Why are the Railways more expensive than air travel between Scotland & the South?

[6Gman]

That's debatable. In many cases better public transport links to encourage travel by the most sustainable means is seen as a benefit to the public. The most obvious example is probably the Northern Powerhouse.

Which is why I included d) in my list.

The fact remains that the prime movers in fares policy are:

1. Reducing subsidy from/ increasing premium to government
2. Maximising operator profit.

Not saying I approve - but fares policy is not directed at increasing travel itself.

 

[fowler9]

I appreciate the fact that you can work on the train but wasn't modern technology meant to make life easier? Not that we can work more when we are travelling. The population is going up but there are less jobs because less people can do more work all the time. This isn't what Tomorrows World said was going to happen when I was a kid. Ha ha. People can now work 16 hours a day. Is this what we have come to? And people are proud of it, they can actually work fro the second they wake up to the second they go to sleep... and they are proud of it!!!!!

 

[neilmc]

I used to travel for business between Manchester and Bristol, and at first I took the plane - convenient at the Manchester end but with rather an expensive coach journey at the Bristol end. The fares fluctuated wildly, however, but the train wouldn't deposit me at the office until very late into the morning. However, one evening I was caught in bad traffic at the Bristol end and almost missed my plane. I would have been stuck at Bristol airport with no way of getting home, even though it was only around six in the evening.

So it was back to the train, with an hourly service I never had to worry if things didn't go quite to plan. Though I refused to pay (or let my company pay) for undiscounted fares from XC, I travelled off-peak in the afternoon and stayed overnight at a cheap hotel instead. In the rare event I had to leave Manchester at peak time, I would book a peak ticket to the first station called at after 09:30 and an off-peak return from there to Bristol. I think I can now say I used to work for Lloyds and fortunately they had a zero-tolerance of rail TOCs scamming business customers but never queried the cost of a mid-range hotel, or the air fare.

 

[me123]

Going back to the point as to why Edinburgh to the South West isn't priced competitively for rail... it has to be because the journey simply isn't competitive by rail. Whilst traveling from Edinburgh to London is definitely competitive on the train (coming in around the four hour mark from city centre to city centre), going to Cardiff and Bristol and beyond is much slower.

To use the Edinburgh to Cardiff example (a journey I made not too long ago - although I will point out that my base in Livingston is very convenient for Edinburgh Airport), even allowing for travel at either end it was far quicker for me to fly. So much so that the railways were not a feasible option for me, looking in at around the seven hour mark compared to just four by plane (with a lot of waiting time, so I suspect that it could be a lot quicker). For my itinerary that day, there was no comparison. Flying allowed me to get to Cardiff at a reasonable time for a good nights sleep. Rail travel would have got me there after midnight.

Cost was another factor - it wasn't any cheaper to take the train. But what are the railways competitive against? As a business traveller on that occasion, I had zero incentive to take the train (I made use of the time in the airport and on the plane to work - yes it is achievable and it's not all "unproductive dead time"). Even as a leisure traveller it's only the enthusiast in me that would push me onto the rails.

The airlines offer a much better product on this route and are priced competitively. Rail is much slower and, even if it did offer better fares, it would fail to abstract a significant share of the market with the current infrastructure. Contrast this to the Edinburgh - London route, where rail competes better on time and is more attractive. The reality is that air travel is much faster on Scotland to the South West, and that even with lower fares the railways would struggle to compete with their main competitors (low cost airlines). Offering low fares would likely not lead to a huge increase in market share, and would likely not increase revenue for the railways. So why should they slash fares? The railways are not a charity.

 

[yorksrob]

I appreciate the fact that you can work on the train but wasn't modern technology meant to make life easier? Not that we can work more when we are travelling. The population is going up but there are less jobs because less people can do more work all the time. This isn't what Tomorrows World said was going to happen when I was a kid. Ha ha.

If only ! My CD's were ruined after I'd spread marmalade on them as well

On a serious note, isn't this the exact type of problem that the new First Scotland - London is supposed to be tackling ?

If this proves effective as an alternative to air travel, perhaps some sort of "airline" type service can be provided on the North/SW axis ?
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Going back to the point as to why Edinburgh to the South West isn't priced competitively for rail... it has to be because the journey simply isn't competitive by rail. Whilst traveling from Edinburgh to London is definitely competitive on the train (coming in around the four hour mark from city centre to city centre), going to Cardiff and Bristol and beyond is much slower.

