Do rail fares need to be made simpler?

[anti-pacer]

A friend of mine is travelling from St Austell to London a week tomorrow and wants to travel First Class. She looked online and was quoted £269.**. I also found the same for the same journey at around 11am.

By fiddling around I managed to get this down to approx £125, travelling by XC to Bristol Temple Meads, and on to London via GWR. OK the journey was about an hour longer but for that saving she was over the moon. What's more she'll get two different offerings in First Class, rather than just one.

I split the tickets at Exeter and Bristol to achieve this saving, but I noticed it's actually more expensive to travel from St Austell to Newton Abbott than it is to Exeter. The advance I found to Exeter as £21.70, whereas to Newton Abbott it was just over £50. OK it was an Anytime ticket but even so, if you're travelling on a specific train that shouldn't matter.

Also, between Bristol and London I noticed that most (if not all) of the advance tickets were the same cost from that one station and London, but a difference of about £22 depending on which Bristol station you travelled from. Parkway being £22 more expensive than Temple Meads.

Do you think the fares system needs changing or do you think it works well?

 

[PeterC]

We see this dilema in many walks of life. Balancing "simple" / "understandable" and "fair".

The more edge cases you try and cope with the more complicated and difficult to understand things become.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think it does need simplifying, yes. You won't make it anomaly-free without going to a fully advance-booked system, but I think I would change the following:-

1. Standardise peak/off peak timings, probably based on the idea of "no arrival into a list of big city zones between 0600-1000, no departure from a list of big city zones between 1600-1900" or somesuch, passing through counts as arriving and departing". Not 100% sure how to handle journeys not involving the big city zones.

2. Single fare pricing, i.e. no discount for purchase of a return ticket, though I think I would retain the idea that if you purchase two singles (any price level, any route) for the same journey in both directions in the same transaction over a given distance (same as for the one/two day distinction), the second (return half) is valid 30 days. Otherwise all singles valid for one day (0430 on day 2) up to a given distance, two days after (0430 on day 3).

3. Break of journey permitted on all tickets within the validity period. Starting/ending short always permitted on all ticket types including Advance.

4. Abolish excesses entirely, to be replaced by refund and reissue. No admin fee if the ticket has the same date and either origin or destination as the original. Advances refundable against admin fee if another ticket for the same origin and destination is purchased at the same time as the refund.

5. For all walk-up fares, First Class is 160% of all Standard fares. First Class offerings to be adjusted accordingly.

Probably also some changes to how long-distances fares work in order to increase transparency, e.g. local connection zones of some kind, but I'm not sure quite how.

 

[Llanigraham]

I think it does need simplifying, yes. You won't make it anomaly-free without going to a fully advance-booked system, but I think I would change the following:-

1. Standardise peak/off peak timings, probably based on the idea of "no arrival into a list of big city zones between 0600-1000, no departure from a list of big city zones between 1600-1900" or somesuch, passing through counts as arriving and departing". Not 100% sure how to handle journeys not involving the big city zones.

So you would remove the current "West of Swansea/Malvern/Shrewsbury" element of long distance ticketing, resulting in those passengers having no option but to buy the most expensive tickets because of where they live?
In my case I could not get home from London after the end of the afternoon period!

2. Single fare pricing, i.e. no discount for purchase of a return ticket, though I think I would retain the idea that if you purchase two singles (any price level, any route) for the same journey in both directions in the same transaction over a given distance (same as for the one/two day distinction), the second (return half) is valid 30 days. Otherwise all singles valid for one day (0430 on day 2) up to a given distance, two days after (0430 on day 3).

That is not the way to encourage passengers to use the railway, especially for long distance leisure use.

3. Break of journey permitted on all tickets within the validity period. Starting/ending short always permitted on all ticket types including Advance.

Why? How does that encourage passengers?

4. Abolish excesses entirely, to be replaced by refund and reissue. No admin fee if the ticket has the same date and either origin or destination as the original. Advances refundable against admin fee if another ticket for the same origin and destination is purchased at the same time as the refund.

making life even more complicated both for the passenger and the staff!

5. For all walk-up fares, First Class is 160% of all Standard fares. First Class offerings to be adjusted accordingly.

Don't you like First Class? Or are your figures wrong? If the Standard is £100 by your figures that would make the First £260!! Again, no encouragement for people to use it.

