Do rail fares need to be made simpler?

[yorkie]

A lot of people don't know how to get split tickets and to find the cheaper fares.

For the majority of cases all they need to do is book on Trainsplit.com

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.

I do not think Government policy is to attract more customers to rail; the policies of raising fares to ludicrous levels appear to be designed to shift people onto the roads. Many train companies do not appear to be bothered if people are lost to the rail industry either.

Simpler fares will have fewer restrictions and be more expensive, so will not attract customers.

If anyone can propose a system that is genuinely simpler and does not result in fare rises and is politically acceptable in the current political climate, I would be shocked, because I am confident it is physically impossible.

 

[Hadders]

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.

But how much would it cost if fares were simplified? I'd love it to be £50 but you just know the way things work in this country it'd be £200.

 

[Starmill]

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.

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

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

Perhaps Llanigraham has mistaken Bletchleyite fo DarloRich?

 

[najaB]

If anyone can propose a system that is genuinely simpler and does not result in fare rises

Are *any* rises allowed at all?

 

[Richard_B]

the underlying problem is not really that the fares structure is too complicated, really it's that the journeys the passengers want to make are too complicated..

For example, a common journey I make is Exeter to Cambridge and then return a couple of days later. I could (and have) made this journey from starting at any of 4 stations in Exeter (St davids, central, James, pinhoe). There are 3 sensible ways of getting to London - via Salisbury, via B&H or via Bristol. There are then 2 sensible ways of doing London to Cambridge. Sometimes it may be faster to use Finsbury Park rather than Kings X or Liverpool St. Already there are way more than 10 permutations and that's before timing is considered. If distance based pricing is used for the journey - what distances are taken? How does that distance base fare change at peak times? Can I keep the flexibility of routes?

While there are certain anomalies that could be fixed - as soon as you start trying to charge a specific fare to travel *a distance* at *a specific time* then anyone who wants flexibility gets thrown under the proverbial bus. And while it may be simpler I don't think less flexibility is better.

 

[BigCj34]

the underlying problem is not really that the fares structure is too complicated, really it's that the journeys the passengers want to make are too complicated..

For example, a common journey I make is Exeter to Cambridge and then return a couple of days later. I could (and have) made this journey from starting at any of 4 stations in Exeter (St davids, central, James, pinhoe). There are 3 sensible ways of getting to London - via Salisbury, via B&H or via Bristol. There are then 2 sensible ways of doing London to Cambridge. Sometimes it may be faster to use Finsbury Park rather than Kings X or Liverpool St. Already there are way more than 10 permutations and that's before timing is considered. If distance based pricing is used for the journey - what distances are taken? How does that distance base fare change at peak times? Can I keep the flexibility of routes?

While there are certain anomalies that could be fixed - as soon as you start trying to charge a specific fare to travel *a distance* at *a specific time* then anyone who wants flexibility gets thrown under the proverbial bus. And while it may be simpler I don't think less flexibility is better.

Ì would have to disagree with you here, split ticket savings can often be found while being on the same train.

 

[Bletchleyite]

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.

Yet you can technically (though don't have an absolute right to) do this now with an excess, and most short distance walk up fares permit BoJ.

By the way - that's exactly how a lot of routes can work in Japan - you use the "fare adjust" machine to pay the correct fare before passing the barriers. When I went there a friend advised it was the easiest way to pay the correct fare - pay the minimum and adjust before leaving - sort of an old fashioned version of how Oyster works.

 

[FenMan]

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.

Effectively this is the approach taken by rail companies in those US cities where heavy rail is a marginal transport mode. A handful of services are run in the weekday peaks and that's it. The way their sums add up, it's revenue negative to provide a full-day service unless ticket prices are increased to eye-watering levels (which would be self-defeating).

Thank goodness for the UK approach of "we've got the infrastructure - let's use it intensively all day, everyday." This approach is successful because tickets between the peaks are priced at levels to attract sufficient passengers to offset the marginal costs of running these services. This has the happy by-product of encouraging people to get the rail habit and reducing road congestion.

 

[RJ]

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?

You describe a situation where you're going out of your way to make the ticketing arrangements complicated - and foregoing the benefits of buying a through ticket. It looks pretty simple to me if you go to National Rail and seek a ticket to cover the journey being made.

