Consider a journey from Stevenage to London Terminals:
Anytime Day Return £23.30
7 Day Season £99.10
Monthly Season £380.60
Annual Season £3,964
A season ticket is poor value for this journey and many people buy daily tickets if they work from home one day a week.
A season ticket only makes sense if you purchase an annual and at almost £4k is a significant sum for someone aged 26-30 in 'generation rent' towards the start of their career when earnings are at the lower end of the scale. Even £23.30 for a daily ticket is high so the 26-30 railcard offers the opportunity to reduce the cost of an Anytime Day Return to £15.40. This is far better value than an annual season ticket and meets a Government aspiration to do something for 'generation rent'.
Hi Hadders. I know that we disagree about whether season tickets are good value, but as you've brought the comparison of SVG to STP/KGX into the discussion, I'll mention this:
For the type of travel that seasons are designed, i.e. Five days per week except a sick/holiday allowance, the £3964 annual season represents an
Anytime return journey to London Terminals for £17.08. That is a discount of more than 26%. An Off-Peak 'Cheap' Day Return ticket for the same journey is £18.40 (just a 21% discount) and with a B1 restriction, bars commencing the up journey before 09.30. Then there's a Super Off-Peak Day Return ticket for that journey at £17.90 (a 23% discount) with a TN restriction that bars arrival in London before
10:54 and also bars return travel in the evening peak.
Given that the railway doesn't need any more travellers in the peaks* the sale of Anytime season tickets discounted below the price of very restricted off-peak tickets where passengers travel at the convenience of the railway using spare capacity sounds like a pretty good deal at the expense of off-peak travellers to me.
* Excepting the current situation with very limited travelling to work, of course it may be that the volume of commuters is reduced permanently through homeworking. That would benefit the railway greatly with less congestion, better use of (maybe less) rolling stock, and an opportunity to introduce more comfortable trains with less emphasis on gross capacity with an aim to capture more of the leisure market.