Post Covid Passenger Rebound

[Annetts key]

I would love to know what GWRs peak numbers are. I suspect some of that off peak usage is usage that is purposely avoiding the peak but would prefer to travel in the peak with sane pricing. Just a guess. I personally know of people who are doing just that when coming in from Bath and Bristol.

And…. This is at a time when we have extremely high amounts of absence and self-isolating because of what are now our highest ever Covid numbers.

The point is a "peak" fare is a "peak" fare for a reason - it's that you are looking to travel at the busiest time on the busiest trains. Funnily enough BR used to charge "peak" fares as well. So it's not some modern construct of the nasty privatised railway. So let's put the tinfoil hats away shall we ?

And every post of mine above agrees there should be peak fares. Although things might have got weird. If current peak fares are putting people off we might have a situation where peak trains are not the busy ones through over-disincentivising people to use them in the new world. Does that mean people travelling to London from Leeds at the weekend because they are the busiest trains should now be charged £250? It seem to be so by your argument.

I sometimes travel via GWR to London. I don’t always travel on the same weekday or at the same time, so it’s difficult to get a unbiased wide view, but from I have seen, it’s the so called peak services that are definitely less full than the off peak services before or after the so called peak. Given the difference in ticket price if you book an off peak in advance (sorry, I don’t know or fully understand the ticket structure, as I myself don’t buy many tickets, for business purposes train tickets are bought for me) that’s not really surprising.

So the question is, what is the difference between a three quarter full to full (by full I mean all seats occupied) train of people paying the off peak prices compared to a peak train that is nowhere near half full?

Which one is making money and which one is loosing money? Or are they both loosing or both making money?

 

[jonnyfan]

I'm both a regular commuter and a leisure travellers on Northern. I've long felt that the leisure side needed to be better served. They need to end the neglect of services which are well suited to leisure, such as the Whitby line to realise this aim.

100% agree, I hope that we start to see a big shift to cater for the leisure market. The difficulty is the train crew resource challenge currently faced, worse in some areas than others and it's going to take at least 12-18 months to get to full resource levels.

 

[yorksrob]

And a public service can only offer a "one size fits all" rather than a tailored, bespoke service. True of health, education, social and council services up and down the land as well as in many other countries.

So your basic premise that the service should flex to the users simply isn't viable with a large scale public service.

The reality is regular commuters and business travellers have for donkeys years provided the bedrock of income for the railways and leisure passengers have enjoyed a subsidised service as a result. Well Covid has dealt a blow to that model and the money to cover that needs to come from somewhere and the leisure traveller as a result isn't going to continue to enjoy such a subsidised existence.

The reality is that even from BR days, the UK has had an unrealistic expectation that the passenger railway should operate as more of a commercial service than comparable countries.

It's about time that the political establishment accepted a subsidy profile more in line with European norms.

 

[A0wen]

I was referring specifically to the annual season ticket holders, so they will be usually travel every day except for when they're on annual leave, their sick or it's a bank holiday. However, from a business prospective why would 400 annual ticket holders be better for a train operator than 2000 leisure travellers making the same journey on a less regular basis? Leisure travellers are usually spread out so they aren't the ones causing operators to run long formations at peak times on weekdays, which are then longer than necessary for most of the rest of the day.

Because you get a month / year's revenue up front from a season ticket holder - how much or little they use the service is then academic. And they, along with many other season ticket holders were travelling on well defined flows at regular times - easy to predict, manage and resource a service for that.

Leisure travel is nowhere near as predictable, is highly seasonal and often less profitable because people travel at irregular times.

 

[pemma]

and the leisure traveller as a result isn't going to continue to enjoy such a subsidised existence.

Not all 'leisure travellers' have a choice of when they can travel or know when they are going to travel in advance, so some do buy anytime tickets.

It's also worth remembering if the anytime fares are too high e.g. Manchester to London it means people travel down the day before and pay for a hotel for the night. These people wouldn't actually be worse off if there was one standard return ticket which costed £50 more than the current off-peak return.

 

[permarquis]

And a public service can only offer a "one size fits all" rather than a tailored, bespoke service.