Probably also some changes to how long-distances fares work in order to increase transparency, e.g. local connection zones of some kind, but I'm not sure quite how.

Perhaps you need to have a bigger think about all of it!

 

[najaB]

Do you think the fares system needs changing or do you think it works well?

It doesn't work well, but pretty much every scheme that I've seen for 'improving' it end up making things worse for somebody.

 

[anti-pacer]

Several of my friends and family will look online, see see price, then give me their journey details to "see what I can do". I do explain to them that I don't just strike a deal for them, I look at different options.

So many people out there don't know you can do that, and in the case of my friends and family, they're often amazed by how much I can save them by splitting tickets.

 

[6Gman]

I think it does need simplifying, yes. You won't make it anomaly-free without going to a fully advance-booked system, but I think I would change the following:-

1. Standardise peak/off peak timings, probably based on the idea of "no arrival into a list of big city zones between 0600-1000, no departure from a list of big city zones between 1600-1900" or somesuch, passing through counts as arriving and departing". Not 100% sure how to handle journeys not involving the big city zones.

So e.g. Bournemouth to Newcastle via London - you have to leave London before 1600 or after 1900? Not very helpful.

 

[Harpers Tate]

Yes. Just "yes". No further comment needed.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

A friend of mine is travelling from St Austell to London a week tomorrow and wants to travel First Class. She looked online and was quoted £269.**. I also found the same for the same journey at around 11am.

I get (on GWR web site) £204.50 on direct trains, but only £83.50 on the 1143 (local GWR train to Plymouth, standard class only, 1st class from Plymouth).
The first fare is an Anytime Single (any train/operator/seat).
The second is an Advance (booked train/seat only).
You haven't mentioned a return journey, but you can get a First Off Peak Return for £274.30.
It all depends what your wider journey requirements are.
The railway is not very good at single journeys (though they are talking about introducing single leg pricing).
Return journeys are nearly always better value, and you can often mix and match online to get a better price.

 

[paddington]

Basically the rail network on Great Britain is complicated, so any fares system is going to be complicated unless the network is split up into discrete small chunks which operate independently. In particular, you'd have to split commuter and long-distance travel (yet some people commute long-distance). If the fares system is made "simple", then you will always be able to find something that seems unfair, so you need to introduce an exception, which makes it complicated again.

So e.g. Bournemouth to Newcastle via London - you have to leave London before 1600 or after 1900? Not very helpful.

Yes, and too bad, if your journey intersects with hordes of commuters then it will have to be charged at peak rates. Othewise go via Reading, or build a West London avoiding line, or force people to move out of London to reduce demand for travel between London and the rest of GB.

 

[MikeWh]

Don't you like First Class? Or are your figures wrong? If the Standard is £100 by your figures that would make the First £260!! Again, no encouragement

160% of £100 is £160.

 

[yorkie]

Unless I have misunderstood, anti-pacer seems to be saying that it isn't simple if it's cheaper to buy a combination of fares than one fare. Yet Bletchleyite seems to promote more of this, by having standardised peak times, meaning longer distance passengers making journeys commencing at peak times need to "split" their journey at the first available station after the "peak " time ends.

If we can't agree on what is, or isn't, the cause of things not being "simple" and what outcomes we want to see, then I don't think we can ever agree on a solution either!

There are some basic principles that could be introduced to make things a bit simpler, but the DfT prefers to keep things complicated while pretending they are simple, e.g. by removing "valid via any permitted route" and replacing it with silence, or a dot.

No chance of ant actual reform happening, and I would oppose anything that results in higher fares.

 

[Albion91]

It's interesting that it seems universally expected that peak travel should be more expensive than off-peak.

I suppose this is based on an intuitive supply and demand idea - the more people who want it, the higher the charge can be.

But there is an alternative intuition - which is that if you're one of 500 people on a train, the company need only take a small amount from each of you to pay for the cost of the service; whereas if you're one of 25 on a train, you could argue that you should be contributing a lot more.

 

[methethpropbut]

It's interesting that it seems universally expected that peak travel should be more expensive than off-peak.

I suppose this is based on an intuitive supply and demand idea - the more people who want it, the higher the charge can be.

But there is an alternative intuition - which is that if you're one of 500 people on a train, the company need only take a small amount from each of you to pay for the cost of the service; whereas if you're one of 25 on a train, you could argue that you should be contributing a lot more.