To use the Edinburgh to Cardiff example (a journey I made not too long ago - although I will point out that my base in Livingston is very convenient for Edinburgh Airport), even allowing for travel at either end it was far quicker for me to fly. So much so that the railways were not a feasible option for me, looking in at around the seven hour mark compared to just four by plane (with a lot of waiting time, so I suspect that it could be a lot quicker). For my itinerary that day, there was no comparison. Flying allowed me to get to Cardiff at a reasonable time for a good nights sleep. Rail travel would have got me there after midnight.

Cost was another factor - it wasn't any cheaper to take the train. But what are the railways competitive against? As a business traveller on that occasion, I had zero incentive to take the train (I made use of the time in the airport and on the plane to work - yes it is achievable and it's not all "unproductive dead time"). Even as a leisure traveller it's only the enthusiast in me that would push me onto the rails.

The airlines offer a much better product on this route and are priced competitively. Rail is much slower and, even if it did offer better fares, it would fail to abstract a significant share of the market with the current infrastructure. Contrast this to the Edinburgh - London route, where rail competes better on time and is more attractive. The reality is that air travel is much faster on Scotland to the South West, and that even with lower fares the railways would struggle to compete with their main competitors (low cost airlines). Offering low fares would likely not lead to a huge increase in market share, and would likely not increase revenue for the railways. So why should they slash fares? The railways are not a charity.

Depends what you're competing on. Clearly the route is not competitive on speed, but if that were the be-all and end-all, the trains would be empty and the prices rock bottom.

Clearly the route is extremely competitive to some sectors of the population, hence the ability to charge higher prices, so perhaps the issue is capacity.

 

[Blindtraveler]

For me as both a leasure traveler and self employed person who sometimes travels for work, its purely down to cost, which neans the ECML, E being for expensive, never wins. Cudoss to the poster who found one of the bottom teer KGX EDB advances, like gold dust so they are!

Its almost always the WCML with multiple splits or the air or coach options. further more the East Coast seams so unreliable when I do use it and quite frankly for a leasure trip its so dull Id rather fly, if nout else for the veriety.

To the poster with the split tickets at Crewe, I do this, admitedly not with ATW to CDF but with other TOCs about 10 or more times a year and even if disrupted never have an issue

 

[30907]

You're thinking about (most) Off Peak Returns. The "return for a pound more" pricing has been around for 20-30 years, and the intention was to encourage people to use the train for long distance leisure journeys.

More like 130 years (off the top of my head). Certainly cheap returns by scheduled trains (as opposed to excursion trains) existed pre WW2.

 

[sheff1]

And I'll chip in my usual spiel here about being able to do several hours work on a laptop on the train, but flying (including travelling to and from the airport and most of the waiting time there) is unproductive "dead time".

If that is true the business people I see on my travels are very good actors - they have certainly convinced me that they are working on their laptops whilst waiting at the airport and for much of the time we are in the air.

As a leisure traveller, I have no desire to be on a laptop for hours and do not consider time relaxing / eating /reading a book on a train, plane or in an airport " unproductive dead time" as there is nothing I need to produce.

 

[Envoy]

I don't understand the apparent assumption that rail should be the first option checked for any journey. If I were travelling from Cardiff or Bristol to Edinburgh I would look at flights first. Only if the flight times were unsuitable or the fares excessively high would I check the trains.

It takes about 30 minutes to get from the centre of Cardiff to the Airport. Then you have to check in maybe 2 hours ahead of flight. So, by that time, a train from Cardiff Central would be near Crewe - even though it makes numerous stops at small places on the Marches Line. Throw in the fact that some people would prefer to use trains for UK journeys as it is a ‘greener way’ to travel.

 

[headshot119]

60 minutes is more than enough at Cardiff for a domestic flight.

 

[najaB]

It takes about 30 minutes to get from the centre of Cardiff to the Airport. Then you have to check in maybe 2 hours ahead of flight.

While I prefer the train over flying, to keep the comparison honest: sixty minutes is more than enough for most domestic flights, thirty minutes if you have no hold luggage.

 

[Envoy]

It is not the function of the railway "to encourage travel around Britain".

It may, or may not, be the role of the railway to:

a) provide a level of service which contributes to the overall performance of the economy;
b) maximise the value of the franchise to the Treasury;
c) maximise the value of the franchise to shareholders (or other owners);
d) achieve modal shift from more polluting options.

But not to encourage travel per se.

I disagree. It surely is in the interests of the state to get people off the overcrowded roads and onto rail transportation? The trouble is that until new rolling stock appears, the railways are also overcrowded.

