In my opinion, all this talk of 'complicated' tickets stems from people buying the cheapest possible ticket from the TVM or not telling the TO staff what they actually want!
Ticketing can be very easy indeed (just buy an expensive ticket) but if you want to make it as cheap as posible then it can get very complicated indeed, and of course everything in between!
I couldn't have said it better myself . People want their ticket to be as cheap as possible but also as unrestricted as possible . Unfortunately you cant have your cake and eat it . Either you just have a very basic ticketing system . Or you let tocs compete with each other but have restrictions
Well they will still end up with the price of the ticket that they would correctly have bought for their journey. Do you think they should get more because a passenger changes their mind?
In what sort of business is that a reason not to do it? An exploitative and manipulative one.
This viewpoint is a perfect argument for nationalisation, the railway being run in a way that is against the interest of passengers in order to take more money.
The passenger does pay the same price yes if the toc specific fare is excessed .
However the TOC might not get the revenue that is rightfully theirs .
And despite what many may believe renationalisation is not happening any time soon so we are stuck with the system we have at the moment where different tocs do exist . And they do have bills to pay to keep their trains running , and god forbid they should make a tiny bit of profit as well .