The simpleton in me says that you average the two out - which means that travel costs the same whether peak or off-peak

Can't beat simplicity there, hmmm.

 

[anti-pacer]

EDIT: Sorry folks, I forgot to say the fare I was looking at was actually for 2 adults with a Two Together Railcard.

 

[Hadders]

If fares are simplified it will result in increases.

I regularly travel from Stevenage to Bath to to watch rugby. I catch a train from Paddington around 1730, returning later the same evening. The railway want me to pay £215 to make the journey.

An appropriate combination of walk on tickets can get the cost of the journey below £50 (no loop holes, just simple splits). If fares were simplified how much would I need to pay.

I'll give you a clue - it won't be less than £50 but I bet it'll be more than £200.

 

[yorkie]

But there is an alternative intuition - which is that if you're one of 500 people on a train, the company need only take a small amount from each of you to pay for the cost of the service; whereas if you're one of 25 on a train, you could argue that you should be contributing a lot more.

That's just as illogical as saying electricity should be cheaper at times of peak demand. It's completely flawed.

Having just looked up the definition of intuition, I'd say any such claim is the complete and utter opposite of intuition!

 

[Bletchleyite]

So you would remove the current "West of Swansea/Malvern/Shrewsbury" element of long distance ticketing, resulting in those passengers having no option but to buy the most expensive tickets because of where they live?
In my case I could not get home from London after the end of the afternoon period!

Capping out Anytime fares is probably a better way to do this, together with offering Advances at suitable rates.

That is not the way to encourage passengers to use the railway, especially for long distance leisure use.

How is it not? If it were revenue neutral the price of singles would reduce accordingly to very close to half the present returns (as few people make return journeys).

Why? How does that encourage passengers?

By removing the complexity and bad publicity about stopping short etc and making the system more intuitive.

making life even more complicated both for the passenger and the staff!

It's way simpler. Excesses are a faff and can't be done at TVMs.

Don't you like First Class? Or are your figures wrong? If the Standard is £100 by your figures that would make the First £260!! Again, no encouragement for people to use it.

160% of £100 is £160, not £260. 160% *of*, not added to.

 

[Bletchleyite]

No chance of ant actual reform happening, and I would oppose anything that results in higher fares.

Do you mean higher fares per passenger mile (or similar) i.e. revenue neutral, or are you opposed to any change that would mean any one passenger pays more?

 

[Albion91]

That's just as illogical as saying electricity should be cheaper at times of peak demand. It's completely flawed.

Having just looked up the definition of intuition, I'd say any such claim is the complete and utter opposite of intuition!

That's not the same at all!

Suppose running a train from Northampton to London costs the TOC £1000.

If there are 100 people on it, then £10 each covers the costs of the TOC.
If there are 10 people on it, then each customer has to pay £100 each to cover the costs.

The whole point turns on the fact that the more people that share the train, the cheaper it is to run per passenger. That doesn't apply to electricity where each individual consumes their own energy.

 

[JamesRowden]

That's not the same at all!

Suppose running a train from Northampton to London costs the TOC £1000.

If there are 100 people on it, then £10 each covers the costs of the TOC.
If there are 10 people on it, then each customer has to pay £100 each to cover the costs.

The whole point turns on the fact that the more people that share the train, the cheaper it is to run per passenger. That doesn't apply to electricity where each individual consumes their own energy.

Extra passengers boarding non-full off-peak trains cost the rail industry pretty much nothing. The capacity improvements required to carry additional peak passengers (infastructure/trains) cost money.

The quantity of passengers using an off-peak service should affect the frequency / train length of the off-peak service rather than the fares (except for the non-linear relationship between fares and subsequent attractiveness of the service to potential customers).

 

[Albion91]

Extra passengers boarding non-full off-peak trains cost the rail industry pretty much nothing. The capacity improvements required to carry additional peak passengers (infastructure/trains) cost money.

The quantity of passengers using an off-peak service should affect the frequency / train length of the off-peak service rather than the fares (except for the non-linear relationship between fares and subsequent attractiveness of the service to potential customers).

But aren't you excluding the cost of running the train itself? Surely that's the primary expenditure?

 

[JamesRowden]

But aren't you excluding the cost of running the train itself? Surely that's the primary expenditure?

That's what the off peak fares are paying for. The cost of making additional use of the assets which are required to meet the peak passengers' requirements. Just energy, staff hours and some extra maintenance.