Then we have foreign tourists - may of whom are fearful of driving on the wrong side of the road. So, by having return fares that are only £1 more than singles, it does the British tourist industry no favours for those who wish to tour around the country by rail. (Yes, I am aware of Britrail passes - but these are very expensive).

I say that all routes should have reasonably priced one way journeys.
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None of these replies really homes in on the fact that the designated operator for Cardiff/Bristol to Edinburgh is XC, who have failed entirely to offer competitive fares to airlines for this flow.
It's all down to low capacity on its trains, and overcrowding via Birmingham leading to people being deliberately priced off the route as a result.
The enforced split between XC and WC on the WCML between Birmingham and Scotland also depresses demand (no through trains via the fastest/shortest route).

Yes, and this is the crux of the problem - the railways - operating an archaic system of route pricing that takes no account of how things are today. So, we have Cross Country setting sky high fares between Cardiff and Scotland even though they do not operate trains between Cardiff & Scotland. Indeed, if one were to use XC for an entire journey between Cardiff and Scotland, they would have to start off on the Cardiff to Nottingham service and change somewhere in the Midlands. Then they would be on another XC train that is gong to Scotland the longer way via Newcastle and possibly going into Leeds as well. This takes about 1 hour longer than using the shorter faster route via the Marches to Crewe and then the WCML. How daft is that?

Could it be that the purchaser of the through ticket from Cardiff to Edinburgh would have the money go to XC - even though they would never use a Cross Country train? The whole thing is a shambles and it is appalling that the rail industry and politicians have not sorted it out.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Exactly. The answer to your original question is "because Arriva".

ATW and XC between them have the most gouging fares on the network - which is quite an achievement in a world where Virgin WC exists. XC, in particular, have hundreds of flows where they are not the lead operator in practical terms; in certain cases they don't run any trains on those flows.

One could perhaps excuse them by saying "it's demand management, high fares are needed to prevent overcrowding on the short trains" except that both TOCs have shown a signal lack of interest in fixing this. Throughout the lifetime of the privatised railway, from CT's 170s to GW's recall of the 180s and their upcoming AT300s, TOCs have managed growth by obtaining new units above and beyond their franchise commitments. Arriva are notable for never doing this on two of the more overcrowded franchises: indeed, their five HSTs now have slacker diagrams than at the start of the franchise and are used significantly less intensively than even GWR's temperamental microfleet of 180s.

I would love to see proper regulation of fare setters and enforced co-operation to clamp down on this. Something for Railfuture to campaign for?

 

[najaB]

Then we have foreign tourists - may of whom are fearful of driving on the wrong side of the road. So, by having return fares that are only £1 more than singles, it does the British tourist industry no favours for those who wish to tour around the country by rail. (Yes, I am aware of Britrail passes - but these are very expensive).

I say that all routes should have reasonably priced one way journeys.

Most of the time if you go somewhere, you want to come back so I'm not sure why having returns for £1 more than the single is a bad thing.

And I'm not sure that I'd say that £37.50 a day (for an eight days in a month pass) is actually that expensive for unlimited travel.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Most of the time if you go somewhere, you want to come back so I'm not sure why having returns for £1 more than the single is a bad thing.

One reason is that it needlessly makes ABCA journeys by rail uncompetitive on price.

 

[najaB]

One reason is that it needlessly makes ABCA journeys by rail uncompetitive on price.

Those journeys are the exception rather than the rule though.

 

[edwin_m]

I appreciate the fact that you can work on the train but wasn't modern technology meant to make life easier? Not that we can work more when we are travelling. The population is going up but there are less jobs because less people can do more work all the time. This isn't what Tomorrows World said was going to happen when I was a kid. Ha ha. People can now work 16 hours a day. Is this what we have come to? And people are proud of it, they can actually work fro the second they wake up to the second they go to sleep... and they are proud of it!!!!!

If I'm travelling for work purposes then I feel obliged to do as much work as I reasonably can during the journey. I normally manage to stay within my contracted hours so if I have a long day of travel I'll probably work shorter hours the following day. If I didn't work on the train I'd either be less productive or have to put in longer hours in total, doing the equivalent amount of work somewhere else.

 

[fowler9]

If I'm travelling for work purposes then I feel obliged to do as much work as I reasonably can during the journey. I normally manage to stay within my contracted hours so if I have a long day of travel I'll probably work shorter hours the following day. If I didn't work on the train I'd either be less productive or have to put in longer hours in total, doing the equivalent amount of work somewhere else.

Yeah but mate, technology was meant to make life easier and it just hasn't.