If you want to save money, you can make a conscious decision to put work and research into it. The system is as complicated as you make it.

 

[anti-pacer]

You describe a situation where you're going out of your way to make the ticketing arrangements complicated - and foregoing the benefits of buying a through ticket. It looks pretty simple to me if you go to National Rail and seek a ticket to cover the journey being made.

If you want to save money, you can make a conscious decision to put work and research into it. The system is as complicated as you make it.

But my point is unless you're prepared to do this, you will end up paying often FAR more than you need to. A lot of people don't even know you can split tickets and wouldn't even think to do this.

It's not complicated for me as I am aware of how to bring the price down. I do it enough for people. However, for your average person on the street, they wouldn't have a clue so they pay a higher cost because they are often unaware that cheaper options apply.

As a slight comparison, take PPI. Most people who claim do so through companies, who then take up to 30% of whatever you are awarded. I did all mine directly. All were accepted and refunded, with all the money coming directly to me, after the tax that is deducted either way. Not many people I know were aware you could do this, so they've followed the only way they know. It's the same with train tickets. Yorkie mentioned earlier that people can use Trainsplit.com. Agreed, but how well advertised is it, and wouldn't you need to know about splitting tickets first in order to realise such a site exists?

 

[SS4]

It would be helpful but I do not for a moment think that any so-called simplification will benefit the passenger given the government's intentions to cut the amount of taxpayer money spent on rail although how this aligns with the Paris climate agreement is beyond me.

----

I would like to see Advance fares given as a percentage of the equivalent walk up fare before booking (Trainsplit manages this) so people can see how much they're actually saving compared to the more flexible ticket.

Season ticket discounts to be made clear compared to anytime tickets so the whiners will finally realise how much of the discount they actually get

Price per km (screw the anachronistic miles) combined with zones is the pipe dream: a premium for fast services (defined by average speed for the whole journey) and for London/other urban areas with overcrowding

Tickets should be available on mobile via QR code/NFC as well as on paper (the act of collecting the paper ticket would render the QR/NFC code invalid) and electronic tickets can be transferred - I can't see it being too difficult technologically to do this.


For a simplification you'd need to look at all flows, a blanket restriction like 2V only works in major cities for example but due to sheer numbers it's basically impossible to do fairly.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Tickets should be available on mobile via QR code/NFC as well as on paper (the act of collecting the paper ticket would render the QR/NFC code invalid) and electronic tickets can be transferred - I can't see it being too difficult technologically to do this.

Even better, a paper ticket just to have the same QR code and to be a reference to the ticket in the database - so you might have it on your phone and on paper and show a different one to each guard/barrier but it still works. It does require fully online "gripping", but that would already be possible using software alone on many routes now, and is likely to be possible everywhere within 10 years.

 

[yorkie]

But my point is unless you're prepared to do this, you will end up paying often FAR more than you need to. A lot of people don't even know you can split tickets and wouldn't even think to do this.

If people choose to make it complex, that is their choice.

It appears you are confusing simplicity for cheapness?

And for the vast majority of journeys where "splitting" is cheaper, there is no need to do any work or research yourself; simply use trainsplit.com, which does it all for you, gives you one itinerary, one collection reference. Is that not simple?

It's not complicated for me as I am aware of how to bring the price down. I do it enough for people. However, for your average person on the street, they wouldn't have a clue so they pay a higher cost because they are often unaware that cheaper options apply.

Can the 'average' person not use Trainsplit to achieve this?

Yorkie mentioned earlier that people can use Trainsplit.com. Agreed, but how well advertised is it, and wouldn't you need to know about splitting tickets first in order to realise such a site exists?

Feel free to spread the word !

 

[PeterC]

So basically fares need to be complicated beause every possible edge case dreamed up by a dedicated trainspotter has to be catered for.

 

[SS4]

So basically fares need to be complicated beause every possible edge case dreamed up by a dedicated trainspotter has to be catered for.

Train fares are actually pretty simple when you think about it. You can buy tickets to/from any pair of stations in GB and even abroad from certain stations. Even better there are journey planners out there which will tell you which tickets are valid at and around the time given. Very simple.