My point is that off-peak trains won't be as empty as you're suggesting. Just shorter and/or less frequent (unless the peak service uses trains which can't be shortened with only 1tph max during the peak).

 

[Randomer]

I don't pretend to have a 100% solution but a couple of ideas from my travels round Europe come to mind.

1) Simplify advance ticketing: Tickets are sold as X number of days (or hours) in advance = x % discount from anytime fare. So a ticket purchased 90 days in advance could be at 90% discount increasing every 10 days or so (obviously this would be an extreme example).

This doesn't deal with demand pricing but I'd argue that the opacity of the availability in the current advance system doesn't effectively deal with it either, likewise offering advance tickets with less than 5% discount off the anytime single fare confuses people (Crosscountry looking at you ).

2) In a perfect world go for the Netherlands model of pricing per km (probably mile here) with differentials for mode of transport and possibly quality. E.g. good quality intercity stock costs x per mile, commuter unit y per mile and local stopper costs z per mile which would help regulate the situation with commuters piling on to intercity services at peak times. Frankly this would require complete government control over pricing rather than the silly situation of partial regulation we now have so feels pretty unlikely.

 

[Llanigraham]

Capping out Anytime fares is probably a better way to do this, together with offering Advances at suitable rates.

How does that answer my "problem" or anyone else in that position? It doesn't, it just means that it would be impractical for me to travel at your "peak times".

How is it not? If it were revenue neutral the price of singles would reduce accordingly to very close to half the present returns (as few people make return journeys).

Would they? I very much doubt it.
And where do you get the idea that few people make return journeys?

By removing the complexity and bad publicity about stopping short etc and making the system more intuitive.

Take the "informed" amateur hat off and become a normal passenger who has no interest in these matters but just wants to catch a train. They have no interest in this situation, so therefore you have made it more complicated.

It's way simpler. Excesses are a faff and can't be done at TVMs.

Again, not to Joe Public and you are making life more complicated.

160% of £100 is £160, not £260. 160% *of*, not added to.

OK, but why?
What do you have against 1st Class?

 

[Albion91]

That's what the off peak fares are paying for. The cost of making additional use of the assets which are required to meet the peak passengers' requirements. Just energy, staff hours and some extra maintenance.

My point is that off-peak trains won't be as empty as you're suggesting. Just shorter and/or less frequent (unless the peak service uses trains which can't be shortened with only 1tph max during the peak).

Ah I see. I hadn't factored in that the same physical train would be used.

 

[yorkie]

That's not the same at all!

It is the same principle.

Suppose running a train from Northampton to London costs the TOC £1000

You can't calculate it like that. You have to consider all of the company's costs.

If there are 100 people on it, then £10 each covers the costs of the TOC.
If there are 10 people on it, then each customer has to pay £100 each to cover the costs.

Good luck with such a pricing model. Rewarding people for travelling at the busiest times would create even more problems, and increase costs even further.

The whole point turns on the fact that the more people that share the train, the cheaper it is to run per passenger. That doesn't apply to electricity where each individual consumes their own energy.

That isn't the correct logic. If the demand for both electricity and rail travel was constant, with no peak demands, then fewer costs would be incurred.

Of course that would never happen, so a lot of additional resources have to be brought into use at times of peak demand. These extra resources cost money.

 

[yorkie]

1) Simplify advance ticketing: Tickets are sold as X number of days (or hours) in advance = x % discount from anytime fare. So a ticket purchased 90 days in advance could be at 90% discount increasing every 10 days or so (obviously this would be an extreme example).

What tangible benefits would this bring?

I cannot see how this would make anything simpler for customers making a journey.

I can think of disbenefits: trains that are not very well loaded would go up unnecessarily in price.

This doesn't deal with demand pricing but I'd argue that the opacity of the availability in the current advance system doesn't effectively deal with it either, likewise offering advance tickets with less than 5% discount off the anytime single fare confuses people (Crosscountry looking at you ).

I agree it is wrong to sell expensive restrictive Advance fares at close to (or, in some cases higher) than the flexible walk-up fare.

2) In a perfect world go for the Netherlands model of pricing per km (probably mile here) with differentials for mode of transport and possibly quality. E.g. good quality intercity stock costs x per mile, commuter unit y per mile and local stopper costs z per mile which would help regulate the situation with commuters piling on to intercity services at peak times. Frankly this would require complete government control over pricing rather than the silly situation of partial regulation we now have so feels pretty unlikely.

