Should Advance Tickets Be Available On All Routes ?

[sheff'd victoria]

To give a fair balance to all, and to give clarity, should advance tickets be available to every rail line in the country ?

 

[Hadders]

Absolutely not. In my view they should be for long distance inter-city style journeys only.

Take a route like Stevenage to London. We are shortly to get an Off Peak service of 6 trains an hour to Kings Cross. Trying to enforce 'booked train only' would be an absolute nightmare and would simply fall into disrepute.

A far better system would be to have Anytime, Off Peak and Super Off peak fares on all routes and a National Railcard available to all.

 

[yorkie]

To give a fair balance to all, and to give clarity, should advance tickets be available to every rail line in the country ?

I am not sure what you mean by "all routes" / "every rail line"; do you mean between every pair of stations (e.g. Poppleton to York)?

I think the answer is no they shouldn't, but starting short should be permitted to compensate for this.

 

[sheff'd victoria]

I am not sure what you mean by "all routes" / "every rail line"; do you mean between every pair of stations (e.g. Poppleton to York)?

Yes, it seems some lines have this offer but other do not, take Northern Rail's Duo Ticket offer, available on some lines but not others, and in some cases on one service on a shared line but not the other.

 

[Merseysider]

Yes, it seems some lines have this offer but other do not, take Northern Rail's Duo Ticket offer, available on some lines but not others, and in some cases on one service on a shared line but not the other.

And in many cases, in one direction but not the other.

 

[island]

Who’s going to buy an advance from Lewisham to St. Johns?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think "InterCity" only. Basically, if it has actual seat reservations, have Advances, otherwise have graduated walk-ups like LM do (I know they have Advances as well) including a lowest tier with weekend and Friday evening restrictions.

 

[Starmill]

There are some journeys where it is very very odd that there are no Advance tickets, such as Stafford to Newcastle, Grimsby Town to Whitehaven, Liverpool Lime Street to Bridlington, Skegness to Barrow-in-Furness, Kettering to Birmingham New Street, Oxford to Dover Priory, Peterborough to Aberystwyth, Lincoln to Chester and Hereford to Grantham. And those are just ones I thought off off the top of my head.

There are some where their existence is very questionable, such as Birmingham New Street to Wolverhampton.

 

[infobleep]

I am not sure what you mean by "all routes" / "every rail line"; do you mean between every pair of stations (e.g. Poppleton to York)?

I think the answer is no they shouldn't, but starting short should be permitted to compensate for this.

So do you think non intercity companies should stop selling advances? I am thinking of companies like London Midland; Govia Thameslink Railway and South West Trains.

 

[yorkie]

So do you think non intercity companies should stop selling advances? I am thinking of companies like London Midland; Govia Thameslink Railway and South West Trains.

No I don't think so.

 

[Puffing Devil]

There needs to be equality.

For example, on Northern.

Crewe-Manchester = Advance tickets
Sandbach to Manchester = No Advance tickets, same train, just one station on from Crewe. However, no competition from Virgin here.

 

[Starmill]

Bournemouth to Plymouth is another, plus Winchester to Stroud and Poole to Swansea.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There needs to be equality.

For example, on Northern.

Crewe-Manchester = Advance tickets
Sandbach to Manchester = No Advance tickets, same train, just one station on from Crewe. However, no competition from Virgin here.

In my view Northern as a regional, unreserved operator should not have Advances at all. They should have graduated off peak walk up fares instead.

 

[mikeg]

No, advances should be based on commercial and yield management requirements. If it is not needed for yield management I also think that the walk up fare should be reduced instead of offering advances to entice passengers, but this unfortunately is unlikely to happen.

 

[Starmill]

In my view Northern as a regional, unreserved operator should not have Advances at all. They should have graduated off peak walk up fares instead.

How are you going to be pricing Manchester Airport to Barrow-in-Furness then? And that will have full seat reservations.

It's £35.20 for a CDS. How are you going to make this an attractive proposition to someone on a budget?

 

[infobleep]

No I don't think so.

The problem I have at the moment with it is that I can get advances within a TOC but should a similar length journey exist crossing multiple TOCs then no advances seem to exist, unless it's an Intercity type operator. Some non intercity journeys can be fairly long, especially going east / west within the South East.

 

[yorkie]

The problem I have at the moment with it is that I can get advances within a TOC but should a similar length journey exist crossing multiple TOCs then no advances seem to exist

Some do, some don't. But if you use Trainsplit, the problem should be solved, as you will be sold a compliant through itinerary, with a combination of Advance fares, where available.

unless it's an Intercity type operator. Some non intercity journeys can be fairly long, especially going east / west within the South East.

Indeed.

 

[Clip]

Yes, it seems some lines have this offer but other do not, take Northern Rail's Duo Ticket offer, available on some lines but not others, and in some cases on one service on a shared line but not the other.

The Duo is an advance purchase ticket though is it? If not then unsure why its made an appearance here

 

[Bletchleyite]

How are you going to be pricing Manchester Airport to Barrow-in-Furness then? And that will have full seat reservations.

It's £35.20 for a CDS. How are you going to make this an attractive proposition to someone on a budget?