Why not? The railway is already a tailored service, in all sorts of ways. There's quite a big difference between the two options you're offering and I'm not arguing for either extreme.

 

[A0wen]

It's rather expensive to crew trains. The costs are significantly higher than for buses or trams.

Plus maintenance of the train and its infrastructure, the staffing of stations, signal boxes etc - all contribute to the cost of a ticket.

 

[yorksrob]

100% agree, I hope that we start to see a big shift to cater for the leisure market. The difficulty is the train crew resource challenge currently faced, worse in some areas than others and it's going to take at least 12-18 months to get to full resource levels.

Indeed. This is the conundrum faced by railway management. At a higher level, handing back of stock such as 153's that could easily strengthen services has been contrary to the stated aim.

 

[Starmill]

So the question is, what is the difference between a three quarter full to full (by full I mean all seats occupied) train of people paying the off peak prices compared to a peak train that is nowhere near half full?

Anytime rates are so high on GWR that a mostly empty train can very easily earn more than a full one. Bristol Parkway to London Paddington is less than 115 miles, but it costs £119.40 one way. To put it another way, you need between three and four people on an off peak train to earn the same as one business traveller on a peak time train. It's also easier for the train company if fewer people are onboard because very full trains create complaints.

 

[A0wen]

Not all 'leisure travellers' have a choice of when they can travel or know when they are going to travel in advance, so some do buy anytime tickets.

And as with many other forms of transport, the walk up fare is higher than one booked days or weeks in advance, that's life I'm afraid.

 

[yorksrob]

Because you get a month / year's revenue up front from a season ticket holder - how much or little they use the service is then academic. And they, along with many other season ticket holders were travelling on well defined flows at regular times - easy to predict, manage and resource a service for that.

Leisure travel is nowhere near as predictable, is highly seasonal and often less profitable because people travel at irregular times.

Surely we want people traveling at irregular times to avoid peak demand !

And as with many other forms of transport, the walk up fare is higher than one booked days or weeks in advance, that's life I'm afraid.

But does it have to be several multiples though

 

[A0wen]

Why not? The railway is already a tailored service, in all sorts of ways. There's quite a big difference between the two options you're offering and I'm not arguing for either extreme.

The railways seek to offer a service which serves a large number of people - but to ship a large number of people from A to B efficiently means a loss of flexibility hence you can't travel when you want, you travel when the timetable says you can, you might not be able to travel directly and may have to change train. But *you* have to flex, the railways can't bespoke your journey - as I say, same of pretty much every other public service.

 

[yorksrob]

Anytime rates are so high on GWR that a mostly empty train can very easily earn more than a full one. Bristol Parkway to London Paddington is less than 115 miles, but it costs £119.40 one way. To put it another way, you need between three and four people on an off peak train to earn the same as one business traveller on a peak time train. It's also easier for the train company if fewer people are onboard because very full trains create complaints.

Indeed. This is where we need to be dis-incentivising rail operators from eating capacity provided at great expense by the taxpayer. Those empty seats aren't being properly accounted for !

 

[permarquis]

The reality is that even from BR days, the UK has had an unrealistic expectation that the passenger railway should operate as more of a commercial service than comparable countries.

It's about time that the political establishment accepted a subsidy profile more in line with European norms.

If I could scream this from the rooftops without getting strange looks, I would. It has never made any sense, which is why the model we currently use lurches from crisis to crisis, irrespective of the tinkering that goes on around the edges. The commercial expectations and assumptions that underpin it all remain the same.

The value of a well run, comprehensive railway goes far, far beyond the immediate balance sheet figures for the service itself. It's a typical "cost of everything and the value of nothing" attitude that so often blights public services in this country.

 

[pemma]

Because you get a month / year's revenue up front from a season ticket holder - how much or little they use the service is then academic. And they, along with many other season ticket holders were travelling on well defined flows at regular times - easy to predict, manage and resource a service for that.

It's not academic at all. The number of carriages in use at peak time has increased over the past 10 years to provide space for all the additional season ticket holders. If people were buying tickets and not travelling the train operators wouldn't have to lease additional carriages using the revenue collected from season tickets.