 

[edwin_m]

If that is true the business people I see on my travels are very good actors - they have certainly convinced me that they are working on their laptops whilst waiting at the airport and for much of the time we are in the air.

As a leisure traveller, I have no desire to be on a laptop for hours and do not consider time relaxing / eating /reading a book on a train, plane or in an airport " unproductive dead time" as there is nothing I need to produce.

For the work I do I need a fairly large laptop, which I can use while sitting at the airport (but that's only a small part of the end-to-end journey by air). On the sorts of airline I end up using it's virtually impossible to use it on the plane unless I get an empty seat next to me. So I do agree there may be others who can work on a plane, or don't need to work while travelling, but I'm not one of them.
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Yeah but mate, technology was meant to make life easier and it just hasn't.

For various reasons that I won't go into here, technology including the ability to work on the move has been a major benefit to may work-life balance. But I agree this doesn't apply to everybody. I think you posted on another thread that you work in a call centre, which would be my idea of technology hell, so I respect your right to differ!

 

[fowler9]

For the work I do I need a fairly large laptop, which I can use while sitting at the airport (but that's only a small part of the end-to-end journey by air). On the sorts of airline I end up using it's virtually impossible to use it on the plane unless I get an empty seat next to me. So I do agree there may be others who can work on a plane, or don't need to work while travelling, but I'm not one of them.
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For various reasons that I won't go into here, technology including the ability to work on the move has been a major benefit to may work-life balance. But I agree this doesn't apply to everybody. I think you posted on another thread that you work in a call centre, which would be my idea of technology hell, so I respect your right to differ!

No mate, I don't work on a call centre but it is part of our business. I think the ability to work on the move is amazing, however, what was meant to happen was we would all have to do less. That has not happened. Technological advances have not decreased our workload. I believe the people in charge have just increased what they expect.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Those journeys are the exception rather than the rule though.

You're right, of course, but providing for atypical journeys should be a strength of the railway.

The fare I frequently need to buy to station X which is priced at an extortionate rate by ATW, despite the fact that stations either side are priced by GWR, is atypical. The split ticket I need to buy to station Y because the through fare is priced extortionately by XC, despite it being almost impossible to catch an XC train on that route, is atypical too. The local railcard I buy for one particular journey is atypical. The unadvertised promotional fares locally are atypical. And so on. It's the railway's very own long tail.

Increasingly the fare system is designed for two types of journeys: season tickets, and single-operator advances. Anything more complex is priced uncompetitively except for the few of us who know our way around the fare system. That's a great shame for the people who want to make those journeys, and for society more generally as the concept of a network is slowly being eroded.

 

[cuccir]

As a wise philosopher once said

Different strokes for different folks and so on and so on and scooby dooby doo

In other words if we get into comparing the "best" way to travel between places then we'll not really get anywhere as people have different needs from their travel, both personal and professional. I use Eurostar for work trips to Paris: my organisation has the budget when it's more expensive (though it isn't always as it's only Air France which fly there from our regional airport), I can be productive while travelling, it's greener, I can travel to/from my home town with it's hourly rail service to London rather than from the airport with its 3 planes a day. For leisure though I'd probably fly as I'll be able to avoid the peak fares, and don't need to work while travelling. So needs vary, even for the same person!

On the original post: surely the simple answer is that our rail network has insufficient capacity to provide the cheap fares? If we halved fares overnight and demand rose, we'd have very full trains! To overcome this is a political issue really about infrastructure investment.

 

[Envoy]

As a wise philosopher once said

On the original post: surely the simple answer is that our rail network has insufficient capacity to provide the cheap fares? If we halved fares overnight and demand rose, we'd have very full trains! To overcome this is a political issue really about infrastructure investment.

Yes, I agree that our rail system has insufficient rolling stock on many routes to be able to entice even more passengers with cheap fares. (The south Wales to Manchester trains are usually 3 coach Coradias but can sometimes be only 2 coaches. This is a ridiculous situation to be in for trains that are linking major conurbations as well as serving other centres of population en-route such as Hereford & Shrewsbury. They also provide the shortest and quickest route between south Wales and Preston / Carlisle & Scotland).

Main main point of criticism is that if you put in for my mid week journey between Cardiff & Edinburgh travelling outside commutting hours, that you get a price of £172.10 one way. By splitting the tickets at Crewe, the price is £42. So, clearly, we do have enough capacity to offer reasonable prices on the Virgin section and the ATW sections. The trouble is that they do not show up as through ticket price. Hence the fact that most people will drive or fly as they will know nothing about splitting the tickets and matching up the connections at Crewe. My other criticism is that the through ticket return price is only £1 more than the one way fare.