Never going to happen, and what would journeys like York to Whitby cost, and is York to Leeds intercity or commuter?

 

[tbtc]

1. Standardise peak/off peak timings, probably based on the idea of "no arrival into a list of big city zones between 0600-1000, no departure from a list of big city zones between 1600-1900" or somesuch, passing through counts as arriving and departing". Not 100% sure how to handle journeys not involving the big city zones.

5. For all walk-up fares, First Class is 160% of all Standard fares. First Class offerings to be adjusted accordingly.

These two points sound nice on paper but ignore the fact that different markets have different levels of demand.

Some routes have a "rush hour" that is just about an hour. London has one that can last two or three hours.

And then where do you draw the line over what is a "big city" or not? Some "big cities" have more capacity than others (or less rail commuting, due to lack of suburban stations), so less need of peak fares to price people off services.

Similarly, some markets have sufficient First Class to justify people paying double the Standard fare and demanding lots of "perks" (First Class Lounges, complimentary food and drink) and other lines only really have First Class to "guarantee" people a seat, but you'll never get them to pay such a big premium.

All of this stuff sounds nice on paper but I think that local markets and local demand probably justify local solutions (rather than any heavy-handed attempt to make everything the same).

2. Single fare pricing, i.e. no discount for purchase of a return ticket, though I think I would retain the idea that if you purchase two singles (any price level, any route) for the same journey in both directions in the same transaction over a given distance (same as for the one/two day distinction), the second (return half) is valid 30 days. Otherwise all singles valid for one day (0430 on day 2) up to a given distance, two days after (0430 on day 3).

4. Abolish excesses entirely, to be replaced by refund and reissue. No admin fee if the ticket has the same date and either origin or destination as the original. Advances refundable against admin fee if another ticket for the same origin and destination is purchased at the same time as the refund.

These two ideas sound like a great one for fare-dodgers. You'd just buy the cheapest single on a route and be able to upgrade to the full length journey. Break your journey whenever you want. Plus, Guards would be less likely to check if the maximum they could sell you would be a single ticket.

Also, most people make simple return journeys during a day/ week/ month. A cheaper return makes sense for them.

Many enthusiasts make quirkier journeys and therefore frame the argument in terms more suitable to those.

So you would remove the current "West of Swansea/Malvern/Shrewsbury" element of long distance ticketing, resulting in those passengers having no option but to buy the most expensive tickets because of where they live?
In my case I could not get home from London after the end of the afternoon period!

At the moment, a passenger from London to Birmingham/ Cardiff at peak times must pay a peak ticket. But a passenger for a rural destination much further west can travel on a cheaper off-peak ticket.

Under other circumstances, people travelling longer distances would be expected to pay more, not pay less.

2) In a perfect world go for the Netherlands model of pricing per km (probably mile here) with differentials for mode of transport and possibly quality. E.g. good quality intercity stock costs x per mile, commuter unit y per mile and local stopper costs z per mile which would help regulate the situation with commuters piling on to intercity services at peak times. Frankly this would require complete government control over pricing rather than the silly situation of partial regulation we now have so feels pretty unlikely.

I've seen this argument before, and it sounds okay on paper, but there's no way that you can treat UK lines as black/white "intercity" versus "commuter" versus "local". Sometimes a long distance service is limited stop leaving a big city but becomes a "stopper" at the far end of its journey.

Is a 185 an "Intercity" train? Or a 350? How many services a day (/what percentage) does a line need to have before it becomes "Intercity"?

 

[bspahh]

If fares are simplified it will result in increases.

I regularly travel from Stevenage to Bath to to watch rugby. I catch a train from Paddington around 1730, returning later the same evening. The railway want me to pay £215 to make the journey.

An appropriate combination of walk on tickets can get the cost of the journey below £50 (no loop holes, just simple splits). If fares were simplified how much would I need to pay.

I'll give you a clue - it won't be less than £50 but I bet it'll be more than £200.

A lot of people don't know how to get split tickets, and to find the cheaper fares. Even if they do pay a £200 fare once, they learn that trains are expensive, and would be discouraged from checking the price again. Simpler tickets, with prices that are more predictable, will attract more passengers.