Leisure travel is nowhere near as predictable, is highly seasonal and often less profitable because people travel at irregular times.

I disagree about it being seasonal. The nicest weather coincides with the fewest sporting events. Unless you mean the extremely high leisure demand in December, isn't sustained year round? If demand was that high year around then hundreds of new carriages would be needed as it wouldn't be sustainable to leave leisure passengers unable to board services and blame higher demand than expected.

 

[A0wen]

Surely we want people traveling at irregular times to avoid peak demand !

It would be better if they didn't and the railways didn't have to run early in the morning, late at night and to pretty much every place 7 days a week - it's exactly that kind service which costs far more than will ever be covered by the farebox.

The reality is that even from BR days, the UK has had an unrealistic expectation that the passenger railway should operate as more of a commercial service than comparable countries.

It's about time that the political establishment accepted a subsidy profile more in line with European norms.

Why European "norms" and not Japanese norms for example (other than the European model fits your argument of course).

 

[yorksrob]

It would be better if they didn't and the railways didn't have to run early in the morning, late at night and to pretty much every place 7 days a week - it's exactly that kind service which costs far more than will ever be covered by the farebox.

But an all day service is what passengers need. Cutting back to commuter times only would lead to Serpell option A very quickly.

 

[Hadders]

Sorry - I do mean raise some Advance fares and off peak fares by a modest amount to bring Anytime/peak fares down. The books do need to balance to some extent. How much of that balancing can come from better spreading of load across available capacity is I suspect the difficult to answer question at the moment.

Take Manchester to London. A relatively simpe fares structure currently exists:

Off Peak Single £68.60
Anytime Single £184.70
Off Peak Return £98.10
Anytime Return £369.40

What do you think the fares should be under your proposal and how would this encourage more passengers to travel, as well as keeping revenue neutral.

I hate to say this as I use it but I would bin the Network Railcard as part of moving things around. I am not sure why it has even been offered, the off peak fare should be the off peak fare and only the South East has them. It seems to be a card available with the only qualifying requirement being ability to get on a train which doesn’t really fit with the general purpose of railcards which is to help particular user groups.

Off Peak fares are available all over the country, not just in the south east. The Network Railcard was introduced to reflect the fact that off peak fares in the south east have historically been much higher than in the rest of the country. Also, it is a good way of encouraging leisure passengers to travel, is a way of increasing loadings on off peak trains where there is spare capacity, as well as helping to boost the tourism industry in general.

An increase of 50% in off peak fares would be a sure way to crucify off peak travel, and I suspect many MPs mail boxes would soon fill up.

I would say it ought to be replaced with a proper national railcard scheme instead.

Agreed.

 

[pemma]

And as with many other forms of transport, the walk up fare is higher than one booked days or weeks in advance, that's life I'm afraid.

Not always. Easyjet started flights between Manchester and Porto on 27 March. As it got closer to the date they lowered the fares from Porto to Manchester in the first week of the relaunched route. To me it sounds like there was little demand for British holiday makers returning home less than a week after the route restarted and little demand for Portuguese people visiting Manchester in early Spring, so they lowered the fares to try and fill the seats.

 

[yorksrob]

Why European "norms" and not Japanese norms for example (other than the European model fits your argument of course).

Japan may well be a norm to emulate.

What I would disagree with would be moving towards American (as an example) norms of low subsidy, low frequency, expensive fares and very low railway usage.

 

[permarquis]

The railways seek to offer a service which serves a large number of people - but to ship a large number of people from A to B efficiently means a loss of flexibility hence you can't travel when you want, you travel when the timetable says you can, you might not be able to travel directly and may have to change train. But *you* have to flex, the railways can't bespoke your journey - as I say, same of pretty much every other public service.

I'm not arguing for the railway to tailor itself to individuals. I'm arguing for it to tailor itself to travel patterns on aggregate. If these are changing in favour of leisure and away from commuting, it should be finding ways to reflect and serve those societal changes. The longer it takes to do that, the harder it will be.