 

[AlterEgo]

My other criticism is that the through ticket return price is only £1 more than the one way fare.

Should it be twice as much then?

 

[Envoy]

Should it be twice as much then?

Of course not. It should be about £42 each way.

 

[AlterEgo]

Of course not. It should be about £42 each way.

How would the railways compensate for the loss of revenue, then?

 

[yorksrob]

I'm a little sceptical about the old capacity argument. I've certainly travelled on an IC train on which apparently all the cheap fares had been booked out, only to walk down the train to find a carriage with only about four people in it.

VTWC was in the paper again yesterday with its idea of removing walk on fares from some trains. Noticeably this was in conjunction with having a "shoulder peak" period, presumably to deal with the consequences of its flawed yield management model. (We're beginning to see the woeful effects of this on the East coast now).

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Of course not. It should be about £42 each way.

You are going against decades of entrenched fares policy.
Back in the 1960s "the fare" was distance based, and gave you an Anytime ticket.
BR even published a single page in the timetable with fares against distance.

That (adjusted for inflation etc) fare is still believed by the industry to be "the fare", and any other fare at a discount comes with restrictions.
We now have all sorts of intermediate fares, with the lowest being only about 10% of "the fare".
Normal folk got to believe that the time-limited Off Peak fare (typically 40% discount) was "the fare", when it wasn't.
Now folk seem to think that the one-train-only Advance fare (typically 75% discount) is "the fare".
Only about half of the tickets are regulated, the rest is down to the individual TOC.
There is considerable confusion about which tickets are regulated.
For Cardiff-Edinburgh I think it will be the Off Peak Return.

I agree with you about Off Peak Singles being only £1 less than the return.
This was again BR policy and is unchanged after 20 years of privatisation.
To cut the single to 50% of the return, the DfT says, would undermine the whole basis of the Anytime fares structure.
Virgin WC will sell you a discount single ("half-saver") if you also book a fare the other way as well. It has to be their fare, and on their web site.
GWR has something similar.

Actually a 50% off-peak single would put it in line with most air fares these days.
Time was when BA followed the BR pattern and let you travel off-peak cheaply on a return basis (Saturday night stay), but forced you to pay full whack for one way only.
Airlines like Lufthansa still do it.

The DfT had an investigation into the fares system a few years ago, and promised changes, while at the same time robustly defending the status quo.
Basically they won't make changes which risk reducing overall ticket revenue.
So far, changes have been glacial, concentrating on smart ticketing and "shoulder" peak fares.
This was the consultation and their response to it: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/rail-fares-and-ticketing-review

 

[Greenback]

In other words if we get into comparing the "best" way to travel between places then we'll not really get anywhere as people have different needs from their travel, both personal and professional.

You are spot on. What is best could be what is the cheapest, what is the fastest, most comfortable or most convenient. Everyone will have their own ideas on what works for them, and this might also vary from journey to journey.

The fare system is what it is. The main intention behind fares policy is undoubtedly to maximise revenue through yield management. To be honest, I don't think any other way will work in the fragmented, privatised rail industry of the 21st century.

 

[cuccir]

Main main point of criticism is that if you put in for my mid week journey between Cardiff & Edinburgh travelling outside commutting hours, that you get a price of £172.10 one way. By splitting the tickets at Crewe, the price is £42. So, clearly, we do have enough capacity to offer reasonable prices on the Virgin section and the ATW sections.

Yes, I do appreciate what you're saying here. I think it's important that we still see this as yield management though: for long journeys with multiple changes, using low fares to manage demand is going to be a challenge because of intersecting routes, and changing demands as the journey goes on. You can leave Cardiff at 10:30 out of peak time and be arriving in Edinburgh between 17:00-18:00 in the evening peak - so it's difficult to apply a single fare to manage demand over that distance.

This isn't just a cross-company issue: I used to regularly travel from the North-East to Cumbria and if using TPE via Manchester, the number of through Advances was much more limited than the number of eg Darlington-Manchester, Manchester-Barrow Advances, even though it was one company: it was usually cheaper to split. But that makes sense to me as to set one demand-oriented fare over such a route is a challenge. Single service or 'to London' fares are easier to set more cheaply to manage demand because flows are simpler and more predictable.

I also wouldn't want to let the TOCs escape without criticism - single fares are overpriced in my view, though I think a cut to 50% of return misses the complexities of the transport system. However, I come back to the point that the causes of our high public transport fares are located much more in the big-issue politics than in day to day management of the rail network.