given during these hours that people might start to use it for commuting. However, there are a lot of trains which are quiet before 0930 and starter longer day trips after 0930 can mean not arriving until lunchtime, which makes the train less competitive with the car. The different restrictions for different Railcards must also be highly confusing for most passengers. Passengers often don't seem to understand why they're charged the amount they're charged which creates a negative impression of the railway which I think the industry severely underestimates. Ideally I think a season ticket could cost perhaps 3.3 times the Anytime (Day) Return fare so that the Railcard discount before 09:30 would be useless for commuters. You could still potentially charge people about 13/14 times the Anytime (Day) Return fare for a month which I think would be fair.
An imperfect proposal for peak time fares which I think people would perceive as fairer and easier to understand:
- peak time would be defined as arriving at (morning) or departing (evening) a station (such as a specific London Terminal, Birmingham New Street, Manchester Piccadilly, Bristol Temple Meads etc.) within a specific time window.
- to prevent people from getting off one station before the central station to avoid the restriction, all stations within the urban areas would normally need to be included. There would have to be a substantial gap in distance between the last non-restricted and the first restricted station. In most cases the restriction would be valid in one direction only. This is probably where the proposal falls down.
- if certain trains arriving within this time window are not busy, there could form a small number of exceptions.
- Railcard usage could be restricted at peak times.
- season tickets / Travelcard or regional or PTE passes could be cheaper if avoiding these stations at these times.
Even if a radical new proposal is not workable (I don't imagine anyone would take it on anyway), it would be sensible to remove Off-Peak/Anytime differentials on flows where they are very small and there is no obvious peak e.g. York to Scarborough, York to Harrogate, York to Sheffield. There are also flows where there are Off-Peak Day and Off-Peak or there are Super Off-Peak (Day) and Off-Peak (Day) fares with very little difference in price or time restriction. This can also be counterproductive.
I appreciate that there is little appetite in the industry for serious reconsideration of such matters. However, as I've stated before, this has a big impact on how passengers perceive the railway as well as how attractive they find its offer financially, so I'd be interested to hear your views.