 

[pemma]

I'm not arguing for the railway to tailor itself to individuals. I'm arguing for it to tailor itself to travel patterns on aggregate. If these are changing in favour of leisure and away from commuting, it should be finding ways to reflect and serve those societal changes. The longer it takes to do that, the harder it will be.

Indeed. At one time it was seen as unpopular for airlines to not include hold luggage and snacks or a meal in the price. Now most airlines exclude them as standard and get people who couldn't afford to fly otherwise. The question if who's going to take a controversial first move? Michael O'Leary is seen as a hate figure by some but what he tries gets copied if it works.

 

[A0wen]

I disagree about it being seasonal. The nicest weather coincides with the fewest sporting events. Unless you mean the extremely high leisure demand in December, isn't sustained year round? If demand was that high year around then hundreds of new carriages would be needed as it wouldn't be sustainable to leave leisure passengers unable to board services and blame higher demand than expected.

The tourist industry disagrees with you - the tourist trade is highly seasonal.

And December's leisure trade isn't that significant - you will note that it is the Christmas - NY period the railways tend to have extended closures for engineering works, because they *know* it disrupts fewer people than the alternatives.

Japan may well be a norm to emulate.

What I would disagree with would be moving towards American (as an example) norms of low subsidy, low frequency, expensive fares and very low railway usage.

Oh, I think definitely the Japanese model:

"Japan
The privatized rail network in Japan requires few subsidies. The three biggest companies, JR East, JR Central and JR-West (which account for 60% of the passenger market) receive no state subsidy."

Rail subsidies - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

America isn't comparable to anywhere other than Russia or China, because of the sheer scale of the country and low population density. Some rail corridors in the US have regular, well used services, but to try to serve every Hicksville or trading post is beyond unviable.

 

[yorksrob]

The tourist industry disagrees with you - the tourist trade is highly seasonal.

And December's leisure trade isn't that significant - you will note that it is the Christmas - NY period the railways tend to have extended closures for engineering works, because they *know* it disrupts fewer people than the alternatives.



Oh, I think definitely the Japanese model:

"Japan
The privatized rail network in Japan requires few subsidies. The three biggest companies, JR East, JR Central and JR-West (which account for 60% of the passenger market) receive no state subsidy."

Rail subsidies - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

America isn't comparable to anywhere other than Russia or China, because of the sheer scale of the country and low population density. Some rail corridors in the US have regular, well used services, but to try to serve every Hicksville or trading post is beyond unviable.

If Japan has managed to achieve zero subsidy, them good for them. I don't have much knowledge of the pricing structure there, but whatever it is, it doesn't seem to dis-incentivise rail travel.

The point is though that the railway service the country needs should be the starting point.

 

[pemma]

The tourist industry disagrees with you - the tourist trade is highly seasonal.

When you re-read what you chose to bolden in my quote, you'll realise the very silly mistake in your reply. Only a small portion of the rail's leisure travellers related to tourism. Sport, retail and the night time economy generate the majority of the leisure travellers. To repeat what I already said using different words, it's an advantage that the nice weather generates the tourist travel when the railway would otherwise not have many of their usual passengers e.g. no football season, commuters on holiday with children etc.

And December's leisure trade isn't that significant - you will note that it is the Christmas - NY period the railways tend to have extended closures for engineering works, because they *know* it disrupts fewer people than the alternatives.

That's because many commuters aren't there then, it's nothing to do with leisure travellers.

The Saturdays in December are the busiest days of the entire year for railways. Many cities now start their Christmas markets at the beginning of November. If you tried travelling on a Northern train on a Saturday in December 10 years ago you'll know exactly why that is. Northern didn't have enough carriages to carry everyone who wanted to travel on a December Saturday, passengers gave up even trying after finding consecutive services were too full for them to be allowed on board.

 

[permarquis]

It would be better if they didn't and the railways didn't have to run early in the morning, late at night and to pretty much every place 7 days a week - it's exactly that kind service which costs far more than will ever be covered by the farebox.

This kind of short-sighted thinking is exactly what I mean. The railway shouldn't be in the business of telling people when they should or shouldn't want to travel. It should be in the business of finding out when people want to travel, and serving that.