I forgot briefly that that was now Northern.

Northern Connect is an IR rather than RE type service, so I'd say yes, reservations and Advances.

Manchester to Crewe stopping train? No, don't be silly.

Availability of seat reservations (actual seat reservations) is actually quite a good guide.

 

[Starmill]

So Leeds to York Advances are a good idea now? Those are reservable trains

 

[Bletchleyite]

So Leeds to York Advances are a good idea now? Those are reservable trains

You're always going to get edge cases.

 

[kieron]

You're always going to get edge cases.

You are if you try to build a model based on the train rather than the journey.

When I read the idea, though, I just thought of Arriva Trains Wales's policy of offering seat reservations on some seats, but making it hard for anyone buying an Advance ticket to actually get one.

Personally, though, I'd sooner have competitively priced walk-up single fares than Advance tickets, as you know what they'll be from one day to the next.

 

[sheff1]

Personally, though, I'd sooner have competitively priced walk-up single fares than Advance tickets, as you know what they'll be from one day to the next.

I agree - single fares at half the return, which is the standard in many countries.

In the Manchester Airport to Barrow case mentioned above, an Anytime Return is £51.90 and an Off Peak Return is £43.80.

To me a single at £26 / £22 seems reasonable enough for a journey of that length - £35 is too much in my view, but £12.50 (Advance price currently available for Monday) seems very cheap.

 

[Starmill]

To me a single at £26 / £22 seems reasonable enough for a journey of that length - £35 is too much in my view, but £12.50 (Advance price currently available for Monday) seems very cheap.

Precisely. It's very common to jack the walk-up fare up as much as possible and then make a whole load of cheap Advance tickets available in this country.

That's precisely what they did with Leeds <> York.

Northern have some truly nonsense Advances, like Wigan to Preston for £1.50 (£1.70, £2.00, £2.20, £2.40, £2.60, £2.80, £2.90, £3). And on that journey the CDR is £6.50 - still too much I'd say - and clearly TransPennine agree as they have priced their own for £4.90, which I would say is about right for the Any Permitted - and get rid of all of these Advances (there are VT ones too).

East Coast have been very very bad at this too recently, charging through the roof for Super Off-Peak tickets and then dumping a huge number of £5 fares a few days before travel every weekend.

 

[johntea]

I noticed whilst considering a weekend trip earlier that Northern have seemingly started doing decent advances on the Leeds to Manchester route, under £5 for a single on Saturday for most of their services to Victoria that I could see.

Just checked again now though and they've vanished, so much for this '10 minutes before' stuff they keep going on about recently!

 

[Joe Paxton]

I noticed whilst considering a weekend trip earlier that Northern have seemingly started doing decent advances on the Leeds to Manchester route, under £5 for a single on Saturday for most of their services to Victoria that I could see.

Just checked again now though and they've vanished, so much for this '10 minutes before' stuff they keep going on about recently!

I've just checked and I can see £5 Advance tickets on every Northern train between Leeds and Manchester Victoria this Saturday (22 July).

(FWIW, Advance fares on this routes aren't a brand new thing.)

 

[Starmill]

Time was when every train had a £3 ticket.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You are if you try to build a model based on the train rather than the journey.

You are even if it's on the journey. Only if you offer the same ticketing structure on ALL journeys will you avoid anomalies.

 

[ashworth]

There are some journeys where it is very very odd that there are no Advance tickets, such as Stafford to Newcastle, Grimsby Town to Whitehaven, Liverpool Lime Street to Bridlington, Skegness to Barrow-in-Furness, Kettering to Birmingham New Street, Oxford to Dover Priory, Peterborough to Aberystwyth, Lincoln to Chester and Hereford to Grantham. And those are just ones I thought off off the top of my head.

There are some where their existence is very questionable, such as Birmingham New Street to Wolverhampton.

I totally agree. There are so many long distance journeys on non intercity routes, involving changes of trains involving multiple TOCs, where prices are extremely high due to the non availability of Advance tickets. Yet at the same time there seems to be an increase in the availability of Advance tickets for very short distances between neighbouring cities. It's currently almost like a post code lottery depending upon where you are travelling to/from which seems very unfair and not the passengers fault.

Some people may not agree with my ideas but I think that relatively cheap Advance tickets should be available for all journeys over approx 50 miles.
For journeys under approx 50 miles where Off Peak Day Returns are usually available there should also be Off Peak Singles costing little more than half the Day Return Fare. For example if the Off Peak Day Return Fare is £9, the Off Peak Single should be no more than £5, and not a rip off £8.90 like it so often currently is.

 

[Bletchleyite]

For journeys under approx 50 miles where Off Peak Day Returns are usually available there should also be Off Peak Singles costing little more than half the Day Return Fare. For example if the Off Peak Day Return Fare is £9, the Off Peak Single should be no more than £5, and not a rip off £8.90 like it so often currently is.

In my view there is a need to move to full single fare pricing and effectively[1] abolish returns.

[1] You could still issue period returns priced at two singles for the same fare level, the gain being that your return half is valid for a month including overnight breaks. For day returns, just issue two day singles at the same time.