I did indeed have the practicability (or not) of "part time seasons" in mind when I started that thread. There are just so many routes where as soon as you're making the same journey 2-3 times a week, a season blows everything else out of the water.
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Flexible Rail Season Tickets - 2/3 days per week to be introduced by June 2021
- Thread starter itwasntme
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I did indeed have the practicability (or not) of "part time seasons" in mind when I started that thread. There are just so many routes where as soon as you're making the same journey 2-3 times a week, a season blows everything else out of the water.
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Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
No, all that's required is a more reasonable price for commuter-distance Anytime fares, then just tap in and out with your debit card.
Reducing single fares considerably when Oyster was introduced did not kill TfL.
Current fares are in this weird no-mans-land of (using the Home Counties as an example) a Home Counties-London commute will case £50/day for an 0900-ish arrival in the office, which is pretty unattractive compared to sitting at home for (essentially) free, if you're paying out of your own pocket (As opposed to travelling purely for a meeting). Even using a Carnet-like discount only brings this down to £45. At these rates, only travelling a couple of days a week and then a season ticket then looks attractive.
And then the "Hobsons Choice" of "If I buy a season ticket, will it actually be worth it?".
Personally (at current fares), I'd rather travel off-peak with a Network Card, and do some e-mails before leaving home or one the train, and cost myself considerably less and still getting a good few hours of office time.
There is probably scope to bring the daily fares down a bit to "price in" a few more people, but not so much that people having to travel anyway just end up paying less. I think post-Covid demand needs a bit of time to settle down to establish what, exactly, the "market price" of morning peak travel actually is. i.e. by doing nothing, do we end up returning to full or empty trains?
We also have to remember that those who have the option to work from home are those who are typically among those who are paid more. Those who have to travel five days a week, particularly in "key worker" jobs, must not be punished for having to travel every day to keep well-off "partial work from home" staff happy.
[I appreciate it isn't that simple but we do have to recognise that not everyone can work from home and to put up the fares of people who have no choice to go to a workplace five (or indeed more) days a week is unacceptable.]
No easy answer I agree, although if you must travel to work 5 days per week then I'd argue existing season tickets, whilst they have a high headline cost, still work out very favourably on a per-journey basis.
On the flip side, you might argue that people who do choose to travel fewer days per week should not be "penalised" for doing so by a high fare on the days they do travel. You can still be on a moderate salary (lets say £40k) and yet find £50-a-throw travel to the office a financial barrier. One might argue that attracting more "work from home" types reduces the the burden of driving revenue purely from "key worker" commuting. i.e. we don't want to end up with a burden of fares rises to meet costs falling purely on "key workers" because everyone else is working from home.
Purple Orange
On Moderation
I welcome the idea of flexi-season tickets with open arms. The questions I would have to those who think it’s unworkable is: does this exist anywhere already? Why should the rail industry not be actively seeking to introduce a way of working that can facilitate the tickets? If it brings in a greater volume of people than it would if nothing changes then the industry should be fighting tooth and nail to get this implemented.
That’s not necessarily true. If the effect is that you increase your costs of serving those passengers, while reducing the fares they pay, you could end up with the double whammy of losing income and having to fork out significantly more cash to meet the demand.
When the Treasury are suggesting that the railways cost too much, and demonstrating their special expertise in knowing the cost of everything and the value of nowt, we should not assume that the government will be willing to meet the gap.
Purple Orange
On Moderation
That’s not quite right. The issue as based on incremental margin as a result of attracting passengers. The cost of running a service should not change, but the upshot is individual passengers paying less for a season ticket but more individual passengers using the train. The effect may be no net increase or decrease in total passengers.
A station that sees 1 million passengers per annum with 4 trains per hour may, before the pandemic, have been serving 3,000 people, most of whom are on annual season tickets. After the pandemic, a station may still see 1 million passengers per annum with 4 trains per hour, but now serves 6,000 people. most of whom have 2-3 day flexi season tickets. The benefit is 3,000 people are not using their cars.
Perhaps they aren't aware of the consequences just yet.
bunnahabhain
Established Member
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Of the "Flexiseasons" that I am aware of they don't really represent a remarkably good saving unlike a normal season.
Mansfield to Nottingham
Flexiseason Peak 20 (20 returns in 3 months) - £150.10
Anytime Day Return - £7.90 (x 20 = £158)
1 Month Season = £121.40
Still, I suppose if your ticket doesn't get checked on the outward or return, and you don't scan it or activate it anywhere, and you aren't forced to activate it prior to your journey, they you could potentially get up to 3 months for £158 which does represent a massive saving.
Mansfield to Nottingham
Flexiseason Peak 20 (20 returns in 3 months) - £150.10
Anytime Day Return - £7.90 (x 20 = £158)
1 Month Season = £121.40
Still, I suppose if your ticket doesn't get checked on the outward or return, and you don't scan it or activate it anywhere, and you aren't forced to activate it prior to your journey, they you could potentially get up to 3 months for £158 which does represent a massive saving.
I worked out my existing annual season ticket last night from 2020, after around 160 (peak time) return journeys it had paid for itself, I'm also quite lucky in it being West Yorkshire PTE subsided so it also covered all rail journeys in West Yorkshire (+Zone 6 to Harrogate) so it was also well used for leisure travel and knocked quite a decent chunk of change off that as I could start all my further afield journeys at the border of West Yorkshire
There was also a £300ish saving in terms of an annual purchase rather than month by month, appreciate a lot of people probably can't afford a several thousand hit in one go although I found a 0% credit card very useful for this purpose!
