Cut fares (Transport Focus) and open station facilities (my plea)

[Pugwash]

The only way to get people back travelling longer term is to lower all fares.

Railcards are for people to travel multiple times, people need to be encouraged back to use the railway again the first time after lockdown.

 

[philosopher]

A smart carnet would be nice, a bit like London's contactless weekly billing. If you did just one journey in the week, you'd pay top whack. If you did 5 return trips, you'd get a price equivalent to annual season. With a sliding scale in between.

A smart card based carnet where you get two free return trips for every 10 journeys made on that route within a 30, 60 or 90 day period I think would work well. It would be simple to understand.

 

[HSTEd]

The whole problem with convincing people to give up their cars is that public trasnport struggles to meet the flexibility you get from having a car.

Creating fare systems optimised for making the same journey over and over again doesn't really help this at all!

You just need walk up fares to be cheap - that is the primary thing that would make a difference.
And you need public transport integration en masse.

 

[Howardh]

The whole problem with convincing people to give up their cars is that public trasnport struggles to meet the flexibility you get from having a car.

Creating fare systems optimised for making the same journey over and over again doesn't really help this at all!

You just need walk up fares to be cheap - that is the primary thing that would make a difference.
And you need public transport integration en masse.

My local bus company charges £2.80, single from my stop into town. However you can go on-line and have 10 m/e tickets sent to you for £20 and there's no time limit in using them. There's the technology there for the TOC's to do something similar, so if a communter knows they will make a minimum of (say) 10 commutes - or any convenient number - to the office within a month or so, they could buy an e/m-book of return trips at significant discount. I think if that route was followed (pun not intended!) season-tickets could be phased out.

 

[Mojo]

Possibly, but there are numerous signs telling pax not to travel at peak times if they can avoid, so that would eb a counter argument.

The issue is, that “peak” times at the moment (at least into and around London) are actually the quietest times of the day! I don’t know what every Toc are doing, but TfL are advising customers that 08.15 and afterwards are “quiet.”

 

[Baxenden Bank]

My local bus company charges £2.80, single from my stop into town. However you can go on-line and have 10 m/e tickets sent to you for £20 and there's no time limit in using them. There's the technology there for the TOC's to do something similar, so if a communter knows they will make a minimum of (say) 10 commutes - or any convenient number - to the office within a month or so, they could buy an e/m-book of return trips at significant discount. I think if that route was followed (pun not intended!) season-tickets could be phased out.

Utilising smart technology you could easily have a system where, as you accumalate trips, the unit cost comes down. First trip £10, second £9.90 and so on. A bit of clever calculation could make the cost for 220 trips (or the number assumed made by the standard 5 day per week commuter) the same as now. £10 would be the normal ticket price, so no saving over the one-off tripper, then again why should there be, the costs are the same. I would do it over a rolling period, certainly longer than a month. At what point do current season tickets cease to get any cheaper pro-rata? Is it 13 weeks or something like that.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The issue is, that “peak” times at the moment (at least into and around London) are actually the quietest times of the day! I don’t know what every Toc are doing, but TfL are advising customers that 08.15 and afterwards are “quiet.”

There are plenty of 12-car "peak" LNR services (in normal times) where you'd get a whole bay to yourself every day if willing to use the coaches furthest from the barrier at Euston. It's the "off peak" 4-cars that were rammed.

Avanti are similar - the outrageous Anytime fares (and lack of smoothing using Advances - the price of those falls off a cliff as well) mean the busy time is "off peak" in the evening and Sunday afternoon.

 

[Howardh]

Utilising smart technology you could easily have a system where, as you accumalate trips, the unit cost comes down. First trip £10, second £9.90 and so on. A bit of clever calculation could make the cost for 220 trips (or the number assumed made by the standard 5 day per week commuter) the same as now. £10 would be the normal ticket price, so no saving over the one-off tripper, then again why should there be, the costs are the same. I would do it over a rolling period, certainly longer than a month. At what point do current season tickets cease to get any cheaper pro-rata? Is it 13 weeks or something like that.

Good idea. Of course if they accumulate only a few trips as they move jobs or some other eventuality, then they have lost more up-front than they would on a season ticket where I would expect a pro-rata refund. But other than that I think it's a possibility.
Might have to counter fraud such as A comes home, passes phone to B who does the same trip (eg Tring - London - day and same for evening night out) by having a card linked to the phone. Not exactly the great bank robbery, would only involve a saving of pennies, but I carry my senior card so something similar with photo ID linked to the phone number is possible if that needs attention.
Of course wou would eventually get to the lower limit quicker; so if the single journey starts at a tenner, once it gets to (say) £8.50 you can't get any lower.
So a "book of tickets" might be easier as it doesn't matter who uses them. But I'm being picky, I think there's something in your suggestion.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Good idea. Of course if they accumulate only a few trips as they move jobs or some other eventuality, then they have lost more up-front than they would on a season ticket where I would expect a pro-rata refund. But other than that I think it's a possibility.
Might have to counter fraud such as A comes home, passes phone to B who does the same trip (eg Tring - London - day and same for evening night out) by having a card linked to the phone. Not exactly the great bank robbery, would only involve a saving of pennies, but I carry my senior card so something similar with photo ID linked to the phone number is possible if that needs attention.
Of course wou would eventually get to the lower limit quicker; so if the single journey starts at a tenner, once it gets to (say) £8.50 you can't get any lower.
So a "book of tickets" might be easier as it doesn't matter who uses them. But I'm being picky, I think there's something in your suggestion.

I have no problem with people swapping passes around (it's not my business, i'm not losing money). So long as only one person uses it at a time - easily checked with scanning of tickets. Some bus companies allow season tickets to be passed around, others state they are non-transferable. It just needs to be estimated and built into the price.

I think the same idea could be applied to beer in pubs, to keep you loyal. The more you drink (within sensible limits per day/week), the lower the price becomes, to a lower limit.

Much the same as buy 10 return tickets (pints) then get a free one, but the gift keeps on giving down to the annual season ticket equivalent.

 

[Ianno87]

I have no problem with people swapping passes around (it's not my business, i'm not losing money). So long as only one person uses it at a time - easily checked with scanning of tickets. Some bus companies allow season tickets to be passed around, others state they are non-transferable. It just needs to be estimated and built into the price.

I think the same idea could be applied to beer in pubs, to keep you loyal. The more you drink (within sensible limits per day/week), the lower the price becomes, to a lower limit.

Much the same as buy 10 return tickets (pints) then get a free one, but the gift keeps on giving down to the annual season ticket equivalent.

Stagecoach have previously openly advertised their bus Megariders as "pass them to a friend when you're not using it".

Probably because it doesn't lose them much revenue in the grand scheme of things, and the flexibility/goodwill sells more Megariders as a result.

 

[crablab]

Thameslink/Great Northern do offer a carnet ticket: https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/prb225ca2e6e40ef93d44bccd007b205.aspx

10% off in a book of 5 or 10 tickets and valid for three months. You write in your use date on the ticket on the day of travel.

Issues:
- Only works between a small number of stations
- Physical tickets which need to be mailed to you, which don't go through a barrier (they are working on adding it to The Key)
- These are essentially one way singles - you need to buy two sets of carnets, one for your outbound and one for your inbound
- Flat discount - you don't save any more by buying more carnets
- Can't bundle a travelcard