If you're determined to focus on the pure economics of it all, the long-term benefits of a good railway service to local and regional economies is significant, which is one of the reasons subsidy is emphatically worth it in many cases.

Oh, I think definitely the Japanese model:

"The privatized rail network in Japan requires few subsidies. The three biggest companies, JR East, JR Central and JR-West (which account for 60% of the passenger market) receive no state subsidy."

While I'm not against a no-subsidy model if that worked in the UK, it's worth noting that the population density of Japan is significantly higher.

If you pursued their model here you'd ultimately be advocating for a lot of line closures, and cementing a lot of regional inequality. Your Wikipedia link reminds us that the subsidy in the UK is quite a lot lower than most comparable economies in Europe, which seems like the salient point here.

 

[Annetts key]

This thread could have been written pre-Covid

The same people now arguing for

• cheaper fares
• removing peak restrictions
• introducing/extending railcards in the hope that there's no such thing as the Sunk Cost Fallacy
• the belief that there's some kind of railway "Laffer Curve", whereby cutting prices will mean an increase in revenue, because that's how people want to believe that elasticity works

And why wouldn’t people argue for cheaper fares (it would be good if the railways could undercut the airlines and the private motorcar) or for there to be less restrictions.

..would have been arguing for exactly the same in 2019 - it's like the huge change in facts over the past two and a bit years hasn't changed people's opinions - they are steadfast in their belief that everything they used to believe is still true nowadays - about the only nod to the Brave New World of 2022 is one reference to the "DfT straightjacket" (which goes against the general notion that public control is the way forward)

Also, if we are playing the "green" card (since people like to use highlight environmental credentials to justify improved/increased railways) then you've got to understand that the first "R" in the mantra is "reduce". Cheap tickets that suit rail enthusiasts wanting to galavant about the country on a budget sound great, but it's not "reducing" anything - if we are serious about the environment then there's an argument that we should be discouraging non-essential travel

Generally speaking, over time, the population has got used to being able to travel. It’s rather difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. So the next best thing is to try to encourage people to travel via a more environmentally friendly method compared to via air or via private motorcar. Especially if the railways can run electric trains rather than diesel powered trains. Even electric road vehicles give off particulates as their rubber tyres wear.

Plus maintenance of the train and its infrastructure, the staffing of stations, signal boxes etc - all contribute to the cost of a ticket.

Yes. As do paying for all the other ‘overheads’ including the massive debt that the railways have. The cost of servicing this mountain of debt is eye watering. Part of the cost of the ‘overheads’ is the silly structure that we currently have. And the hopelessly over bureaucratic systems the railway has. It’s outrageous that in some areas it takes more than ten years for reported defects to be looked at, and then it’s found that we still don’t have the correct parts…

The breakdown of the maintenance costs of the infrastructure is a hugely complex thing all by itself. Some infrastructure is effectively ‘maintenance free’ apart from inspections until it breaks, then there is a huge cost as that normally means replacement. Some maintenance is done at set frequencies regardless of the number of trains that use that infrastructure (line). And some maintenance is done based on the condition of the infrastructure. A lot of items are actually a combination of the above.

It’s not that hard, if there was a political will, to find out how many people would like to try using our railways. Not that this is ever likely to happen. All you do is reduce prices for one or two weeks to say one quarter of the normal price for each ticket. Obviously if a service is currently ‘making money’ or already more than a quarter full, this would be a loss of revenue. Hence why no one will try such an experiment.

 

[yorksrob]

I wonder how many times the cost of building the 150 I'm looking at has had to be paid by passengers/taxpayers.

 

[Horizon22]

While annual season ticket holders provide a regular source of income, they aren't always contributing as much per journey as short distance leisure passengers.

No but over the course of a year (i.e income per passenger), they certainly do.

 

[stuu]

"Japan
The privatized rail network in Japan requires few subsidies. The three biggest companies, JR East, JR Central and JR-West (which account for 60% of the passenger market) receive no state subsidy."

They have achieved that by getting rid of many of the loss making sections and branches. These have either been closed or are subsidised by the local government in the area they run through, so it's a more complicated situation