What I suspect you (and OP) mean is that it's too expensive. OP, after spending some of his own time (which has its own value) found the same journey for cheaper. In my eyes this is no different to going to a different supermarket because baked beans are cheaper there and you really fancy beans on toast for breakfast.

It's also very easy to say that fares are too complicated (read: expensive) and indeed we hear it every year. Much more difficult is proposing how the simplification would work - bonus points if you can pull it off without making the passenger worse off in terms of pay and conditions. Like Yorkie I am confident it's impossible in the current political climate.

Even better, a paper ticket just to have the same QR code and to be a reference to the ticket in the database - so you might have it on your phone and on paper and show a different one to each guard/barrier but it still works. It does require fully online "gripping", but that would already be possible using software alone on many routes now, and is likely to be possible everywhere within 10 years.

Good idea, I never thought of that one and it would certainly improve the passenger experience. Perhaps railcard data could also be queried online?

 

[bussnapperwm]

We should follow the Uber model. £1.40 base fare + 10p per Mile + 10p per timetable minute. Double fare at peaks. Double fare for First Class (with appropriate doubling for peaks). No returns
To enforce this all tickets will be on Smartcards which can be topped up at stations and worked by touching in/out on board a train (readers would be right by doors)

 

[Howardh]

Something's wrong with the system where it is possible for a first-class ticket to be cheaper than a standard for the same journey (been there, done that with Virgin Manchester - London).

Yes, walk-on tickets are generally expensive (and advance fares bargains) but our whole system is too complex - I feel sorry for first-time users and tourists!

I would like to see things simplified - sure some would be worse off; but if we had a simple system now and complicated things then some would be worse off as well.

Single tickets only, charged at peak fares.
Off-peak singles would be a % of that peak fare (40%?? 30??)
Tickets bought 24 hrs in advance over a certain distance = 20% off peak/offpeak
Tickets bought 7 days in advance over a certain distance 30% off
Tickets bought 14 days in advance over a certain distance 60% off

Example - a walk-on standard ticket Manchester - London is £82 off-peak. So bought 14 days in advance brings it down to £32.80 - probably more than the best savers but a saving you know you are gonna get when booking.

I suppose many on here will find thousands of holes in that - I'll give them one, it means the peak fares to London from Manchester - for example could be a bit less than they are now (£169) thus depriving the companies of revenue and possibly overcrowding the trains > but the percentages given are only a suggestion (think "let's" on The Bus"!!) - but that system would be simpler, and base fares worked out on distance based on zones.

 

[FenMan]

We should follow the Uber model. £1.40 base fare + 10p per Mile + 10p per timetable minute. Double fare at peaks. Double fare for First Class (with appropriate doubling for peaks). No returns
To enforce this all tickets will be on Smartcards which can be topped up at stations and worked by touching in/out on board a train (readers would be right by doors)

That would mean an off peak return fare for a journey I undertake regularly would be £69.80. Peak it would be £139.60.

To compare, the current peak day return is £65.60 and the off peak day fare is £53.80.

Possibly more work needed!

 

[Richard_B]

We should follow the Uber model. £1.40 base fare + 10p per Mile + 10p per timetable minute. Double fare at peaks. Double fare for First Class (with appropriate doubling for peaks). No returns
To enforce this all tickets will be on Smartcards which can be topped up at stations and worked by touching in/out on board a train (readers would be right by doors)

How does this not kill dwell times on busy services ?
What is the penalty for not tapping out?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Example - a walk-on standard ticket Manchester - London is £82 off-peak. So bought 14 days in advance brings it down to £32.80 - probably more than the best savers but a saving you know you are gonna get when booking.

But that doesn't achieve yield management (direct people away from busy trains), it just gets the railway a bit of extra up-front cash flow.

That kind of advance booking works well for National Express, as they can book extra capacity via duplicates quite easily. The railway is stuck with fixed formations with limited scope to re-jig, so they need to yield manage, not just get advance bookings. Indeed, the move is to remove the Advance deadlines altogether, and simply to price each train dynamically, just as the low-cost airlines now do.