So far this year I've been in to the office a whole 3 days and one of those days my journey was delayed over an hour, Northern kindly sent me a blank return journey ticket to use which if used strategically represents around a £40 - £50 value for my £10 delayed journey so that was nice
There was also a £300ish saving in terms of an annual purchase rather than month by month, appreciate a lot of people probably can't afford a several thousand hit in one go although I found a 0% credit card very useful for this purpose!
So far this year I've been in to the office a whole 3 days and one of those days my journey was delayed over an hour, Northern kindly sent me a blank return journey ticket to use which if used strategically represents around a £40 - £50 value for my £10 delayed journey so that was nice
PG
Established Member
I think you'll be hard pressed to find any one who sees one "free" day return journey as a decent enough reward for stumping up £150 in one go verses buying on the day. I can't imagine EMR sell a lot of those Flexiseasons for exactly that reason before folk even factor in the chance of not getting gripped once in a while!
bunnahabhain
Established Member
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I disagree, you may as well buy that type of flexiseason and use them over 3 months or until they run out, then buy another 20, if you don't get checked on any one day then you're quids in for that day. No different to the people who pay only when challenged. If the tickets had to be validated prior to boarding the train then it would be another matter because then there would be a disincentive to abuse the system.
They work on a touch in and out system, so if you board at Mansfield without touching in on the platform validator it would be treated as traveling without a ticket. Though I imagine there will be some give and take while people get used to it.
I find having the time limit on such products is usually too restrictive for my liking, so the value of the "free" journey is outweighed by the risk of not being getting chance to actually use all the tickets you paid for.
I'm of the view such flexible tickets should come with a much longer time limit on their use.
In which case you will need additional capacity on the days when more than 50% of them travel - the consensus seems to be that Mondays will be quiet and Fridays quieter.
Alternatively, you will have the same 3000 people still travelling but paying less, and still need most of the capacity.
Or something in between.
But is this about modal shift or responding to the WFH brigade?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Fridays are already quiet, but I am not sure I agree about Mondays. My preferred days if I did two a week would be Monday and Wednesday.
On the narrow point of rail system costs, you are discounting the costs both of implementing a system and servicing individual transactions, and then presuming that any extra passenger demand can be met within marginal capacity.
if you then introduce other, external, benefits (and reduced car use would be one), you also need to consider how that benefits (or not) the railway which is bearing the cost of that extra demand.
I think it will be more variable - pre-pandemic, there was one division at work whose only guaranteed day in the office was Friday, because that was when they could meet face to face and then do any work socials.
Personal taste: Mondays might be good for team meetings etc at the start of the week, but the benefit of a quiet office on a Friday to get stuff done without so many meetings (plus dress down in many offices too).
Purple Orange
On Moderation
It’s about both modal shift and those who will be working from home more. I take your point about more capacity on certain days. Going forward, I will be in the “WFH brigade” and my intention is to mix my WFH days. People want that flexibility and so do companies really.
On people’s points about Fridays being quiet, the fact there is that it is quiet because so many people are working from home. This isn’t a new concept and the opportunity for the railway is that with people making 3 trips to the office rather than 4, the cost of running a second car for the purpose of going to work is reduced.
I see BP have announced today that office based staff are expected to spend two days a week WFH from lockdown restrictions ease.
I expect many others will follow at least this model, even more days at home as office costs are looked at.
Just a couple of individuals but a friend whose office closed about 18 ago and they then relocated to space in their largest customers office was informed two weeks ago that she and others are now a permanent home worker as her company no longer wants to pay for the office accommodation.
I expect many others will follow at least this model, even more days at home as office costs are looked at.
Just a couple of individuals but a friend whose office closed about 18 ago and they then relocated to space in their largest customers office was informed two weeks ago that she and others are now a permanent home worker as her company no longer wants to pay for the office accommodation.
Lots of large firms have already moved staff onto home-based contracts, with relatively little or no choice in the matter for employees concerned. We are, after all, a year on now, and a contract amendment to reclassify the place of work to the home address of the employee was a straightforward, quick way of dealing with any permanent site closures. Expect these types of contracts to become markedly more common. The quid pro quo is that where employees are expected to be attending any meeting, even a relatively local one to them, they will be travelling for work and not commuting so expenses can be claimed.
Not necessarily entirely quick or cheap - the employer takes on other liabilities in that case. Mine still struggles to find the balance, and no announcements have come through yet.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Been the case for years. Most companies send their staff a desk checklist and they check off the items themselves.
Haywain
Veteran Member
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And that is regardless of home working.
Depends on how generous your employer is! Some make the claim procedure so onerous that it's effectively a waste of time trying to recover small amounts.
Others will flat out refuse, citing a 'flexible location of work' stipulation in company procedures, probably located at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the leopard'!
Deeply disappointing to see such terribly fussy behaviour, but yes, true.
My employer has moved all office based staff to a dual location contract of the office and home. The general expectation is that 40% of time will be spent at home and 60% in the office. From an HMRC point of view spending more than 40% of time in one location makes it a permanent work location. Travel to and from a permanent is normally at an employees own expense and so cannot usually be claimed on expenses.
This is what I would expect to happen. While employers may be making a saving on office space, they are also paying the extra IT costs and won't want the extra bill of paying people to travel to an office.
We had an email around the office a few years ago which suggested that regularly visiting another office for internal purposes, which was suggested as being at least one day every other week (ie 10% of time, let alone 40%), was potentially enough to be classed by the HMRC as regular commuting, and therefore potentially be subject to personal tax liability if expenses are paid. It would appear that this extends to people whose place of work is home but are called into an office every other week and that, even if it were paid as expenses, HMRC may come to consider it as a benefit in kind.
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