Indeed, the simplest fare system is a bit more like the French one:
- IC - compulsory reservations, per-train yield managed pricing
- Regional - Anytime singles only (returns available at twice single fare, possibly discounted day returns available for journeys starting after 9am)

TBH, long-term, I think it's roughly here we will end up. I would, for example, be amazed if HS2 had walk-up fares. By that I don't mean you won't be able to walk up and buy a ticket - you will, just as you can on Ryanair - but the price for doing so will be swingeingly high and so hardly anyone will do it. Bonus for the railway: no ticket offices needed[1].

I doubt many on here would like it, though! However, I bet the vast majority of passengers wouldn't unduly object to it.

[1] Cineworld has managed to close all its box offices simply by introducing advanced booking and seat selection - people book online to secure a good seat, so no need for them any more, the odd small number of walk-up sales are done at the food counters. And it's done that without even messing with prices.

 

[anti-pacer]

If people choose to make it complex, that is their choice.

It appears you are confusing simplicity for cheapness?

And for the vast majority of journeys where "splitting" is cheaper, there is no need to do any work or research yourself; simply use trainsplit.com, which does it all for you, gives you one itinerary, one collection reference. Is that not simple?

Can the 'average' person not use Trainsplit to achieve this?

Feel free to spread the word !

Yes Yorkie, I get that they can use "Trainsplit.com" but how would they know in the first place that such a site exists? You know, and I know, but we are "in the know". Most people aren't. Is that their fault?

If your 'average' person knew about the site I'm sure they would gladly use it.

As for making it 'complex'. For my own journeys I am happy to play about on internet to get the cheapest fares. For example, when I go to Bristol on day trips from Wakefield, I generally (not always) book Wakefield-Sheffield-Derby-Birmingham-Cheltenham-Bristol, and on average I pay between £50-£55 instead of over £100. OK it means a wallet full of tickets, but I'd rather have that than paying almost double.

Some people may not wish to go to these lengths, and that's their choice, but they should at least be aware of the options. If ticket splitting was common knowledge for "Joe Public", I'm sure they could Google to see if any sites exist. However, as I say, they'd need to have heard of ticket splitting first.

Surely you don't disagree with this..... do you? hock:

 

[bussnapperwm]

How does this not kill dwell times on busy services ?
What is the penalty for not tapping out?

I forgot about dwell times. In that case barrier ALL stations and not these half sized ones either. Full body height barriers. Stations where only one train/day or less to be shut. That'll solve the need for no penalty fare

 

[najaB]

I forgot about dwell times. In that case barrier ALL stations and not these half sized ones either. Full body height barriers. Stations where only one train/day or less to be shut. That'll solve the need for no penalty fare

I'm never sure if posts like this are meant to be serious or not, but here goes...

So, we've moved from trying to simplify fares to (a) proliferate spending on ticket barriers; and (b) the mass closure of smaller stations. Good job!

 

[Howardh]

But that doesn't achieve yield management (direct people away from busy trains), it just gets the railway a bit of extra up-front cash flow.

That kind of advance booking works well for National Express, as they can book extra capacity via duplicates quite easily. The railway is stuck with fixed formations with limited scope to re-jig, so they need to yield manage, not just get advance bookings. Indeed, the move is to remove the Advance deadlines altogether, and simply to price each train dynamically, just as the low-cost airlines now do.

Indeed, the simplest fare system is a bit more like the French one:
- IC - compulsory reservations, per-train yield managed pricing
- Regional - Anytime singles only (returns available at twice single fare, possibly discounted day returns available for journeys starting after 9am)

TBH, long-term, I think it's roughly here we will end up. I would, for example, be amazed if HS2 had walk-up fares. By that I don't mean you won't be able to walk up and buy a ticket - you will, just as you can on Ryanair - but the price for doing so will be swingeingly high and so hardly anyone will do it. Bonus for the railway: no ticket offices needed[1].

I doubt many on here would like it, though! However, I bet the vast majority of passengers wouldn't unduly object to it.

[1] Cineworld has managed to close all its box offices simply by introducing advanced booking and seat selection - people book online to secure a good seat, so no need for them any more, the odd small number of walk-up sales are done at the food counters. And it's done that without even messing with prices.

Quickie - if an airline has empty seats an hour before departing, don't they drop walk-on fares rather than have an empty seat? No idea - never tried it; except that sometimes when I look up air fares for the following day some look ridiculously cheap (Ryanair/Jet2 to name two) - but of course it's less critical for trains to have empty seats.

Would be an interesting conversation - a train leaves fro Euston tomorrow and you know it's got empty seats, "Dear Virgin, your train leaves tomorrow but the walk-on fare is eighty smackers. I can't afford that and don't have to travel, but if you can reduce it to £20 you have a fare you wouldn't otherwise have had".
"Forty".
"Thirty".
"Done..."

 

[Bletchleyite]

Generally no these days, as they've realised that charging one person £350 because they missed their flight and have no choice is more profitable than charging 10 people £25.

 

[adrock1976]

In relation to simplifying fares, the only thing I can think of that may be remotely acceptable is for the present flexible Open/Saver/Supersaver/Cheap Day Returns to increase gradually at the fares round, but for the single flexible fares to reduce by the same amount.

Eventually, there will be a point that is reached where the Return is more or less double the price of the Single. This would make it easier to have single journey pricing.

Other than that, I cannot think of anything else suitable.

 

[Starmill]

There are some occasions where an Advance ticket on the day will be cheaper than one purchased... well, in Advance.

I don't know if this is going to work or not, but I have had this work in the past so I will test it again now if anyone would like to join me.

Tomorrow's from Plymouth to Totnes (typically a very lightly loaded 5 car Voyager that only goes to Birmingham New Street, and running just 20 minutes behind a London Paddington service that calls at the same 5 next stations) is currently on sale for £6.10 Advance. For a whopping 20p saving over the Off-Peak Day Single you'd have to be crazy to buy that now as. Let's check again tomorrow morning and see if there isn't a £2.80 single on sale.

Of course, if you were coming back, an Off-Peak Day Return is a mere 30p more at £6.40. A First Class Advance is also £6.10, against the £12.90 First Anytime Day Single.

I will also leave a simpler example. Right now (2209, 11/09) there is no Advance availability on any Leicester to Birmingham New Street trains all day on Tuesday 12/09 - but you can bet that there will be some Advance tickets available during the day tomorrow. There is one available for the final train tonight (the 2255) right now, for £9.10, rather than the Off-Peak Day Single fare of £13.90.

 

[sheff1]

Train fares are actually pretty simple when you think about it. You can buy tickets to/from any pair of stations in GB ...

Actually, you cannot. Try Eccles to Wilmslow for example.

 

[anti-pacer]

Actually, you cannot. Try Eccles to Wilmslow for example.

Why is that not possible?

 

[Starmill]

There are some occasions where an Advance ticket on the day will be cheaper than one purchased... well, in Advance.

I don't know if this is going to work or not, but I have had this work in the past so I will test it again now if anyone would like to join me.

Tomorrow's from Plymouth to Totnes (typically a very lightly loaded 5 car Voyager that only goes to Birmingham New Street, and running just 20 minutes behind a London Paddington service that calls at the same 5 next stations) is currently on sale for £6.10 Advance. For a whopping 20p saving over the Off-Peak Day Single you'd have to be crazy to buy that now as. Let's check again tomorrow morning and see if there isn't a £2.80 single on sale.

Of course, if you were coming back, an Off-Peak Day Return is a mere 30p more at £6.40. A First Class Advance is also £6.10, against the £12.90 First Anytime Day Single.

I will also leave a simpler example. Right now (2209, 11/09) there is no Advance availability on any Leicester to Birmingham New Street trains all day on Tuesday 12/09 - but you can bet that there will be some Advance tickets available during the day tomorrow. There is one available for the final train tonight (the 2255) right now, for £9.10, rather than the Off-Peak Day Single fare of £13.90.

Returning to these examples the 1825 from Plymouth to Totnes is now on sale, 2 hours before departure, at £2.80, which is a lot cheaper than the £6.10 it was on sale for yesterday!

Every train that originates east of Leicester for all of the rest of the day currently has an Advance cheaper than the cheapest walk-on ticket that is valid for that time, despite there being no Advances available whatsoever yesterday. Even the 1648 which departs in 20 minutes has an Advance available at £15, which is cheaper than the £17.60 Off-Peak Single.